ArrowColor for stereotype not working

Question

skinparam not working with ArrowColor stereotype.

for exampe :

skinparam class {

ArrowColor<<greenColor>> Green

}

is not working. But,

skinparam class {

ArrowColor Green

}

is working.

Is this supported or a bug? Or am I doing anything wrong here?

Comments

At the time of writing, you CAN assign stereotypes to relationships in class diagrams (in the same way as labels) but styling them still doesn't work.

This thread was posted EIGHT YEARS ago, and yet even today, class diagrams are the only type of diagram where there is no way of defining formatting of relations other than globally, or by copy-and-pasting the style you want into every single relation you need to use it for. And that's despite the change to the <style>-based syntax that was intended to eliminate this kind of inconsistency between diagram types.

---

For your information, this issue has been opened:

• [Style] Allow arrow style by local stereotype on Class diagram · Issue #2059 · plantuml/plantuml

---

FYI:

This is now fixed (on next v1.2026.3) by:

• [Style] Allow stereotype on arrow for object or class (and fix state)... #2586

By using:

@startuml
<style>
.a {
  LineColor green
}
</style>

class A
class B
A -> B <<a>>
@enduml

Enjoy,

Regards,
Th.

Answer 1

The real issue is that stereotypes apply to classes only and not to arrows.

So something like "ArrowColor<<greenColor>> Green" should apply to arrows that are stereotyped to <<greenColor>>, and right now you cannot define stereotype arrows.

We could imagine that "ArrowColor<<greenColor>> Green" would apply if one of the classes connected by the arrow would have <<greenColor>> stereotype.

Is this what you are expecting ?

Putting it differently, in the following example, are you expecting the arrow to be drawn in red ?

@startuml
skinparam class {
    ArrowColor Green
    ArrowColor<<stereo1>> Red
}
class foo1 <<stereo1>>
class foo2 <<stereo1>>
foo1 --> foo2
@enduml

Comments

Thanks for your reply.

Yes I am expecting the arrow to be in Red color but that is not possible with stereotype.

However, for now I have got the alternative -
foo1 -[#Red]-> foo2

But it would be great if stereotype support for Arrows can also be added. :)

---

You can improve on this by using a macro.

!define MY_CUSTOM_ARROW -[#Red]->

foo1 MY_CUSTOM_ARROW foo2