Simplier way to deactivate lifeline without return message

Question

It's currently possible to activate a lifeline automatically by using the autoactivate on and also to use the return keyword to deactivate the lifeline and return something.

The problem with the return keyword is that it always returns something, it would be useful to be able to use the return without returning something, so it would just deactivate the lifeline, it would be useful for example when calling void methods which doesn't return anything.

Now we have to use:

autoactivate on

foo -> bar
    bar -> something
    deactivate something
deactivate bar

It would be better to have something simpler like:

autoactivate on

foo -> bar
    bar -> something
    deactivate
deactivate

---

OR:

autoactivate on

foo -> bar
    bar -> something
    return /' Just deactivates lifeline '/
return /' Just deactivates lifeline '

and then to really return something, make the user add the : character:

autoactivate on

foo -> bar
    bar -> something
    return : /' Returns without message '/
return : my message /' Returns with a message '/

Answer 1

Nice idea!

So with last beta http://beta.plantuml.net/plantuml.jar you can now have:

@startuml
autoactivate on

Alice -> Bob : msg1
deactivate
Alice -> Bob : msg2
deactivate
@enduml

Is this what you were expecting ?

Comments

Yes, that's it.
Just tested it out.

Thank you!