Introduction of Image Note Plugin

Hello! everyone. Today, I will introduce an image note plugin for Astah.

I suppose you sometimes use pictures or images in a diagram to intuitively explain model elements as follows.

The images on the diagram are placed with “Insert the image file” function of “Drag&drop Files” feature, i.e. image files like jpeg, png, etc. can be inserted onto a diagram editor with drag and drop operations. But this diagram cannot explicitly indicate the relations between model elements and images. One solution to the problem is to use notes to connect them.

This diagram is made by just overlapping images and notes and thus even if you move one of them, the other does not follow the move.

Of cause, you can move an overlapped pair of an image and a note at the same time by selecting both of them and then dragging&dropping. However, for example Astah provides an automatic layout feature; the layout of the diagram above can automatically changed as follows.

For this case, a user should realign the positions of all the images manually.

Now, it’s a time to use Image Note Plugin.

After you succeeded to install the plugin, you can see an extended view as follows.

Then, push the “Associate” button to associate each overlapped note and image.

As a reaction, the colors of the notes will be changed, meaning that associations are succeeded. At this point, try to move the image of “Bullet Train” to some extent.

Here, you can use “Refresh based on Image” button.

You can recognize the position of the note is aligned with the associated image. Now you can try automatic layout feature with this plugin.

For this case, the positions of images should be aligned with the associated notes, try to push “Refresh based on Note”.

As you see, one action can cause automatic alignment of all the images. The image note plugin can be easily used and can support understanding models.