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Please note : This help page is not for the latest version of Enterprise Architect. The latest help can be found here.

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Create Learning Center Pages

As a Technology Developer, it is possible for you to create a set of Learning Center pages to support any MDG Technology that you have developed and loaded into Enterprise Architect. You create each Learning Center page as the Linked Document of a Document Artifact element. These elements are organized into a hierarchy of Packages, where the Package name becomes the name of a folder of topics in the Learning Center. You then run two scripts; the first to generate the Learning Center folders and topics, and the second (as part of your Add-In or Technology activation) to import your Learning Center structure into the file location from which Enterprise Architect can load it.

The original process of developing a Learning Center Profile as part of an MDG Technology definition is no longer recommended.

Set Up a Linked Document Template for Learning Center topics

Whilst not mandatory, it is recommended that you create one or more Linked Document templates for your Learning Center documents, to provide consistent standards for the layout, structure and content of your Learning Center pages.

Step

Action

See also

1

Plan the content of your Learning Center topics, and consider:

  • How you should present explanatory or descriptive text
  • How you should lay out steps in direct-action tasks
  • How you should refer and/or link to information in other documentation, web sites and file directories
  • What corporate styles, standards and logos you might need to incorporate

2

Open the 'Resources' tab of the Browser window ('Start > Application > Share > Resources') and create the appropriate Linked Document templates for your topics.

Create Linked Document Templates

Set up Package hierarchy to organize the Learning Center topics

Step

Action

See also

1

Create the root Package for your Learning Center documentation. The Package name will be the starting point for the documentation folder structure, as Enterprise Architect is for its product Learning Center topics.

2

Display the Properties window for this Package element (select the 'Design > Package > Manage > Properties' ribbon option) and, in the 'Filename' field, type the file location into which to generate the Learning Center documentation.

Properties Window

3

In the Browser window, create a child Package for each category of Learning Center documentation you intend to create, and within each of those create child Packages for any further subcategories of documentation. You can create child Packages to as many levels as necessary, but it is recommended that you try to limit the structure to fewer than five levels.

Consider also that you can have topics (Document Artifact elements) and folders (Packages) at the same level in your Learning Center document structure.

Add a Package

Create the Learning Center Topics

You have a number of options for creating Document Artifact elements in a Package, but creating a Document diagram and adding the elements to it is a simple method that gives you an immediate visual impression of the content of a subject area.

Step

Action

See also

1

Working from the Browser window, within each Package that is to contain Learning Center topics, create a Document diagram; that is:

  1. Right-click on the Package name and select the 'Add Diagram' option.
  2. On the 'New Diagram' dialog, type an appropriate name in the 'Diagram' field, click on the 'Select From' header and select the 'Manage > Show All Perspectives' option, then click on 'Extended' in the panel beneath the header.
  3. Click on 'Documentation' in the 'Diagram Types' panel.
  4. Click on the OK button.

2

From the Diagram Toolbox, drag a Document Artifact icon onto the diagram and give it the name of the topic it will contain.

This name will display at the top of the document and in the Learning Center topic access path, where it will act as a link to open the topic.

3

Double-click on the element and select your Learning Center document template (or any other appropriate template) from the 'New Linked Document from Template' dialog.

4

Add the description and/or procedure text to the document. When you have finished, save the document and repeat this procedure for the next Document Artifact element/Learning Center topic.

Edit Linked Documents

5

In the Browser window, check the order in which the Document Artifact elements are listed. This order determines the sequence of the Learning Center topics.

If you want to present the Learning Center topics in a different order, adjust the sequence of the corresponding Document Artifact elements in the Browser window accordingly.

Move Objects Within a Package

Compile the Learning Center documentation

Step

Action

See also

1

In the Browser window, click on the root-level Package for your Learning Center documentation.

2

Select the 'Specialize > Tools > Scripting' ribbon option.

The Scripting window displays.

Scripting

3

Expand the Local Scripts folder and click on the VBScript - Create Learning Center Books script name.

4

Click on the 'Run script' icon (Run script.) in the Scripting window toolbar.

The script generates the Learning Center documentation to the file path specified in the 'Filename' field in the root Package properties.

The script also generates:

  • An order.txt file from every Package in the document hierarchy, to define the order of display of child folders or topic names in the folder generated from that Package; you can directly edit this file to change the topic order in the Learning Center, if necessary
  • An index.txt file in the root folder that provides an index for every topic, derived from the GUID of the Document Artifact element from which the topic was generated; this index is used to identify the topic in references and hyperlinks to the topic, regardless of where the topic might be moved to

Load the Learning Center documentation

The Learning Center documentation you have created for an Add-In or Technology is loaded into the Learning Center using the Repository method 'AddDocumentationPath'. You would normally write this into the activation script you created to load the Technology itself, but you could also test the documentation using a simpler script that just loaded the documentation. The call resembles this:

     {

     Repository.AddDocumentationPath('ToolGuide','C:\\Temp\\ToolLC',0)

     }

Notes

  • If the same Learning Center documentation is loaded more than once during a work session, each load is presented as a separate set of pages; the original documentation is not overwritten

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