ease of typing textual descriptions

[Joel_Melan]

the logic of striking textual description of use cases for instance) in EA seems to be :
-first structure it in blocks (the post-conditions, invariants, ...)
-then fill in each block

but structuration is sometimes the last activity !
and some people prefer to strike all the textual description in a continuous input, then to spread it among blocks

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when modifications need to be inserted, it's often done from the RTF documentation and it’s quite uneasy to identify WHERE is the text to modify in the model as textual description is spread among a lot of types (post-condition, invariant) and blocks of text !


in order to help this way of modelling and modifying specifications, would it be possible for instance to generate very simply (without indicating a format and a file like in RTF generator) a global textual description (with no layout, ) of the current element, this global “view” being visible in a supplementary tab of the property windows.

So it would be possible to copy/paste from this global description to a specific constraint or scenario ...

ideally, EA would do it automatically !!  

[thomaskilian]

I'd think of this as the Note property

[Joel_Melan]

yes, OK for first point : note window could be a space to type on a continuous input !

but for second point, no way to generate the global content of an element by assembling all notes, constraints, scenarios, ...

in order to give a global view of the description of that element !

it's true that RTF generator is like that, but there's a lot of manipulation to go from property windows to seeing and editing global view !!

[thomaskilian]

If I get you right, you're looking for an element perspective that is configurable. I.e. a frame with property values from different places out of the element. You should move that to the Requests board.

[benc]

Joel,

The closest thing to a "global" view of the element I can think of, apart from generated documenation would be the Element Browser, available from View | Other Windows | Element Browser.

Although you can't directly copy/edit the element browser contents, it does provide all the info in one place and an easy way to navigate to the various items.

Regards,
Ben

[Joel_Melan]

thanks ben !

the Element browser is quite cool !
in the same time, it's not complete enough !
but it will be a very good base for a future way to implement an editable global view of the textual description of an element :

it just lacks :

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a supplementary frame with the textual part of the selected tab (like scenario, file, ...)

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a way to select several or all tabs

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a way to synchronize edited text with the property part

2/ another good view in order to edit textual description is "scenario" : it is editable and already synchronized !

3/ the "rules" view is also interesting but hasn't got such edition and synchronization functions : what a pity !


in brief, some elements are there : just the need to assemble them !

and the folllowing step is to import from Word and help organize and dispatch each elements of textual description ...

joel

[Joel_Melan]

I've discovered with EA support that another way of typing a formatted textual desciption is ... the EA concept of "linked documents" !

This way enable us to :
- type a formatted desciption "internal" to EA
- or to link to an "external" RTF documentation

It's accessible by Right-clic > Linked Document or Ctrl-Alt-D on some elements of the model

joel

[Graham_Moir]

The "Linked document" feature is very useful, but do you know a way of finding out whether an element has a linked document ?  

I don't see any reference anywhere in an element's properties to the fact that the element may have a linked document with some content. What have I missed ?

thanks