V14Beta and V13;Difference between pin Classifier/Type/(Behavior/Parameter)?

[PeterHeintz]

What is the difference between an action pin “Classifier” an action pin “Type” and an action pin “Behavior/Parameter”?

When you drag an Activity with classified parameters as Invocation (Action) with “Structural Elements=All” action pins are created.

When selecting an action pin on the diagram, in “Element Properties/Element” you see under Advanced in property “Classifier” “name:Classifier” fitting to the parameter of the activity. Further on, in “Element Properties/Pin” you see under “Argument/Parameter” the right activity parameter for the pin. However the "Type" of the pin is empty.

When you do the same Parameter/Pin synchronization later by “Element Properties/Behavior”, in addition to the “Classifier” and “Argument/Parameter” properties the "Type" property is set as well.
Further on you are allowed to set the "Type" to something different as “Classifier”/“Argument/Parameter”.

In this case, the properties “Classifier” and “Argument/Parameter” point to the Activity parameter but the Type of cause not. In the diagram, the pin label part showing the classifier, shows the type rather than the “Classifier”/“Argument/Parameter”.

And finally you can even change the “Classifier” to something else to get a pin:
Having Classifier A, Type B and Parameter Argument C 

What is the sense of all that?

This or similar stuff exists in V13 as well.

[PeterHeintz]

Is there any hint (maybe from the Sparxians) what it would mean, to have an Action pin classified by "A", Typed by "B" and representing an Activitiy parameter of Type "C"?

[qwerty]

In general terms a Classifier types an element with a class while a Type can be any primitive type (int, etc.). A Behavior is something that describes behavior, e.g. a state machine or a text in any (meta) language.

q.

[PeterHeintz]

Yeh! But what is the sense to be able to have three different things at the same time .

[Uffe]

Hi Peter,


In 1352, if you've got an Action Pin which is slaved to an Activity Parameter, you can see (but not edit) its Behavior, and you can pick which Parameter you want to slave the Pin to.

If you've done that and you then change the Pin's Classifier (Ctrl-L), this also changes the Type of the corresponding Activity Parameter.
Conversely, if you modify the Activity Parameter's Type, any slaved Action Pins are updated.

In other words, I can't reproduce what you've got with a classifier A, type B and parameter type C. Changing the classifier changes the parameter type.

As you know, I asked a Pin-related question of my own a week or two ago. I turned that into a feature request, which I copied in a post here.
Basically, I want the Pin's properties to be non-editable when it is slaved to an Activity (or really any Behavior) Parameter.

Feel free to agree with me.


/Uffe

[PeterHeintz]

There are issues in EA, regarding action pins since many builds and the behavior slightly changes from time to time, but somehow not in the right direction.
Having the possibility to assign a pin, three different things is currently in V14Beta only.

What I did was the following:
I created a call behavior action, calling an Activitiy with parameters, what created an interaction point with the type of my parameter (let’s say “C”). Further on the Classifier was set by EA to “C”, But I changed it to “A” and to make the chaos complete I changed the Type to “B”.