MG-SOFT Visual YANG Designer Professional Edition

Product history


This page provides information about the major new features introduced in the latest as well as in the past releases of MG-SOFT Visual YANG Designer Professional Edition.

What's New in MG-SOFT Visual YANG Designer Pro., Version 10.x

Visual YANG Designer Command Line Edition (CMDLN).
The new Command Line Edition of MG-SOFT Visual YANG Designer supports validating YANG and YIN modules from command line, e.g., Windows Shell or Linux Bash Shell. This edition of the software can perform YANG validation without the GUI and may be used also on systems running the headless version of Java. It produces the same validation results (Error and Warning messages) as the GUI version of YANG Designer; however, it prints the results to the standard output or a file. This enables integration of Visual YANG Designer Command Line Edition into automated testing and validation environments.
Improved application performance and stability.
Several optimizations have been implemented in the application. Furthermore, all known issues in previous versions have been fixed and overall stability and reliability of the software has been improved.
Enhanced documentation.
Updated and enhanced user manual and product documentation with numerous hints and usage examples will help you get the most from Visual YANG Designer Pro.
Besides the above listed features, a number of minor improvements have been implemented and all known problems occurring in older versions have been fixed for this release.


What's New in MG-SOFT Visual YANG Designer Pro., Version 9.x

YANG module revision framework.
Over time, YANG modules may need to be updated, for example, new data has to be included or existing one modified. Note, however, that a published YANG module must not be revised in a backward incompatible manner (e.g., no data nodes may be removed from a module or altered in a way that would change their syntax or semantics). The Visual YANG Designer validation engine now incorporates the complete set of rules for revising YANG 1.1 and 1.0 modules. While you revise a module, the software automatically checks if edits you make are valid, based on the new and previous module revision. It will notify you of any invalid modifications by displaying error or warning messages. By fixing the reported errors and warnings before publishing a new revision, you can rest assured that a new revision of YANG modules will fully comply with the module updating rules, as defined in YANG (sec.11 of RFC 7950 and sec.10 of RFC 6020). Furthermore, the software also allows you to add two existing sets of YANG modules of different (but successive) revisions to a project and have them automatically checked for revision errors by the software. All this makes the module revising process in Visual YANG Designer straightforward, requiring almost no additional training.
Improved application performance and stability.
Many optimizations have been implemented throughout the application. Furthermore, all known issues in previous versions have been fixed and overall stability and reliability of the software has been improved.
Enhanced documentation.
Updated and enhanced user manual and product documentation with numerous hints and usage examples will help you get the most from Visual YANG Designer Pro.
Besides the above listed features, a number of minor improvements have been implemented and all known problems occurring in older versions have been fixed for this release.


What's New in MG-SOFT Visual YANG Designer Pro., Version 8.x

Dark theme.
The application graphical user interface now features also dark visual theme that employs darker color tones. Dark theme offers a modern look and feel and may reduce eyestrain. One can switch between the dark and classic (light) mode at any time in the program preferences.
Updated graphical elements for perfect HiDPI experience.
All application icons, buttons and other GUI components have been revised to properly support high pixel density (HiDPI) displays. This means that when using the Visual YANG Designer with Java 9 and later, which properly supports HiDPI, the program windows, graphics, and text are scaled automatically according to the system settings, which enables the application user interface to look perfect also on modern HiDPI displays (e.g., 4K/UHD).
Improved application performance and stability.
Several optimizations have been implemented in the application. Furthermore, all known issues in previous versions have been fixed and overall stability and reliability of the software has been improved.
Enhanced documentation.
Updated and enhanced user manual and product documentation with numerous hints and usage examples will help you get the most from Visual YANG Designer Pro.
Besides the above listed features, a number of minor improvements have been implemented and all known problems occurring in older versions have been fixed for this release.


What's New in MG-SOFT Visual YANG Designer Pro., Version 7.x

Project-based YANG development.
MG-SOFT Visual YANG Designer now features project-based YANG data modeling. A YANG Designer project contains one or more source root folders where YANG files are kept and developed. The software supports having many YANG modules and submodules open for editing at the same time. This makes the data model development, where parts of the model are split across a number of cross-referenced YANG modules and submodules, more intuitive and efficient. Elements from different modules can be easily viewed, copied and referenced. All this makes the software capable of handling even the most demanding and comprehensive data model development and maintenance tasks.
Working directly with YANG files.
Visual YANG Designer now reads and writes YANG files directly (no intermediate YDD files or export to YANG format is needed anymore). The software constantly monitors the project source directories on disk and automatically reflects the changes made to the file system (files added, deleted, moved, renamed, etc.). This also enables a parallel use of file versioning tools like SVN or Git to facilitate collaboration and team work.
Incremental YANG validation.
The built-in YANG validation engine has been redesigned and extended to support also intelligent incremental validation in addition to complete validation. Incremental validation quickly and effectively validates changes made to the YANG modules in much narrower scope than complete validation, which performs full-scale validation of all YANG modules in the project. Incremental validation checks the validity of every change you make to YANG modules on-the-fly while you edit the data model. This mechanism keeps you constantly informed about the current syntax and semantic errors, without causing delays or interruptions in the editing process. The complete validation, on the other hand, is performed automatically when opening a project and can be invoked also manually by user at any time.
Improved application performance and stability.
Many optimizations have been implemented throughout the application. Furthermore, all known issues in previous versions have been fixed and overall stability and reliability of the software has been improved.
Support for Java versions 9-12 and HiDPI.
Visual YANG Designer has been tested to successfully run on Oracle Java version 9, 10, 11 and 12 on all supported platforms: Windows, Linux and Mac. Starting with Java version 11, both Oracle JDK (commercial version) and OpenJDK (open source build) are preliminary supported. Using Java 9 or later also adds proper support for HiDPI displays (e.g., UHD/4K). The latter means that the application windows, graphics, and text are scaled automatically according to the system settings, which makes Visual YANG Designer perfectly usable also with modern high pixel density displays.
Enhanced documentation.
Updated and enhanced user manual and product documentation with numerous hints and usage examples will help you get the most from Visual YANG Designer Pro.
Besides the above listed features, a number of minor improvements have been implemented and all known problems occurring in older versions have been fixed for this release.


What's New in MG-SOFT Visual YANG Designer Pro., Version 6.x

Complete YANG 1.1 Support.
In addition to the original YANG data modeling language version 1 (RFC 6020), MG-SOFT Visual YANG Designer now fully supports also the new YANG version 1.1 (RFC 7950). The software's GUI has been extended and the built-in YANG validation engine has been rewritten to fully support all YANG 1.1 syntax and semantics, including the new statements ('action', 'anydata'), new 'XPath' functions, modified rules for 'notifications', changed lexical rules and new submodule scoping rules, to name some of the more important changes in YANG 1.1. In Visual YANG Designer, one can design and edit YANG modules either by using the initial version of the YANG language or by using the latest and recommended YANG version 1.1 that eliminates ambiguities and defects present in the original specification. Of course, the software lets you easily revise existing YANG version 1 modules and submodules and update them to YANG 1.1.
GUI enhancements and improvements and initial HiDPI support.
A number of GUI enhancements and improvements have been implemented in order to make the application even more intuitive and user-friendly. Furthermore, the entire GUI has been revised to properly support large font sizes in order to make the application text easily readable also on modern high pixel density displays (e.g., 4K/UHD). The application texts scale properly with the system scaling setting on Windows and one can further tweak the appearance of the text and tables by using several startup parameters.
Improved application performance and stability.
Many optimizations have been implemented throughout the application. Furthermore, all known issues in previous versions have been fixed and overall stability and reliability of the software has been improved..
Improved copy/paste behavior in Design Mode.
Most copied definitions may now be pasted as a reference. For example, copying a top-level 'typedef' node in a module under Imports tab will allow a user to paste the corresponding type statement to a desired location in the YANG Tree, while automatically generating an import statement if needed. This further improves the productivity and efficiency of designing YANG modules in a visual manner. .
Enhanced documentation.
Updated and enhanced user manual and product documentation with numerous hints and usage examples will help you get the most from Visual YANG Designer Pro.
Besides the above listed features, a number of minor improvements have been implemented and all known problems occurring in older versions have been fixed for this release.


What's New in MG-SOFT Visual YANG Designer Pro., Version 5

Extended YANG validation supporting full XPath validation.
MG-SOFT Visual YANG Designer goes beyond the 'standard' YANG validation offered by other products on the market and performs complete validation of XPath expression syntax and semantics in YANG 'must' and 'when' statements. It constructs accessible trees for XPath expressions as described in RFC 6020 (in absence of instance data), which allows their partial evaluation, therefore enabling: following of location paths to ensure they reference existing nodes, detecting expressions that always evaluate to the same value, ensuring correctness of function usage, checking compliance with XPath recommendations in RFC 6087, and more. Due to the nature of XPath expressions in YANG, all detected semantic inconsistencies are reported as warnings.
Manual validation in Source and Design mode.
The software now lets you perform automatic (real-time) or manual YANG validation in both modes of operation: Design and Source mode. Automatic YANG validation can be turned off and performed manually when needed also in the Source mode. Disabling automatic validation can be particularly useful when editing large modules, where automatic re-validation after each modification would slow down the editing process.
Improved validation output presentation.
The "Errors" tab in the Output window panel has been replaced with more comprehensive and feature-rich "Validation Messages" view. The latter provides a better overview of validation messages and offers easier navigation between them. In addition to the regular view, where all error and warning messages are listed in a single table, it also offers a grouped table view, where validation messages are grouped according to the location of errors and warnings. For example, all error and warnings messages that indicate issues in the currently edited module and submodule(s) appear in the "Local" group, all messages that indicate errors and warnings in imported modules appear in the "Imports" group, and all inconsistencies that originate from the current module but cause errors or warnings in external modules (e.g., via invalid 'augments' statements etc.) are listed in the "External" group. One can easily display (expand) or hide (collapse) all messages from a group. Furthermore, the new “Validation Messages” view now lets you sort messages by any column, suppress warning messages, copy messages to clipboard, etc.
Optimized YANG tree presentation and lower memory consumption.
YANG tree construction and graphical presentation has been significantly improved and optimized. As a consequence, Visual YANG Designer now consumes about 30% less memory when loading large YANG models.
Configurable serialization of YANG statement arguments.
Users can now configure how each YANG keyword's argument is serialized by default. For example, one can select whether to use quotes or not and if yes, the type of quotes to be used. Furthermore, one can also choose whether to place the argument string in a new line or not. These settings let you fine tune the formatting of the YANG code generated by Visual YANG Designer.
Support for YANG statement argument concatenation.
Visual YANG Designer now supports statement argument concatenation in both Source and Design mode of operation. In Source mode, simply write YANG code by using the plus ("+") sign to concatenate argument strings. This information is preserved in Design mode, where concatenation marks are indicated in Editor Panel with pipe-like symbols ("|"). These can be repositioned, removed or automatically inserted by respecting the configured page margin and statement serialization preferences.
GUI Enhancements and improvements.
A number of GUI improvements and enhancements have been implemented in order to make the application even more intuitive and user friendly. You can now see the number of validation errors and warning in the status bar, select different parts of the GUI via keyboard shortcuts or the "Window" menu, open context menus via keyboard etc.
Enhanced documentation.
Updated and enhanced user manual and product documentation with numerous hints and usage examples will help you get the most from Visual YANG Designer Pro.
Besides the above listed features, a number of minor improvements have been implemented and all known problems occurring in older versions have been fixed for this release.


What's New in MG-SOFT Visual YANG Designer Pro., Version 4

Source and Design mode
In addition to the visual design mode of operation, the software now features also an advanced source mode of operation, which incorporates a full-blown YANG source code editor that includes syntax coloring and intelligent code completion feature. The source mode of operation boosts productivity for experienced YANG authors who prefer writing YANG code themselves with convenience of the built-in YANG authoring mechanisms, like auto-complete, find usages, go to definitions, find/replace, etc. One can switch between the Design and Source mode of operation at any time and continue designing YANG module and submodules in the selected mode.
Go to Definition and Find Usages
This functionality lets you quickly find definitions of interest by simply selecting an existing one and then following it's usage trail. For example, a ‘uses’ statement may be utilized to locate the referenced ‘grouping’’ statement. From that ‘grouping’ all ‘uses’ statements that also reference this same ‘grouping’ may be found. The application also tracks the Go-to-Definition action history, which can then be browsed backwards or forwards, as required. This allows a user to inspect a definition related to the current one and then go back to the initial location in code. Both Design and Source Mode of operation offer this functionality.
Auto-completion of XPath expressions
Visual YANG Designer now actively assists you when writing YANG Xpath expressions, such as ‘must’ and ‘when’ statement arguments. It can follow the paths in an XPath expression and offer completions for their continuation, much like the ones for a schema node identifier of an ‘augment’. This can be very useful, especially when writing complex expressions. It currently offers completions for node tests, axes and XPath functions. This functionality is supported in both, Source and Design Mode.
Support for YANG comments
Visual YANG Designer’s Source Mode of operation supports YANG comments. Simply switch to the Source mode and insert a single-line or multi-line comment to the YANG code. All comments are preserved even if you edit the YANG module in Design Mode of operation.
Cut, Copy and Paste support in Design mode
While designing the YANG Tree in Design Mode, users can now choose to cut, copy and paste nodes using menus or keyboard shortcuts in addition to doing the same with mouse gestures.
GUI enhancements and improvements
A number of GUI improvements and enhancements have been implemented in order to make the application even more intuitive and user friendly. Most actions can now be performed using the keyboard shortcuts. The improvements also include Mac OS X default keyboard bindings that utilize this platform's specific keyboard keys.


What's New in MG-SOFT Visual YANG Designer Pro., Version 3

Auto-completion feature.
Auto-completion feature for greater ease of use and increased productivity. Visual YANG designer now automatically suggests completions of entered words when setting the value of numerous YANG node properties, like 'type', 'base', 'uses', 'if-feature', 'import', 'include', 'belongs-to', 'unique', 'extended', 'key', 'path', 'augment', 'deviation', 'refine', etc. You can accept the suggested completion by simply pressing the 'Enter' key or select a different entry (completion) from the corresponding drop-down list. Furthermore, a description of each entry (completion) in the drop-down list is displayed in a tooltip for a better understanding of available options.
Extended and enhanced Drag&Drop functionality.
Visual YANG Designer now takes full advantage of the Java drag&drop framework when building the YANG tree. Three different operations on YANG nodes are supported: move (d&d), copy (d&d+Ctrl) and link to (d&d+Ctrl+Shift), depending on where the drag&drop operation starts and completes and whether the Ctrl or Shift keys are pressed or not. This enables the user to manipulate the structure of a YANG tree with ease, for example, creating an 'if-feature' statement based on a 'feature' statement becomes a simple matter of dragging an existing 'feature' statement and holding down appropriate keyboard keys. In addition, when dragging nodes to the YANG tree, a feedback information tooltip is displayed, explaining why a node cannot be dropped at the current location or what its position will be (relative to other nodes) if it can be dropped.
Export Preview with YANG syntax coloring.
The software now lets you view the complete definition of the module you are editing written in YANG data modeling language. The Export Preview window features the YANG syntax coloring and pretty print formatting and lets you preview the code of the YANG module before exporting it to YANG format.
Building YANG tree using the context menu.
An alternative way of adding new nodes to the YANG Tree is now offered through the node right-click context (pop-up) menu. Users can now choose the proffered YANG tree designing method, either by using the traditional drag&drop technique or by choosing the appropriate commands from the cascading context menu in the YANG Tree panel.
Display resolved YANG tree.
Due to the nature of YANG language, exploring schema trees might not be a simple matter of reading a YANG code or viewing its statement tree. A module may be augmented or deviated for example, the effect of which might not be obvious from the YANG code. Visual YANG Designer now makes it possible to inspect the entire resolved YANG tree of the edited module and its imports, where the 'uses' statements are expanded and the effect of 'augment', 'deviation' and 'refinement' statements is visible in the resolved (modified) tree. Some errors are not apparent in the original statement tree, but become obvious only in the resolved tree presented by Visual YANG Designer.
Enhanced documentation.
Updated and enhanced user manuals and help files with numerous hints and usage examples will help you get the most from Visual YANG Designer Pro.
Besides the above listed features, a number of minor improvements have been implemented and all known problems occurring in older versions have been fixed for this release.


What's New in MG-SOFT Visual YANG Designer Pro., Version 2

Complete YANG validation.
Completely rewritten YANG validation engine thoroughly checks whether the YANG module and submodules you are designing fully comply with the syntax and semantics rules of the YANG specification (RFC 6020). Visual YANG Designer displays all detected inconsistencies in the Output panel (Errors tab) and clearly marks all inconsistent nodes in the YANG tree with the error or warning overlay icon. By double-clicking an error or warning message in the Output panel, the corresponding node is selected in the YANG tree so you can quickly modify its settings to eliminate the inconsistency.
Undo and Redo operations for YANG Tree panel and Node Properties panel.
Visual YANG Designer remembers all actions and edits performed on the YANG module and submodules you are designing, so the actions can be quickly reverted or re-applied by clicking the Undo and Redo toolbar buttons or by pressing the corresponding keyboard shortcuts, respectively.
Context sensitive Components panel.
The Components panel is context sensitive in a sense that is automatically narrows down the list of valid nodes (components) that can be added as sub-nodes to the currently selected node in the YANG tree. For example, selecting a leaf node in the YANG Tree panel will show only leaf-specific sub-nodes in the Components panel (e.g., type, units, default, config, description, etc.), which makes it easier to find and use the suitable node to design the proper module tree structure.
Enhanced Node Properties panel for greater productivity.
The Node Properties panel in the central section of the Visual YANG Designer GUI features the search-as-you-type filter in the combo boxes (e.g., type) so one can easily find and select the desired item and optionally edit it. Furthermore, the Node Properties panel contains all possible properties with cardinality of one for the selected node, even if the properties have no set value. The latter properties appear as disabled GUI components (checkboxes, input lines, combo boxes etc.) in the Node Properties panel. One can quickly add or remove a property sub-node (substatements) by clicking or CTRL+clicking the respective property GUI component in the Node Properties panel.
Powerful handling of imported modules.
After an import module is loaded the software can automatically generate import statements for it in the edited module and its submodules (if they exist). All imported modules can also be quickly reloaded to reflect the current changes made to them.
Enhanced documentation.
Updated and enhanced user manuals and help files with numerous hints and usage examples will help you get the most from Visual YANG Designer Pro.
Besides the above listed features, a number of minor improvements have been implemented and all known problems occurring in older versions have been fixed for this release.