feature request: favourites

[Mr. Sanders]

Hello,

I would like to have something like "favourites".

Either as an own pinnable tab, or as a subpackage in the project explorer as a root node.

Inside this favourites I would place all my stuff
I am currently working on, e.g. diagrams, classes, docs, ...

This stuff in that folder are references to the original stuff and NOT a copy. Thus there wouldn't be a need to
drill down the model structure to find my current work every day.

Just work on the favourites folder and nobody would care about its real location in the model.

Of course there will be so problems, like refacturing the model, e.g. move one class from one package to another.
There must be an automatic update of the favourites internal structure, so the favourites folder is not broken.

But these are the sparxians problems to solve not mine  

Regards
Michael

[«Midnight»]

Michael,

The concept of favorites has been mentioned before, but I think you may have a clearer take on it. I must say it makes (even more) sense the way you put it.

Perhaps to keep things sane this could be done through a new window pane - something along the lines of the Project Browser, but listing only those things you designate as favorites.

This way the new pane could be invoked for some projects, but not for others (perhaps favorites would not be as useful in small or new projects).

By doing it this way you don't have to keep explicit track of the structure of your project in favorites - this continues to be managed as it is now by the project browser etc.

If you move an element (for example) it would not disturb the favorites pane since the element GUID remains the same and EA can always find it for you.

David

PS: This is certainly worth a feature request. You know the drill.

[Mr. Sanders]

Hello David,

I just wanted to give the rough idea. There are a lot of details to be discussed of course. But I don't care about them.

I hope they get the idea and give me something like that.

I will write a feature request with my rough idea and your more detailed infos.

Greetings
Michael

[«Midnight»]

Thanks Michael,

Remember to include the title and URL of this post, and to keep us abreast of any feedback from Sparx.

David

BTW: You could always write this as an add-in. I suspect (without proof) that this would have to be an 'internal' add-in, receiving event notifications from EA, rather than an external program that ran EA as a COM server. This way you would have access to EA calls to create and maintain a custom window pane.

[Mr. Sanders]

David,

the request is done.

The idea of the add-in is nice, but we don't have the resources for that. 1st of all I wait for the decision of the request.

Greetings
Michael

[KP]

Perhaps to keep things sane this could be done through a new window pane - something along the lines of the Project Browser, but listing only those things you designate as favorites.

This way the new pane could be invoked for some projects, but not for others (perhaps favorites would not be as useful in small or new projects).

Something very similar to this is being implemented for EA 7.1. It is a Project View window which will allow you to create multiple custom views of the Project Browser. The custom views can be defined per model or per user and they can either be created from custom queries or by drag and drop. A Favorites folder is included. (That's all I know so far - the feature is still being developed and I was given a sneak preview only this morning)

[«Midnight»]

It certainly sounds interesting Neil. And depending on how it can by customized it would likely do the trick for Favorites. [Note the subtle nudge to communicate this to the designers and developers.]

Thanks for the insight,
David