Archimate 2.0 - Mismatch of element colours

[roates]

Hi,

The ArchiMate 2.0 specification uses Green (129,255,129) for Information elements, Yellow (255,255,191) for Behaviour elements and Blue (127,255,254) for Structure elements in the example diagrams presented in the document.

Sparx EA 9.3.930 doesn't use this colour set however.

As a work around I setup manually coloured elements in a Template package but EA ignores the colours I've set...

Will Sparx give consideration to using the colours used by the OMG in the Archimate 2.0 Specifiaction document?

Have a look at http://russ61.posterous.com/australian-government-architecture-mapping-to to see what I consider are the correct colours.

cheers,

Russell Oates

[Eve]

The colours that EA is using for me match the spec. The only colour related issue I found when reading through the spec was wondering if we needed some capability of using darker colours automatically for nested objects. (But the spec is inconsistent about going darker or lighter.)

I'd be checking if you your template package isn't/wasn't interfering in some way, that you don't have other stereotypes in your stereotype list that are interfering and then contacting support directly.

[KP]

My understanding is that colour is not part of the ArchiMate specification, although use of colour in modelling is greatly encouraged. The authors of the spec tried to be consistent in their use of colour in their examples, and we have tried to follow their colour scheme as closely as possible. Of course it's easy enough to change the colour of any EA element: select and press F4.

[roates]

Hi Simon and KP,

I guess from my point of view Sparx got the colours right with Archimate1 but mixed them up for Archimate2. It's a matter of interpretation though... I liked the way Archimate1 elements were divided up between information, behaviour & structure independent of whether you were looking at business, application or technology.

Simon, the template is basically ignored by EA as far as colours go - tagged values etc work but when placing an element in a diagram the colour of the element will briefly display as I've set it in the template but then changes to that specified in the MDGTechnology.

KP, I've listed some links below which are diagram images showing some graphics from the archimate2 spec placed on a diagram together with the element colours that EA uses to try to illustrate the point.

And true, users can manually press F4 and apply and set a colour but getting a team of people to consistently do that is not very efficient so I thought I'd raise it on the forum.

As a work-around, I'll try to write a script the go and enforce the colour scheme that I think (perhaps wrongly I admit...) should be used. I just find it's a bit more consistent and understandable for executive type folks when the information, behaviour & structure are spread across green, yellow and blue for each layer...

The link below points to a post that contains 3 images, one each for business, application and technology layers:

 http://russ61.posterous.com/colours-i-reckon-should-be-used-by-sparx-ea-f

cheers,

Russell Oates

[roates]

For anyone who may be interested, a link to a VBScript script for enforcing the ArchiMate 1.0 colours arrangement for ArchiMate 2.0 elements on diagrams is shown is at the link below:

http://russ61.posterous.com/enforcing-element-colours-on-diagrams-in-spar

cheers,

Russell Oates