Is it possible to hide operation parameters?

[Physicus]

Hi,

in a class diagram: is it possible to hide the parameters of an operation for a single class element?

Thanks and greetings,
Physicus.

[«Midnight»]

Yes, there is:

Open diagram properties. On the right hand side about 1/3 od the way down you will find a "Show Parameter Detail" dropdown. The default is Type Only. All four combinations of yes/no for parameter type and name are available (i.e. you can select "None").

I've not found any such setting at the 'global' level, nor have I found something to do this for attributes (vs. operations). However, your requirement regarding parameters on a per-diagram level should be covered just fine.

[Physicus]

No, there is not!

thanks for your answer, but my question belonged to a single class element instead of the whole diagram. In other words: I want to do this only for one class (concerning my situation, I actually need it for one single operation within one class, but I didn't venture to ask for this). Therefore, I need such a drop down box for the element visibilities instead of diagram visibilities.

Any ideas?

[thomaskilian]

Nothing else except the feature visibility and the above.

[«Midnight»]

Of course you could always make this particular element private, and then set the display to exclude these. This could be a problem if you need to display other private elements. Since I don't know the context of your problem (why you need to hide this particular feature) I cannot suggest anything else.

[thomaskilian]

David, that does not help in hiding parameters, though.

[«Midnight»]

True Thomas, but it might go a ways towards what Physicus seems to be saying.

By making features I don't want show (on a given diagram) private, setting the diagram not to show private features, hiding visibility indicators (for a clean look) and setting parameter detail to none (or whatever), I can highlight those features, including operations that I want to show. Parameter details reflect the setting, and can be name or type only, or hidden...

The downside remains that you are 'artifically' setting visibility. When your modelling gets much past the brainstorming level this is likely to come back and bite you in some fashion.

Still, the ability to present a (visually) simple model at an overview level is a very useful feature. I've requested the ability to turn off all display adornments for attributes (i.e. show just the name without any pucntuation without having to erase the data type etc. but have not yet had any positive response from Sparx. Sigh...

[thomaskilian]

I remember. There have been several similar requests about displaying element adornments. Would really be nice to have something to group requests, give votes and to see how Sparx reacts on those (being another unheard request too )

[SF_lt]

Some time ago I have requested feature to manually show/hide particular class methods and attributes by extending visibility feature window

EA 6.1 and later builds still don't have this

[thomaskilian]

One of the real big issues for me is, that there is no way to correctly file a request. Sparxians listen to what the users are saying, which is excellent. But unfortunately there's too much noise so they miss some really important threads. A public roadmap for bug fixes and forthcoming features would cure most of these remedies. A voting mechanism would be brilliant.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

One of the real big issues for me is, that there is no way to correctly file a request. Sparxians listen to what the users are saying, which is excellent. But unfortunately there's too much noise so they miss some really important threads. A public roadmap for bug fixes and forthcoming features would cure most of these remedies. A voting mechanism would be brilliant.

Seconded

Paolo

[«Midnight»]

And how - me too!

[KP]

One of the real big issues for me is, that there is no way to correctly file a request.

From the EA main menu "Help | On-Line Resources | Request-a-Feature". These don't get read once and thrown away - they stay on file and are a searchable resource that we actually refer to on a regular basis. By all means use the Requests forum here, but send in a feature request as well.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

From the EA main menu "Help | On-Line Resources | Request-a-Feature". These don't get read once and thrown away - they stay on file and are a searchable resource that we actually refer to on a regular basis. By all means use the Requests forum here, but send in a feature request as well.

KP,

It was the second half of Thomas' post we were voting for!  Will Sparxians be addressing those issues?

Paolo

[nara_c]

No, there is not!

thanks for your answer, but my question belonged to a single class element instead of the whole diagram. In other words: I want to do this only for one class (concerning my situation, I actually need it for one single operation within one class, but I didn't venture to ask for this). Therefore, I need such a drop down box for the element visibilities instead of diagram visibilities.

Any ideas?

Physicus, it is possible to hide Attributes or Operations of a specific element in a diagram based on visibility (i.e.) You can choose to hide all Private or Protected attributes or operations for the said element but have other elements in the diagram display them.

Right click on the notation in questions (say a Class) and select the 'Feature Visibility...' option (CTRL +SHITF+Y).  From the window that appears select the type of attributes or operations you want to hide and those types will not appear for the said element in that diagram.

To set this for all elements in the diagram use the diagram properties option and set the 'Visible Class Members' option.

Also if you want to set all Class diagrams in EA to hide (say) private properties by default you can set up a Class diagram template (Refer 'Templates Package' in help file for detail) and all future class diagrams will hide the private properties in classes by default.

In fact using diagram properties you can set a number of other defaults such as scale to one page, etc.

Hope this helps.