Any way to change the order of the documentation ?

[colinc]

I was wondering if it is possible to change the order elements are added to the documentation produced.

I looked through templates but it doesn't seem to be able to.

Basically I would like the scenarios to appear before the requirements in use case generation, so that people read through the drill down process in a natural progression.

[slavko]

I found it  most useful to produce documentation with the class element stereotyped as DocumentModel  (I think this is documented in the help files).  With this approach you can control the order of elements that are generated during RTF.  What I do is produce a package for requirements, use cases, structure, etc. and put them the documentation class element in the order I want the document to be read.

Hope it helps.

Slavko

[thomaskilian]

Slavko,
I could not find an entry for DocumentModel. So I do not understand really what you explain. Isn't the documentation order not simply reflected by the ordering the browser tree?

[slavko]

Sorry for not being more detailed,   the help file refers this as a “Virtual document” look under the documentation help.  I’ve attached an excerpt


You can create "virtual documents" in EA. This allows you to set up document objects and insert any packages you wish into the document. For example, you could create a document which includes a Sequence Diagram package and a Code Engineering packages (these packages are included in the EA example model file).  


To create a virtual document, you first need to Create a document object, Add Packages to Your Document Object, then Generate the Document.  

You can include any combination of packages, and add or delete packages as required. You can also Rearrange the Package Order within the documentation.  

The document will obtain its contents dynamically - ie. you don't need to update the document if you make a change to one of the packages included in it.  

Tip: You can create as many document objects as you wish, for as many combinations of packages as required. You can include the same package in multiple objects.  


-Slavko

[colinc]

Cool, that makes sense.

In fact I could use the same process with standard use cases; use two templates with different items switched on and include them into the dynamic document.

Thanks, Colin

[thomaskilian]

Thanks too, I remeber having read about it once but forgot about that feature (Easter time again ).

[colinc]

It would be a nice feature if we could add these virtual documents to another virtual document. In that way it becomes possible to have target complete documentation for a particular group but also generate complete documentation.


I guess the way to do this at the moment would be to create an external word document that links all the subdocuments together - a bit messy and easy to miss for maintaining.

[thomaskilian]

When following the documentation EXACTLY it works as desired. But when you press F8 instead of using the drop down menu, the documentation does do not what you want. I can't imagine any reason for this behaviour and think, this should be corrected. (However, this is a great feature