Disabling the (spurious) nesting of visually enclosed items

[Paolo F Cantoni]

We have had issues in the past with EA confusing Visual Enclosure with Nesting.  But we developed a technique that allowed us to visually embed the items on the diagram as required WITHOUT having EA nest them in the browser.

Recently, we have returned to the exploration of visual enclosure and its impact on the model.  (It's a LONG time since we played with any new visual enclosure so it may have always been thus, and we didn't notice it.)

Anyway, we have found that if we accidentally move a visually enclosed item the item will be suddenly (and for us unexpectedly) NESTED under the enclosing item.  We are able to move the items out from being nested to their correct locations (we have specific folder for specific item metatypes).  The visual enclosure is NOT affected.  So we're VERY annoyed with the behaviour (espeically since it can be shown to be theoretically incorrect - particularly in the case of ArchiMate)

Is there any way to stop this behaviour (out of the box)?

Paolo

[Geert Bellekens]

I think you are looking for the option Preferences | Objects | Support for Composite objects.

From the help:

Support for Composite Objects

Select the checkbox to:

Display a hashed border within a valid parent element when you drag a potential child element onto it in a diagram
Automatically embed the child element in their parent element in the model, when you drag and drop the child element onto the parent element in a diagram
Automatically disengage the child element from the parent (break the child-parent relationship) in the model when you drag the child element out of its parent element
Deselect the checkbox to not display the hashed border and to not embed the child element in the parent in the model.

Geert

[Paolo F Cantoni]

I think you are looking for the option Preferences | Objects | Support for Composite objects.

[SNIP]

Geert

Ask, and ye shall receive!

Thanks Geert!  That did the trick - so I guess it was NOT always thus.

Seems like another misnomer to me.  The objects are not composed, they are nested.

Paolo