Any sign of layers yet?

[Rudy]

Although this may be an old suggestion, I am still hoping that Sparx will one day implement layers in EA.

As I use EA mainly for business processes, requirements and business rules, I'd still love to be able to have these different elements in a single diagram, yet in different layers. This should allow me to show/hide the elements that I want to see or don't want to see,

Is there already any indication if Sparx will implement something like this, and of so, when?

[mrf]

 Layering behaviour can be achieved through the Diagram Filters facility.

Have a look at http://www.sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/navigate_search_a... for more details

[MagnusH]

Hi,

I have not been able to use the filters for the purpose I need layers for; in order to reuse a common design between different products based on this common design.

More specific:
* I want to have one diagram describing the common part for many products.
* The diagram above shuold be the "background" for doing several other diagrams, each for one product, with small additions in each of them.

How to do this? Can filters be used? (Today we export the common diagram as WMF file and import it as image and use a boundary symbol with the image in each product specific diagram as background).

Too complicate it even more I want to do this in many levels...

Thanks,
Magnus

[Geert Bellekens]

Magnus,

You can filter diagrams based on several element features.
I think you should be able to find a suitable feature to use for your layering.

Geert

[Eve]

I would recommend using the keywords field to specify which of your base layers it belongs to.  You then define multiple filters on for each layer you want to individually show.

[MagnusH]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will try that and let you know the result.

// Magnus

[Rudy]

wow,

I was not aware of the model filter option. It's a nice start, and comes in the direction of layers. I really like the different filter effects.

The reason why it still does not suffice as layers is because i.m.h.o. layers are applied per diagram, where the filters are applied globally. (When I create a filter to e.g. hide the actors, all diagrams that I open with actors on the diagrams are hidden.) With my presentation form, consisting of an export of all images and embedding the images in other documents, this will not allow me to show actors on one diagram, and hide them on another diagram.

As improvement I would suggest to define the filter action per filter, and not globally. This would allow to hide the actors and at the same time fade the use-cases, placing emphasis on the bounderies of the use-case diagram. (not the most logical thing to do, but used as example to clarify my objections).

With a little bit more attention, and implementation of the issues I mentioned above, I could see the "smart layers" work really well and help me hugely while I'm using EA for analysis and design.