Macros/references from inside Notes/Element Notes

[dhaynes]

Lovin' the product. Best bang for the buck of any development tool, just behind NUnit (hard to beat since it's free) and VS2005 itself.

One thing I would like - the ability to reference element names/values  from within a Note/Element Note.

For example I have defined class that has an enumeration. When I'm writing use cases I generally follow the Iconix method and attach a note to the use case and link it to the Element Feature -> Element Note.

When I compose the use case text in the Element Note I'd like to refer indirectly to classes or even a specific enumerator within a class. That way if I change the name of the class or the enumerator during a refactoring, the note text stays up to date.

Something like a make/VS macro: $(MyDiagram.MyClass) or ${MyClass.MyEnum.MyEnumerator} or something like that.

So if I write a use case that includes something like:

 "Service receives LogonRequest message and catches fire"

... I could instead write:

 "Service recieves $(ClassDiagram.LogonRequest) and catches fire"

That way if I changed terminology to 'logon' to 'login' the visible text would automatically be updated to:

 "Service receives LoginRequest message and catches fire"

Also it could be help us identify which comments/use case descriptions reference entities that have been removed. Right now it's a manual process to search the project for references to obsolete entities and that's a slow process.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Yes!  Send in a formal request to Sparx - linking to this thread so they can see voting and other comments...

The only problem may be that you'll need to use GUIDs as the identifier as qualified name is not stable enough...

However, for my money, GUID is a small price to pay for the functionality!

Paolo

[«Midnight»]

However, for my money, GUID is a small price to pay for the functionality!

One that I'd happily pay!

Add my vote.