Linking UI elements with domain model

[bernardm]

Hi,

What's the best way to visually express how UI elements are linked to domain classes and attributes, without deeping into design considerations, ideal from within a User Interface Diagram?

Thanks in advance,

Bernard

[Sunshine]

If the UI and Domain model aren't too complex you could extend the UI diagram and put the domain classes onto the same diagram and map using trace/dependency relationship. To map these down to attribute level you can use "link to element feature" found on the context menu by right clicking on end of the relationship. The danger here is it can become like a rats nest with so many relationships it becomes in comprehensible.
Another approach might be to use a matrix of UI element vs class.

Hope that helps  

[bernardm]

Thanks for your response, and, yes, it helped

Indeed UI diagrams will become cumbersome with attribute-level relationships, and it won't be maintained/maintainable afterwards anyway...

So I think I'll follow your advise and simply link Screens/UI Controls to classes. More detailed information about how UI Controls depends on the domain model will be explained with simple text (in Text Elements and/or in the "notes" tab).

Bernard

[Sunshine]

Just for anyone else who wants to map UI to classes check out figure 12 on page 12 of this doc on the community site. Only discovered this doc this morning.

http://community.sparxsystems.com/whitepapers/Data%20Modeling%20-%20From%20Conceptual%20Model%20to%20DBMS/data-modeling-concept-to-dbms.pdf

Its nice to see someone document these features of EA. I think is a cool document  8-)

[skiwi]

I wonder if Figure 1 was created in EA, and if not why EA could not be enhanced to be able to create such diagrams ...

[Eve]

From looking at it, I would say that the final image was not produced by EA.

The curved arrows are showing semi-transparency and a gradient that covers the entire height of the arrow. (Also unlikely because the gradient is going up/down while the objects shown have a left-right gradient.)

[skiwi]

Indeed,
wouldn't it be great to have transparency, rotatable arrows, curved arrows, be able to specify gradient fill direction etc per element, be able to specify a second gradient colour (currently you get colour and black OOTB), be able to insert diagram frames without the frame showing!, be able to resize diagram frames (eg shrink them).
All little things, but all with a big effect ...

ah well

[bernardm]

This document is indeed a nice finding. I'll consider applying dependencies between conceptual classes and screen controls only when it produces "something understandable" for the customer.

And, yes, it would be nice to have more drawing capabilities in EA.

[qwerty]

I' a UML purist. But others aren't. So they create images for arrows and include them as meta data. Which is making handling of the model even worse. So in the end I'd be happy if those drawing capabilities would be native. An idea would be to have <<drawing>> objects with implicit
 and/or scriptable properties. Of course such objects would not be portable to other tools, but at least you would recognise them as such.

q.