Collaboration Diagrams - What am I doing Wrong?

[sigalarm]

Hello all. I just started using EA at work. I have been using Rose for years, and lets just say Rose was a hate/love/hate relationship.

I am attempting to set up a collaboration diagram in EA. I have loaded information about the classes, methods, value objects and instances into my EA project.  That part was no better than Rose, which was aweful. It seems the UI was pretty close to a Rose clone.  Anyhow, it was not impossible to get stuff in there.

I set up my first Collaboration diagram.  There are some strange things going on. For example, the labels on the associations sometimes will re-arrange themselves, and the lines for the associations were very hard to set up and control.  The real annoyance came when I wanted to show a component messaging itself to perform a stage in the scenario.  EA created this tiny loopback line (with an arrow) that could not be resized, or even really moved. It could slide up and down the right hand side of the object in a narrow range.

After an hour I finally got it marginally readable.  Perhaps the second one would go better.

I start to create the second collaboration.  As I bring the objects onto the canvas from the model browser, these rather interesting lines show up between them… What on earth is that?  So I delete them. I finish this collaboration with a bit less hassle than the first, things are looking up!  I go back to the first collaboration.  WAIT! Where are all of the associations?  Seems that when I deleted them on the second diagram, that deleted them everywhere.  And of course with the state of undo in the product, that means doing it all over again.  Ok, eventually I have two diagrams done out of the 10 or so I want to do.

Collaboration 3 – each time I bring an object out of the model browser onto the canvas, all of the old associations are showing up.  I figure out you can hide them.  Ah great!  But each time I add another object from the model browser, the all come back!  WOW!

By the time I tried to do Collaboration 4, there were so many associations that it was just too tiresome to hide them all.

Am I doing something wrong?  Why is the default behavior here so strange?  Please, any tips would be welcome.

Bruce
BAE SYSTEMS

[frank]

The real annoyance came when I wanted to show a component messaging itself to perform a stage in the scenario.  EA created this tiny loopback line (with an arrow) that could not be resized, or even really moved. It could slide up and down the right hand side of the object in a narrow range.

I have found this problematic in class diagrams as well.  When I read your message I wondered whether the problem might be addressable by setting the line style to custom and adding and positioning line points.

I tried this and found that I could add a line point, and I could position it wherever I wanted, but the line did not move with the point.

Frank.

[jaimeglz]

Hi Bruce, welcome to this forum.

You point out that: "I have loaded information about the classes, methods, value objects and instances into my EA project. That part was no better than Rose, which was aweful."  It would be very valuable if you explain how you loaded these elements, and give sparx some suggestions on how it can be improved. If you follow this forum for a minimum ammount of days, you will see that sparx is very, very receptive to new ideas.

I think your problem with deleted relationships was caused by a lack of familiarity with EA. EA's ability to keep a record of relationships between classifiers (classes, use cases, and so forth...) and to reflect these relationships in new diagrams is very valuable. What you should have done is to right-click on any empty space in the diagram and select "Set visible relationships", then un-check those relationships you do not want to see in that particular diagram.

Jaime Gonzalez

[mbc]

Bruce, maybe I can help you.
I expect that you had some classes and created instances of those in the first collaboration diagram. If you use the same instances in another diagram, the associations that you created between them will also be shown there. If you want to show a different interaction between the same classes, you can create new instances. No relations will exist between them.
For the instance/classifier discussion, notice the "Auto-instance" feature that you can toggle in Options. Use Ctrl-Drag to do the opposite of default drag behaviour.
Hope it was helpful
Mikkel

[sigalarm]

Wow, thanks everyone of the information.  I will put these suggestions to the test, I am hopeful it will get me what I am looking for.

As far as the UI is concerned, I am talking about the entry of the classes, the operations and the attributes is done througha  tabbed panel that forces you to switch around alot without visible context (such as seeing what operation you are modifying the parameters for).  This is very similar to Rose and one of the things I really disliked about it.

When I am done with this design effort, maybe I will mock up some alternate views of how this could work to show what I mean.

Thanks again for the input.

Bruce
BAE SYSTEMS

[sigalarm]

Much better now, thanks.  Still having problems with lines, but for the most part I can get my collaboration diagrams done.

This custom line feature, where is the control to insert new points?  So far I have yet to find it.

Bruce

[CJ]

G'day Bruce,

After you've right-clicked on a line and chosen "Custom Line" from "Set Line Style" in the context menu, right-click on the line again, and you'll find a new "Toggle Line Point at Cursor" menu item in the context menu.