drawnativeshape() - extension

[Paolo F Cantoni]

I'm currently working at documenting diagrams with "help".  To do this I have a hyperlink to other diagrams that have help "notes" on them.

It is very useful to have the help hyperlink have the same shape as the item I'm supplying help on.

In addition due to other aspects of EAUI, it is often necessary to have one type of element simulate another.

drawnativeshape() draws the native shape of the current element.  With hyperlinks that doesn't make much sense...

I'm proposing that drawnativeshape() be extended to include:
drawnativeshape("<element type>") to allow it to draw the native shape of another element type.

Thus, for example, if I'm hyperlinking on behalf of an Activity, I'd use drawnativeshape("Activity")  and EA would draw the native Activity shape.  So much easier and consistent (that word again) than having to simulate the Activity shape within a shapescript - with no real consistency in drawing between different shapescripts.

Thoughts? Votes?
Paolo

[«Midnight»]

Absolutely!

I cannot count the number of times this could have saved some real pain. For me, some of these instances resulted in abandoning the goal of using a custom shape.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

I've now been playing with MDG Technologies and it's become increasingly apparent that in order to correctly render some custom shapes, the current proposal needs to be extended to include stereotypes:

drawnativeshape("<element type>", "<stereotype>");

Thoughts?
Paolo

[Makulik]

I would vote for the "full" extension, including the (optional) stereotype parameter.

g.

[tekbe]

I agree. In the meantime: Is there a central resource to share and download ea shape scripts (including the native UML shapes)?

regards

[tekbe]

Also it would be great to use a vectorgrafic format with transparency in ea (like svg). This way it would be easy to create grafics with your favorite image drawing tool and mix them into your shape scripts (without transparency this just doesn't look good).

[Thomas Mercer-Hursh]

Got my vote Paulo ... added to the pages of requests for improving shape scripts.

Isn't it time these got some attention?  It just seems that a small burst of development could really alter our capabilities here.