Hi,
We are often using notes added on top of active life lines to explain the activity.
However, notes do not interact well with activation/deactivation of life lines, and hence
the following does not work nicely:
autoactivate on
Alice -> Bob : doSomething()
rnote over Bob
I'm working on something
end note
deactivate Bob
The note does not prolong the life line activation of Bob, although we explicitly reference Bob (using the singular 'over Bob) in the note and explicitly deactivate it after the note.
However, the following does work nicely:
autoactivate on
Alice -> Bob : doSomething()
ref over Bob
I'm working on something
end ref
deactivate Bob
The problem is that we don't want to reference something else - only state what we're doing.
The following solution is suggested/requested:
autoactivate on
Alice -> Bob : doSomething()
bes over Bob
I'm working on something
end bes
deactivate Bob
The keyword bes would introduce a box that looks like an rnote but behaves like a ref in its interaction with life line activation. The bes can only cover one participant. Further, the styling/coloring of the bes shall inhertit its settings from that of its lifeline unless overridden explicitly either using skinparams or by inline color settings (se separate feature request "Inline color settings").
The closest alternative with current support is the following:
autoactivate on
Alice -> Bob : doSomething()
group bes
rnote over Bob
I'm working on something
end note
end
deactivate Bob
...but this results in unnessesary gray corners stating "bes" and an extra level of bordes and shadowed boxes in the diagram. It's a cludge.
As an alternative to introducing a keyword bes, the form rnote over Bob (that is, over a single life line) can possibly be modified to interact with life line activation in the same way as ref/alt/loop/etc-boxes do. This does not provde the coloring capability to make this rnote look like the current life line and not like all other notes or life lines.
Br,
Perer
PS. And yes - if Bob interacts further below the rnote then the activation of the life line will continue under and below the rnote. That's fine, but does not solve our problem for the cases where Bob is done without further interaction apart from thise described by the rnote. DS.
