FAQ: Poseidon for UML Community Edition

What is the Rent Subscription?

The Rent Subscription is a new kind of billing for software. It means that there is a recurring fee for using the software. We offer three different payment cycles: monthly, quarterly and yearly. Don’t worry: cancellation is always possible – online and immediately so there is no risk to you.

Why do you call it Rent Subscription and not just Subscription?

We already offer a so called “Update Subscription” for our product line Poseidon for UML. With “Rent Subscription” we want to avoid any confusion which may occur and it very clearly describes the concept: To subscribe and pay a recurring rental fee for using the software. Subsequent use of the word “subscription” in this FAQ is always meant in the sense of “Rental Subscription”.

Why are you introducing a subscription model?

We want to offer a very low financial barrier for using our products. You can start with only 5 EUR (6 USD) a month. If you decide on a subscription with a single recurring yearly payment, the monthly cost shrinks further to amazing 4 EUR (4.70 USD).

What different payment terms do you offer?

We offer subscriptions with monthly, quarterly and yearly recurring payment options.

Can I rent for only a set time without subscribing?

Yes. In order to rent a license for a set time, you have to select the appropriate period and mark the checkbox “1 period only” in our shop.

Is it easy to cancel the subscription?

Cancellation of subscription is always possible without complications. You have several options. In the running application, just press the “unsubscribe” button in the license manager. Or look up the confirmation email we sent you when you subscribed and click on the cancellation link from Gentleware’s authorized Online Reseller Cleverbridge.

About Apollo
Eclipse and Open Source
Apollo v. Poseidon
Installation
Features
Troubleshooting

About Apollo for Eclipse

What is Apollo for Eclipse?

Apollo for Eclipse is a modeling extension for Eclipse. It specifically addresses the needs of developers and programmers. One of its key features is fully synchronized roundtrip engineering for Java 5 and UML 2.1.

Why the name Apollo for Eclipse?

All our products are named after figures of ancient mythology. Apollo is the Greek god of the sun and the name of the NASA mission to the moon. We feel it fits well for a product that integrates into Eclipse.

Is Apollo for Eclipse just for Java?

No - but roundtrip engineering is currently only available for Java.

Is Apollo for Eclipse just for UML?

Apollo is an instance of our capability to build modeling tools and specifically uses the UML notation and language definition. We build custom tools for a variety of modeling notations or languages. Contact us if you need a specific one in your organization.

Do I have to be online when I use Apollo for Eclipse?

No, but it makes things easier. All processes, like purchasing, registering, and updating can be done very efficiently online, but we have alternative offline mechanisms for all of these.

Eclipse and Open Source

What is Eclipse?

Eclipse is an open source project originated by IBM and now run by the Eclipse Foundation. It really is two things. Most people know it as a high quality and open source IDE (integrated development environment), but it is also a platform or framework for rich client applications (RPC). Apollo for Eclipse is available both as a plugin to the IDE and as stand alone application built on the RCP.

Why is Apollo based on Eclipse?

Gentleware has always been a great believer and supporter of Open Source. We create value for our customers by synthesising open source with custom-built code. Eclipse is a particularly well known and high quality open source project. The latest developments and new subprojects have allowed us to build Apollo for Eclipse. It allows you to do programming and modeling integrated in one tool.

Why are you selling open source?

We add value to existing high quality open source frameworks by building professional tools based on these. We invest a lot of time and resources to achieve commercial-quality tools.

Is Apollo for Eclipse open source?

It is based on a number of open source projects and frameworks. We feed code back into the open source projects to improve these. But the code that turns the open source frameworks into professional products is not open source.

Apollo v. Poseidon

How is Apollo for Eclipse different from Poseidon for UML?

The two products target different types of users. Poseidon is specifically built for analysis and design in software development.  Apollo for Eclipse addresses the modeling needs for programmers and developers.

Will Poseidon for UML be continued?

Yes, we will continue to develop Poseidon for UML.  Apollo for Eclipse is a complementary tool for a different kind of user. We will release Poseidon for UML 5.0 next month.

Is there an API to Apollo for Eclipse?

Apollo for Eclipse is built on open source frameworks. The APIs of these frameworks are fully accessible. Most notably, you can access the repository. It is built using EMF and holds the model data at runtime. This API can be used, for example, to develop code generators for model transformations.

Installation

How do I increase heap memory on MacOSX?

1. Open the Eclipse/Apollo installation directory in the Finder.
2. CTRL-click on the Apollo/Eclipse application icon and choose "Show package content".
3. Double-click the "Contents" folder, then "MacOSX".
4. Open the file eclipse.ini with TextEdit.
5. Find the line:
      -Xmx256m
   
   Replace the line with the following two lines:
      -Xmx512m
      -XX:MaxPermSize=128m
   
   and save.

Features

Do you only support class diagrams?

The initial release supports the class diagram only, because it is by far the most useful one for the targeted audiences of programmers and developers. We have put a lot of emphasis on making this diagram type as useful as possible, for example with fully synchronized roundtrip engineering. But other diagrams will follow shortly.

Does Apollo for Eclipse support development with Java 1.4?

Yes, you can develop with Java 1.4, but it is necessary to start Apollo for Eclipse with Java 1.5. You can do so by starting it with a commandline option like:
-vm "C:\java\java5\bin\java"

Troubleshooting

When running Linux GTK+ & GEF, some elements don't appear.

Linux GTK+ and GEF don't always work well together, depending on the versions used. If some elements are not appearing, disable anti-aliasing in the Apollo preferences
(Window->Preferences->Apollo).

When running Linux, it is possible that the Apollo RCP won't start with a double-click. A splash screen appears and an error dialog pops up.

Apollo tries to figure out the location of the Java Runtime Environment and finds a non-compatible one. Please explicitly add

-vm <path to your Java executable>

e.g.

-vm /usr/local/jdk-1.5.0/bin/java

to your apollo.ini. (The apollo.ini file is located in the apollo directory created when the RCP is unzipped - the same location as apollo.exe.)

The Java code and diagrams are out of sync and error markers from reverse engineering won't go away.

1. 'Automatic reverse engineering' in the Apollo submenu of the context menu of the project must be enabled.

2. 'Project Build Automatically' must be enabled.

3. If you prefer not to have any error markers in your source code, unmark "Mark reverse engineering errors in source code" from Window->Preferences->Apollo.