How could I represent a element twice???

[carolmika]

Hi,
I wish to know how could I represent the same element twice on the same diagram???

Carol

[thomaskilian]

With EA you can't. What I do (in certain circumstances) is to add a note with DITO as text to show it appearing in another swimlane. But that's not applicable in all cases. You need to find another hack or to create a 2nd diagram.

[Dave_Bullet]

The other option is to paste an instance (unnamed).

This works on everything (I think!) except packages.

To force EA to ask you which to paste, hold the CTRL key while you drag and drop the element onto your diagram and chose "paste as instance"

Cheers,
David.

[thomaskilian]

Remember: this is a hack too. The instance looks almost the same as the element, but it isn't! So when creating relations to this instance, they are not connected to your real element.

[Martin Terreni]

Is it something applicable to UML at all? like having twice the same class in a class diagram? this doesn't make sense.
Though it is rather annoying I can have the same activity twice in the same activity diagram (and I don't understand the logic...).

Is there some "strict rules" UML expert around that can assure having twice the same element in a diagram is "elegal"?  

[carolmika]

Hi,
We customize EA in order to represent "Services" on SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), and we're using the Class Element because of attributes and operations that can easily translated to our need.
Some services has workflows, and we've activities diagrams that we represent activities, transformations and services calls.
And the problem is exactly on it: represent this service twice!!!

[Gary W.]

Is it something applicable to UML at all? like having twice the same class in a class diagram? this doesn't make sense.

Well,

If you look at the Current V2.1.1 UML specs (http://www.omg.org/docs/formal/07-02-03.pdf), you see diagrams where the same element appears more than once.

For example,
- Figure 7.15 on page 37 has "NamedElement" twice
- Figure 7.17 on page 39 has the "Property" Class twice

I vaguely recall the specs for "Simple SQL Features for GIS" also having similar repeats.

I was jealous, as it would make some of my diagrams more understandable if I could *just* put the same class more than once...

Gary

[Martin Terreni]

Hi,
We customize EA in order to represent "Services" on SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), and we're using the Class Element

Well.., I'm sure even in UML specs you can find a diagram having twice the same class

[carolmika]

I solve it representing the class as object. EA can find the source class from object, using CTRL-ALT-G (Find/Locate Classifier in Project Browser).

Thank you all!!!