NEW FEATURESWhat's New in
Next Design V2.0
Major version update featuring support for distributed development via Git and new capabilities tailored for large-scale development.
Next Design, the next-generation design tool that brings true digital transformation to design, has released a major update packed with new features—such as Git merge support—to more powerfully empower concurrent development environments.
This evolution brings numerous enhancements, including support for Git, which is seeing rapid adoption in development, new capabilities to support large-scale and increasingly complex development, and the addition of floating licenses for more flexible operation.
Supports distributed development using Git
- Empowering Team Development with a Dedicated Git Merge Tool
- Visualizing Change Diffs in Text Format
New Features Demanded in Large-Scale Development
- Partial Loading for Large-Scale Projects
Added Floating Licenses
- Supporting Both On-Premises and Cloud Environments
- Can be used in combination with user licenses
What is Next Design?
Next Design is a next-generation design tool for system and software development.
The "meta-model," which defines the structure and relationship of design data for each process, and the "view definition," which is a diagram and document representation for expressing the meta-model, can be made into a dedicated design tool by adapting them to the viewpoints and applications of the development site.
Key Features of
Next Design V2.0
-
More flexible distributed development with a proprietary Git merge tool
Previously, distributed development was possible on a file-by-file basis by splitting model files. With the newly added Git merge tool, merging partial changes is now also supported.
Conflicts are detected, allowing designers to handle them individually and enabling more flexible distributed development. -
Visualize change differences in human-readable file formats
Previously, model files were stored in binary format, requiring the use of Next Design's features to review changes and diffs.
In this release, in addition to the binary format, we now support saving files in JSON format.
This allows users to visually inspect changes and diffs. By combining this with GitHub pull requests, you can review changes before merging.
Similarly, changes to profiles can also be reviewed. -
Smooth operation even in large-scale projects with partial loading
It is now possible to perform partial loading by specifying arbitrary model files within the project file.
This allows design data to be loaded focusing only on the scope that designers want to view and edit, enabling Next Design to operate swiftly and advance designs smoothly even in large-scale projects. -
Now supports floating licenses
We now support floating licenses, which have been frequently requested in large-scale development environments.
In addition to the traditional authentication method of setting up an on-premise license server,
we now also offer authentication via a cloud service. By selecting the cloud service,
you can start using it immediately without the hassle of server setup, license registration, or updates.
It can also be used in combination with traditional user-based user licenses. -
Enhanced sequence diagram design features
Diff comparison, traceability verification, and product line application are now also supported for sequence diagrams.
For diff comparisons, differences in sequence diagrams are visually displayed, similar to diagrams.
For traceability verification, you can check the derivation relationships between sequence diagram elements and other model elements.
In product line development, assigning features to sequence diagrams allows for product-specific configurations. -
Enhanced support for UML/SysML
The expression capabilities of ER diagrams have been enhanced, enabling more detailed representation of UML/SysML notation.
Modeling that conforms to UML/SysML notation is now possible, including stereotype displays, signature displays, and visibility displays in class diagrams. -
Customize the UI to further extend Next Design
Custom UIs can now be embedded into Next Design's UI (editors, navigators, and inspectors).
Visual appearances that could not be achieved with standard views built into Next Design, such as decision tables and timing charts, can now be realized by developing custom UIs.
This allows you to further customize the design tool to better fit the workflows of your development environment. -
Improved usability with numerous new features
Numerous other new features have been added to improve development efficiency.
- Reviewing configuration diffs in the product line
- Changing individual shapes on dialogs to arbitrary images and graphics
- Addition of an API to import rich text data
- Toggle show/hide for element titles on forms
- Duplicating models including view display information
- Duplicating class diagrams within profiles