Multiple internal transitions are not rendered nicely

[noricor]

If a state has multiple internal transitions the rendered output is not very readable. It seems like all internal transitions are smashed together. Can they be separated somehow so that they are nicely readable?

Here an example:

Initial.initial,
On { 
   foo:events.GetState / Action.GetState, 
   bar;

 },
 Off.final;

Initial.initial -> On;
On -> Off.final : events.Exit / Action.Exit;
On -> On [type=internal]  : events.GetState / Action.GetState;
On -> On [type=internal]  : events.GetVersion / Action.GetVersion;
On -> On [type=internal]  : events.SetLogLevel / Action.SetLogLevel;
On -> On : events.Reset;

Alternatively internal transitions could also be displayed within a state (like entry, exit, do) as it is defined in the UML specification.

[sverweij]

Hi @noricor - I guess you mean that this...

...could render nicer? State-machine-cat runs into the limitations of the auto-layout engine in some occasions. I'm on the lookout for an other one.

That said if I interpret your last sentence correctly: would something like this work? Or does this miss something?

Initial.initial,
On: 
events.GetState / Action.GetState
events.GetVersion / Action.GetVersion
events.SetLogLevel / Action.SetLogLevel
 { 
   foo:events.GetState / Action.GetState, 
   bar;

 },
 Off.final;

Initial.initial -> On;
On -> Off.final : events.Exit / Action.Exit;
On -> On : events.Reset;

[noricor]

Hi,

yes, you identified the rendering issue correctly, especially for large state machines (20-30 states with lots of transitions and stuff) this becomes a readability issue.

Regarding the second part. Yes, this would work and it is also more in line with the UML 2.5 spec which introduces an "internal transition compartment" for states

Internal Transition compartment This compartment contains a list of internal Transitions, where each item has the following syntax: {trigger}* ['[' guard']'] [/behavior-expression] Where is the notation for Triggers (see sub clause 13.3.4), is a Boolean expression for a guard, and the optional is the specification of the effect Behavior to be executed if the Event occurrence matches the trigger and guard of the internal Transition. It is an expression written in some textual surface language, which may be either a vendor-specific or some standard language (see sub clause 16.1).

Cheers

[github-actions[bot]]

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