Inserting document author in RTF

[marcel_str]

What I want to do is probably quite simple, but I can't find a solution.

I'm trying to simply add an author to a small summary on the front page of an RTF document. Though you can assign an author to a package in EA, it wont let you insert it in the package filed in the RTF templates (rightclick between the package-identifiers and note no author there).

I also tried inserting field names, but I don't really know where in the model they get there data from.

How should I do this? It can't be that hard...

[Eve]

You can get the package author from package.element.

[marcel_str]

Thanks for your reply.

This indeed generates an author for every element in the model. But if I use this to create a table with document properties (on the frontpage) on a model which has more then 1 element, I get an equal amount of tables with element properties instead of information like user/date/author etc. of the document itself. Which is a little too much information on the front page...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't inserting a field a way to do it? Say that I declare a field named: "documentauthor" in the template and initialise this field somewhere in the model, it should do what I expect it to do... If this is a proper way to do it, then how do I initialise these fields(declared in the document template) in the model?

[Dermot]

Authors are set for creators of packages - but not for the creator of a document template or a the person who runs a report.  So it is best if you want to report the creator of a report template - actualy place the author name in the template.

[marcel_str]

That also will not satisfy, because the person who makes a document will vary. So in order to have the correct name on the document then, users of EA have to alter the template (which I very much would like to avoid, and therefor would like to use a template), or, in case this name is fixed by the template creator, there is the template creators name on a document he is not responsible for.

So still I am looking for a way to set something like a field or entry somewhere in the model which can be used to define a document author. Something like microsoft words' fields functionality.
For instance... A model has an owner... Then why shouldn't I be able to show this field in the rtf document?

[Oliver F.]

So still I am looking for a way to set something like a field or entry somewhere in the model which can be used to define a document author. Something like microsoft words' fields functionality.
For instance... A model has an owner... Then why shouldn't I be able to show this field in the rtf document?

I totally agree here. Same for the document name, document type, document specific header information, etc.

AFAIK it is still not possible to have a generic template for several projects which can set the document title at the front page by defining some fields or whatever. If I want this I have to go the master document way of importing reports into an existing templates. However this is still broken when using bookmarks (build 830 and 831) so at least for me it is unusable actually.

Oliver

[friehmaen]

Hi,

are there some changes/news concerning this issue in the latest EA Releases?

Thanks and regards,
khr

[Thelonius]

I concur with the above views.

Document management (having appropriate 'traceability' information captured in the MS Word documents that support the EA artefacts) is really important to me right now.

Customer doesn't even put page numbers on documents.

And 'date' is always 'system date' - never the date the document was originally published.

[Dermot]

marcel_str wrote on Jul 15th, 2008, 8:42am:
So still I am looking for a way to set something like a field or entry somewhere in the model which can be used to define a document author. Something like microsoft words' fields functionality.
For instance... A model has an owner... Then why shouldn't I be able to show this field in the rtf document?
DOB ==>
This has been posted as a Feature Request - however users postings do help (!)
A couple of tricks you can look at are:
a) Set up Tagged Values in a Package - i.e. with the TVAuthor etc. and use the Package.ValueOf(TVAuthor) to display these - use a Master Document to place this at the top of the document.  You can then set up seperate packages for users needing this facility - with their TV's preset.
b) Look at using the Language translation in the RTF reports:
 - i.e. don't use the string  "Author" in the template - use "Wriiten By:" and use the langauge translation to for AUTHOR - to the Authors name.  You would need to have the Package.Author = "Author"

[Richard Blank]

Thank you for the information. Solid customer service here.


Richard



.

[«Midnight»]

Particularly when you consider that this is a user forum. As you can see, the Sparxians are pretty active here too.

[Paul W]

But as all these appear as document properties, wouldn't it be nice to be able to insert document property fields into the template.
If going this far then it would also be great if we could set a template file (as .dot) for templates.
Then could change fonts/paragraph styles for numerous rtf templates quickly

[David]

It would also be nice if it was possible to add output path/file name, status (i.e draft) into the header/footer areas of a RTF template without hard coding.

regards

David J

[cweng]

I have a way of generating a front page of a document that can display name, author, version, status etc. for the document. I do it using virtual documents, as follows.

[1] I have a package containing the virtual document and I name this package with the title I want for the document. I have at least two model documents in the virtual document.

[2] The first is the document front page. I set the package for this model document to be the virtual document package. In the template for this I layout the front page, with company logos etc. I can then report on the elements of this package on the front page, such as name, author, version, status etc. I also define the header and footer in here. The template is reusable across all documents.

[3] The second model document can contain the body of the report. However, I often have several sections with differing templates if I want to treat diagrams differently in different sections, for example.

[4] To manage this, I have a common second model document and template that generates the table of contents and a glossary. There is a restriction that the document generating the TOC must have at least one header in it, so putting a corporate glossary in this section solves this.

[5] The rest of the document is then done in separate model documents, depending on the template I want to use for each section.

As an aside, I have identified an apparent bug in that subsequent header levels after the TOC are all generated one level too low. This has been raised and accepted as a bug with Sparx.

Hope this helps.

[Oliver F.]

I have a way of generating a front page of a document that can display name, author, version, status etc. for the document. I do it using virtual documents, as follows.

This is the way I am doing it, too.
However for certain views it is not often convenient to use virtual documents- eg. if you have project reports for different parts of the model you would like to quickly generate (the "hey, I want to have a report for this area, can you give it to me in 10 minutes?" document type) which are at least throwaway documents but as they go to different stakeholders (customers, QM, management, tbc) they have to be in corporate style.
For those documents it is cumbersome to create dozens of virtual documents. I have been experimenting with using the search function to fill the virtuals thus having a generic virtual document but this was not very satisfying until now- it lacks a recursive option ("find all elements matching the search criteria and everything below in the model)".

Oliver