I usually draw state diagrams by hand, or draw them in Autocad. There are other packages that are better at this, but I have Autocad handy. A state diagram shows various transitions within the software. It can be useful if your software is designed to have states, and not useful for other projects. I'll paint a picture in words of a piece of software with two states and one button. State 1 is "idle". Software remains in that state until button1 is pressed, then goes to state 2, which is "Honking in an annoying way" . Software remains in state2 until button is pressed, then goes into "idle". The diagram would have two bubbles, one labeled "idle" and the other labeled" Honking" and an arrow from one to the other labeled "button 1" and an arrow from the other to the one lableled "button1" That is the simplest state diagram I can think of. A project that might not lend itself to a state diagram might be software that was completely written in an if-then tree. I rarely write anything like this anymore, so the traditional "flow diagram" that diagrams this is not so useful to me. -- Lawrence Lile Hopkins Sent by: pic microcontroller discussion list 01/20/2004 10:11 PM Please respond to pic microcontroller discussion list To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU cc: Subject: Re: [OT]: Re: Horowitz... On-the-fly design State Diagram - time line diagram? What info do you normally show in the state diagram? What software do you use to create the state diagram? ************************************************* Roy Hopkins rdhopkins@ihug.co.nz ************************************************* > What is the state diagram of the project (flow diagrams are useless IMHO, > but state diagrams are good) ? --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.564 / Virus Database: 356 - Release Date: 19/01/2004 -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu