Behaviour of action pins

[Uffe]

Hey all,


I'm bumping into some things I don't like with action pins. Am I the only one?

Let's say I create an activity with some parameters, and specify classes for their types.
Let's then say I create a call behavior action from the activity, with an action pin for each parameter.
Each pin thus created is correctly linked to the correct behavior (the activity) and parameter.

However, each pin is of "input" kind -- regardless of the corresponding parameter's direction.

Shouldn't the pin kind follow the parameter direction?


Furthermore, the pins do not have any types set.

Shouldn't they?


Finally, if an activity parameter's type (class) has tagged values, those tagged values are included in the parameter's extended tagged values.
A pin does not -- even after setting the type to match the corresponding parameter's, the pin has no extended tagged values.

Shouldn't tagged values be "extended-inherited" from types to pins, just as from types to parameters?


The first two I can script my way around if necessary. But there's magic behind the extended tagged values, so I'd need that to be fixed in the tool.

Or am I unreasonable -- or plain wrong -- in how I expect action pins to work?


/Uffe

[Geert Bellekens]

Seems like your expectations are reasonable, but I'm afraid activity parameters are not used that much.
So you might be the first who really wants to use those features, and decides to complain.

Geert

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Geez, Uffe,

you're becoming a real troublemaker!   Expecting EA to work in a reasonable manner! 

Happy Friday everyone!
Paolo

[PeterHeintz]

Hi Uffe,
I use activity parameters and action pins quiet often and the situation is even worse.

In addition to what you have written, I often use unnamed but classified parameters and how those are shown as pins varies from version to version (currently I have to add a space character to the pin name to get “:classifier” shown correctly) , what however is some kind of indication that Sparx at least try to improve something.

[Fadi Mhanna]

+1 for this thread.

If I understand the request here correctly, I am also interested in some way for action pins to automatically inherit the type from the input/output it's connected to.

Currently you have to manually set the type (and name) for each pin while there should at least have the possibility of having that automatically managed?

[qwerty]

With my current customer I ran into that same issue. If you have typed parameters in an activity and instantiate that, you don't get the pins in the action of the same type. Rather EA creates only unnamed pins. And the (is that funny at all?) thing is, that it only creates as many pins as the APs are named. So if you have any number of differently typed but unnamed parameters you end up with a single pin only.

That customer also complained that issues reported years ago are still open. Where have I heard that before?

Solution: find one yourself with tricky add-ins :-/

q.