# Umbrello UML Modeler


By Ben Ramsey

Published on April 26, 2008


Special thanks to all the [twitterites](http://twitter.com/) who recommended UML modeling tools. [Umbrello UML Modeler](https://umbrello.kde.org/) appears to be the one I was looking for. Here are a couple of quick notes about what I had to do to get it running on my Mac, mainly for my own future reference, but I hope these also help someone else.

1. First, make sure you have the [Apple Xcode](http://developer.apple.com/mac/) tools installed, along with X11.app.

2. Since Umbrello requires KDE, you'll have to install KDE. You can follow these instructions to [install KDE with either Fink or MacPorts](https://techbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Projects/KDE_on_Mac_OS_X/KDE_3). I chose to go with [MacPorts](http://www.macports.org/), and the command is simple:

   ```shell
   $ sudo port install kde
   ```

   The KDE installation can take quite a while, depending on your system. On my PowerBook G4, it took well over 7 hours. My Intel iMac was considerably shorter, but still took a couple of hours.

3. Once KDE is installed, you should have all the necessary libraries to build Umbrello. [Download the Umbrello source](https://umbrello.kde.org/installation.php) and get to work:

   ```shell
   $ wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/uml/umbrello-1.5.8.tar.bz2?download
   $ tar jxf umbrello-1.5.8.tar.bz2
   $ cd umbrello-1.5.8
   $ ./configure --prefix=/opt/local \
       --with-qt-includes=/opt/local/include/qt3/ \
       --with-qt-libraries=/opt/local/lib/qt3/ \
       --with-extra-libs=/opt/local/lib \
       --with-extra-includes=/opt/local/include \
       --without-arts
   $ make
   $ sudo make install
   ```

Umbrello is now ready to run. To run it, just open X11.app and enter the command:

```shell
$ /opt/local/bin/umbrello
```

That's all there is to it!

Umbrello seems to be just the tool I needed. It appears to be a much more intuitive and easier-to-use UML modeling program than any others I have tried, and it will generate PHP 5 code. It doesn't generate everything quite as well as I had hoped, but it gets the class stubs in place, and I can go back in and correct things for my coding standards and update the comment blocks as needed.

Also, another observation: applications built using the KDE libraries (i.e., Umbrello) do not appear to run as _clunky_ on the Mac through X11 as those using GTK. They actually run quite smoothly.