Diagram artifact synchronization resiliency with orphaned shapes

Abstract

A software diagram is created based on software artifacts for a software program, where the software diagram comprises shapes corresponding to software artifacts. The diagram shapes may be customized to illustrate certain properties of the software artifacts or relationships between the software artifacts. Later, one or more changes are made to one or more of the software artifacts such that the diagram no longer accurately reflects the program code. A diagramming tool attempts to automatically update the software diagram to reflect the changed program code, but may be unable to account for at least one diagram shape because its associated software artifact has changed such that the diagramming tool no longer recognizes it as the same software artifact. The unaccounted for shape is known as an orphaned shape. A user may instruct the diagramming tool to associate the orphan shape with one of the changed software artifacts. The diagramming tool automatically reapplies the customizations previously associated with the orphan shape using the properties of the changed software artifact where applicable.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.