# BOUML

BOUML is a UML tool box allowing you to specify and generate code in C++, Java and IDL.

The main key points of BOUML are :

- it is free

- it runs under Linux, Sun Solaris and Windows. It should be very simple to adapt it for Mac OS (thanks to Qt), but I do not have access to a Mac !

- it allows to program simultaneously in C++, Java and IDL

- thank to a full access to the generated forms, you are the master and you decide what must be generated

- it is extensible, and the external tools (I name them plug-out because they are executed outside BOUML) may be developed in C++ or Java, using BOUML for their definition as any other program (clearly I do not like very much language like Visual Basic, and I do not understand how this one can be imposed in a UML environment !)

- it is fast and doesn't need a lot of memory to manage several thousands of classes, see benchmark

To develop BOUML alone at home during the nights and weekends is hard and tiring ... perhaps crazy ! The reasons inciting me to do it are mainly : the pleasure to develop freely a tool and I hope to see it used by many people (I already had this very pleasant experience with two friends for Xcoral), and frankly a reaction to the very expensive price of the two commercial UML tool box I know (their name begin by 'r' if you see what I mean ...) without relation with the services they give.

The graphic part of BOUML is based on Qt, many thanks to Trolltech for this marvelous GUI application framework, clearly BOUML exists thanks to Qt. The implementation of BOUML is compatible with Qt version 2.4 up to (at least) the 3.3.

The documentation is written with OpenOffice.org writer, many thanks for this powerful and pleasant office suite. The screen copies are made with Ksnapshot and sometimes modified by Le Gimp to have burred areas, thanks to the authors for these practical tools.

Some of the examples given in this documentation spoke about the organs, describing an organ is very easy for me in French ... not in English ! I get the English translation of the words associated to the organs from a Marya J. Fancey documentation, thanks to her.

## Copyright

BOUML is a free software distributed on the Internet (http://bouml.free.fr/)

Copyright 2004-2006 by Bruno Pagès

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

The complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in this document appendix.

## Apologies :-))

First I apologize for the poor quality of my English, and secondly it is clear that BOUML is not developed following all standard object principles UML help to diffuse, this is a little bit strange for an UML tool...

Nevertheless I hope the documentation is enough clear and consistent, and I am sure that BOUML is fast and not glutton in memory !

At least, this document describe BOUML, not the Unified Modeling Language.

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