Recently I've been evaluating the configuration control facilities of EA, using the trial version of the PushOK CVS bridge. It all seems to work OK, but there are issues when it comes to configuration controlling very large models.
Every time you want to configure a package for inclusion in configuration control, you must supply an XML filename for it (after ticking the "Version Control" checkbox in the Package Control Options dialog). Not an issue for one or two packages, but this becomes a bind if converting a large model (with many packages) for inclusion in configuration control. To be really useful in this context, I want to be able to configuration control individual packages, not just the top level ones.
The default is for all XML files entered into config control to be stored in the same place (folder if you will) within the CC repository. This becomes a problem if you want to configuration control individual packages across various areas of a large model. For example, if I want to put a package "System Alerts" into CC, the obvious filename to assign would be "SystemAlerts.xml". However, the "System Alerts" package may appear in various different places throughout the model (requirements model, analysis model, design model etc), and in each case is a valid package that you may want to individually control in the CC repository. If I use the same naming convention for these other cases, I will get name clashes when I enter them into config control.
However, I've noticed that in the Package Control Options dialog you can assign a relative path to the XML filename. So for example, in my requirements model I could use "Requirements\SystemAlerts.xml" for the system alerts package in the requirements area of the model, and "Design\SystemAlerts.xml" for the design package. This results in EA/PushOK placing the XML files into the two sub-directories you've specified within CVS (you don't need to create them beforehand - it seems to happen automatically), thus avoiding name clashes.
So, my suggested improvements are that:
- EA should automatically assign an XML filename based on the package name when the "Version Control" check-box is ticked in the Package Control Options dialog.
- Optionally, EA should assign a relative path before the XML filename that reflects the package's position within the package hierarchy in the model. So if the package hierarchy is "MyModel\Requirements\System Alerts", then the XML filename assigned by default would be "MyModel\Requirements\SystemAlerts.xml".
This be would be a big usability improvement for me, and certainly helps when dealing with large models. Ideally it should be possible to switch on/off both features in the Options dialog.
regards,
Martin.
