Finding actions that call activities

[sibiu]

Within my model I have a number of activity diagrams for separate components, all of which make reference to some common activities, such as authentication, logging etc.

On the activity diagrams, I can put an action with CallBehavior and that will link easily to the common activity defined elsewhere in the model. Making the target activity a composite diagram means that I can click into the function and drill down.

When I reach the diagram for the activity I would like ideally to have listed, or at least to be able to find out what actions it is called from. That way I can see how widely it is used and the likely effect of any change.

The problem is that I can see no relationship between the activity and the calling actions, yet it must be stored somewhere. Am I missing something?

[qwerty]

I haven't tried, but doesn't Ctrl-U work for that?

q.

[sibiu]

Yes that does work, I discovered (or remembered) that shortly after I posted the comment. Thanks.

As a follow-up question, there is a ElementUsage hyperlink that I am sure I did have working once... Now I get nothing and the drop down list in the properties, where I assume you select the element from is empty.

[qwerty]

Can you explain where from you get this ElementUsage hyperlink?

q.

[sibiu]

Using the insert Hyperlink from the toolbox, set the type to be "EA Command" and then "ElementUsage" on the second dropdown box.

[qwerty]

I have never seen that before. The help has only one entry in Built-In Learning Center Commands. I bet it's just one of those fancy useless features that has been added over years.

q.

[Eve]

Element Usage is one of those features that would have worked on the Learning Center, and we added the capability to create a hyperlink for any of those commands.

Unfortunately in this case, when double clicking the hyperlink you are changing focus which means you can't do anything useful with a hyperlink to that particular command on a diagram.

You may be able to get some use by setting the hyperlink to non-selectable, but I suspect you'll still lose your previous context before it runs. I imagine that you could put that hyperlink in the notes of an element to show it's own usage, or even in a linked document because clicking the link there won't change context.