Visual Thought User's Guide
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Appendix B
Predefined Palettes

For information on palettes and how to use them, see the chapter entitled "Drag-and-Drop Palettes" on page 135.
Visual Thought provides a number of predefined drag-and-drop palettes for general drawing as well as for specific applications. These are listed and briefly described here.
Basic Palette
This palette is opened each time Visual Thought is started. It contains shapes that you can use for general drawing. To customize this palette for your site, simply modify the basic.vpalette document in the palettes directory of your installation.

Arrows Palette
The Arrows palette contains examples of the various arrowheads available in Visual Thought.

Attractors Palette
This palette contains attractor shapes. Attractor shapes have some special properties. Normal shapes force attached connections to point always towards the shapes' centers; attractors, however, "attract" connections to specific points on their boundaries. That is, connections to an attractor shape "snap" to certain points on that shape.

For an example of how to use an attractor shape, see "Example of the Bus Attractor Shape" on page 142.
For example, the NPN transistor shape (located on the Circuits palette) is an attractor that forces connections to its base, collector, and emitter terminals. The "bus" shape (on the Attractors palette) forces all connections to it to be remain perpendicular. It is especially useful for drawing hierarchies of objects, as might be required in drawing organizational charts or software class hierarchies.

Booch: Class Palette

For more information on the Booch Method, see Booch, Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications, ISBN 0-8053-5340-2.
This palette captures part of the Booch Method as created by Grady Booch of Rational Technologies, Inc. The Booch Method notation is comprised of multiple diagram types that together provide a complete description of object-oriented software systems.
The Booch Class palette provides the essential components for creating Booch Class Diagrams.

Booch: Others Palette
The Booch Others palette captures part of the Booch Method for object-oriented software diagramming. Whereas the Class palette allows you to create Booch Class Diagrams, the Others palette allows you to create Object Diagrams, State Transition Diagrams, Module Diagrams, and Process Diagrams.

Circuit Palette
The shapes in this palette can be used to create circuit diagrams.

Entity-Relationship Palette

For more information about the ER diagramming method, see Chen, P. (1976), The Entity-Relationship Model: Toward a Unified View of Data, ACM Trans. on Database Systems.
This palette supports the Entity-Relationship diagramming notation of Chen.

Flowchart Palette
The Flowchart palette provides shapes for drawing flowcharts.

Logic Palette
The Logic palette provides shapes for drawing logic diagrams.

OMT: Object Model Palette

For more information about OMT, see Rumbaugh, et al., Object-Oriented Modeling and Design, ISBN 0-13-629841-9.
The OMT Object Model palette captures part of the Object Modeling Technique notation by James Rumbaugh, et al. The OMT notation is comprised of three complementary diagram types that together, provide a complete description of object-oriented software systems.
The Object Model palette captures the Rumbaugh Object Model Notation.

OMT: Dynamic + Functional Palette
The OMT Dynamic + Functional palette captures part of the Object Modeling Technique notation by James Rumbaugh, et al. Whereas the Object Model palette captures the Object Model Notation, the Dynamic + Functional palette captures the Dynamic Model Notation and the Functional Model Notation.

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