Visual Studio 2010 Tips & Tricks

Architecture Tools in VS 2010 supports UML (Unified Modeling Language 2.1.1) diagrams to help you understand your application, such as the Architecture Explorer and Dependency Graphs.

To create the following UML diagrams, as well as to use the Architecture Explorer, requires Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. Users of Visual Studio 2010 Premium have the ability to read diagrams created in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate.

UML Diagrams in VS 2010 are the ff:
1. Use Case Diagrams
2. Activity Diagrams
3. Sequence Diagrams
4. Component Diagrams
5. Class Diagrams


1. Use case diagram provides a summary of who is using the application, and how they plan on using it. It is used to provide a view into how the application will be used and the actions that can take place in the system.

2. Once you have developed your use case diagrams, you will want to break them down into activity diagrams. An activity diagram is used to show a software process or business activity as a workflow through a series of actions.

3. Seuence diagrams are used to show interactions between different objects in the software system. Usually these interactions take place as a series of messages exchanged between the different objects.

4. Once you have created your use case, activity and sequence diagrams, you are ready to visualize the different components that make up your software system. Component diagrams enable you to do just that, by laying out the different components in your system, and how they interact.

5. Class diagrams (also referred to as logical class diagrams) are used to describe the different objects in the application being developed. It does this without any reference to how the objects are implemented, allowing the diagram to be used regardless of the underlying code base used to develop the system.

Some Others Tools are...

•Layer Diagrams
•Architecture Explorer
•Dependency Graphs


•Layer diagrams are a new type of diagram that allow you to describe the "logical" architecture of your application. Your code can be organized into different "layers", allowing a better understanding of what objects perform what tasks. Layer diagrams can also be incorporated into the automated build process, allowing you to ensure that no architectural constraints have been violated.

•The Architecture Explorer is a tool available in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate that allows you to drill down into an existing code base, or even into compiled managed code, to gain a better understanding of what the code is trying to accomplish.And can be combined with dependency graphs to make it easy to understand your code base. Dependency graphs are used to show the relationships between different objects and areas of code. Information discovered using the Architecture Explorer can be easily visualized using dependency graphs.

•Use the dependency graph to view relationships among different objects and areas of code.


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