[jboss-dev] Looking for ideas about possible improvements for a new APIviz release.

[Jesper Pedersen]

Hi Trustin.

On Thursday 02 April 2009 01:45:04 Trustin Lee wrote:
> I'm trying to improve APIviz ( http://code.google.com/p/apiviz/ ) in
> visualizing the overall API structure so that a user can figure out
> the overall relationship between classes and find a good place to dig
> from.  It seems to do what it is supposed to do pretty well IMHO.
> Here's an example Javadoc that used APIviz:
>
>   *
> http://www.jboss.org/file-access/default/members/netty/freezone/api/3.0/ind
>ex.html
>
> However, I believe there are a lot of room for improvement, especially
> when it comes down to more complicated and large-scale project like
> JBoss Messaging, Hibernate, JBossAS, etc.  For example, obviously, the
> package dependency diagram doesn't help understanding the overall
> relationship between packages because the generated diagram is too
> large and scattered.
>
> So, let's assume that you are going to use APIviz for your project to
> visualize the relationship between classes (or packages).  What would
> you expect from it other than existing features?
>

fyi - I have added the initial "Graphical Dependency" report 
(https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/TTALE-19) to JBoss Tattletale.

It currently shows the dependencies between your JAR files (it generates 
a .dot file) - but as we record package level dependencies also; a diagram 
with these is on my TODO also.

I think it provides a good overview of a project - so adding package 
dependencies to APIviz would be a good idea IMHO - even if there is overlap 
with TTALE.

I'll send you an image of my current workspace of JBJCA as an example 
off-list. Others can check out trunk/ and try it for them self ;)

Best regards,
 Jesper

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Jesper Pedersen
Principal Software Engineer
JBoss, a division of Red Hat
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