Generating an MDG is quite tedious (especially if you have a lot of toolbox profiles), the current process is:
1..10 Right click on each UML profile, diagram, and toolbox package (I have 10 or more of these), then export the UML profile
11. Launch the MDG generation, select the MTS file
12. Click through and review, change options
13. Click generate and get your MDG file
I have a suggestion that would make things easier.
- Store the MTS options in the model somehow, similar to the document generation specification
- Associate packages with the MDG rather than UML profile exports
- Generating the MDG would encapsulate the profile export to a temp location for each referenced package
- When generating the MDG from the specification, it would save any changes to the spec, as per the MTS behaviour
This would make MDG generation simple:
1. click to launch the wizard
2. review/update the options as per the existing MTS procedure
3. Click go and all the exporting and joining together would happen, giving you an MDG at the end.
Failing this, possibly:
- Use the File attribute on the UML profile packages to populate the UML profile export filename
- Add a function to the project object to export a UML profile (something like the XMI export/import functions)
- Add a function to the automation interface to autogenerate an MDG using an MTS file.
The whole process could be tied together with a script.
In addition to this, all paths should use the local paths variables (including the MTS file), so external icons, UML profile output, MDG output are all relocatable.
