A sequence diagram displays the passing of messages between
instances that participate in the chart. Sequence diagrams are a concise
way to represent the communication between interacting objects.
Adding and deleting instance lines
To add an instance line to an animated sequence
diagram, create an instance line using the Instance Line tool and
name the instance, or drag an instance from the browser.
Auto-creating animated instances
You can make it so that animated instance lines
on sequence diagrams are auto-created so that you can see the run-time
instance appear in the animated sequence diagram when they are created.
(Typically during an animation session, you have to drag the created
instance from the browser in IBM Rational Rhapsody onto
the animated sequence diagram to see the operation of that instance
getting called.) However, with added notation to an instance line
name on a sequence diagram, you can have the product auto‑create the
animated instances when you run animation. This capability means that
you can mark a specific class to auto-create any sequence diagram
instances at run time on the animated sequence diagram.
Showing state transitions in animated sequence diagrams
An animated sequence diagram can cross reference an animated
statechart by showing the event of an object entering a state. In IBM Rational Rhapsody,
the Condition Mark indicates that an object is in a certain condition
or state at a particular point in a sequence.
The system border
The system border, if present, is connected to all instances
participating in the execution that do not have a special line of
their own. In other words, a message is drawn between two instance
lines if both the sending and receiving instances have instance lines
in the animated sequence diagram.
Limiting message display in animated sequence diagrams
When running an animation of a sequence diagram containing
a very large number of messages, your system might run low on virtual
storage. You can use the SequenceDiagram::General::MaxNumberOfAnimMessages and SequenceDiagram::General::OnReachedMaxAnimMessages properties
to prevent such problems by limiting the number of messages displayed
at any one time.