Is there a possibility to use the footer

[marcelloh]

Can I use the footer to put in the package name or stuff like that?

I tried something, but it came out Japanese or something.

[«Midnight»]

Just a guess here, but...

Make sure you have the Jet 4.0 option set on the Tools | Options | General dialog. [Remember to exit and restart EA if you change this setting.]

You might be seeing incorrectly rendered Unicode characters.

David

[marcelloh]

I did as suggested, but now it is not possible to put in any stuff except for the stuff I can choose via the menu.
But the good part is: no unreadable documentation.

So the question remains the same:
How to get package-name or something inside the footer?

[«Midnight»]

First, just to be sure, download the Jet 4.0 EA Base project from the Sparx site. It is on the Resources Page. I think you unpack it and rename it to EABase.EAP, then copy it to your EA installation directory. For safety, rename your existing EABase file first (so you can go back if need be).

[I have already suggested this become the default; Sparx is considering this for the future. You could make your own suggestion if you want - since the Jet 3.51 file was trashing your footers, regardless of how you worked with them - to help Sparx work out the priority of this change.]

Now to the real question; how to get custom text - "something" (as you phrase one of your alternatives) from the model rather than 'canned' text - into the footer?

My guess is that you need a field value based on an EA macro expansion. There are two big questions here. Can this be done at all? And if so, which of the various expansion paradigms would be appropriate here. [EA handles macro expansion in several places, not all the same way. Paolo would be on the soapbox about this being inconsistent; Paolo would be correct.]

All I can suggest is that you look through the help for macros and other field expansion entries, and try each.

[edit]Start with what you were doing before. How were you getting anything - regardless of what characters were being displayed - in to the footer using Jet 3.51?[/edit]

David

[«Midnight»]

Just to muddy the waters a bit more...

One more thing. Are you referring to a Master Document, via a Documentation Package? If so, are you trying to identify the Document Package (as opposed to some other package) in the footer? Or are you trying to have EA identify the package that is in scope when the current page of a document is being generated?

In the latter case there are other factors to consider. For example, if the package scope changes while the page is being generated, which package should be identified in the footer? Which one would be identified if you wanted this information in the header? As you can see, these two questions might very well have different answers. [Consider the same question if the package scope changes more than once. Now consider the situation if both the header and footer show the 'current' package.]

The two answers above seem to require finer granularity than I have noticed in the EA documentation. That does not mean it is not possible, or even obvious; it might be a limitation on my part.

David

[marcelloh]

macro expansion is a combination I can find just one in the help, and can't figure out what is mentioned there has something to do with my question. I've read it, but it doesn't ring a bell.

But let me explain more about my wish.
If I generate documents of a package, or a Use Case, it would be nice to put in the footer not only a page number, but also the name of the use case. (And perhaps it's parent would also be nice, meaning the package).
If I could put in the template something like %parentname% - %elementname% it would be fine. Let's say there is no parentname, because I'm generating from the highest level, it just needs to be empty.


If I generate a document

[Oliver F.]

Be careful because David made a valid point about scope...

If you look at the template editor you will notice that the package encapsulates the element section Meaning that a package can have further packages inside as well as elements.
That works if you put it in a flat document body. But moving it into the header/footer you almost certainly break this hierarchy leaving you alone with some unpredictable results.

That hierarchy will not make it possible to predict the current package, especially not if the package changes on a page (and it might change more than once....)

So I doubt that it will work at all, sorry.

Oliver