As we (in our repository - not the user community in general
) create more and more "landscape" diagrams (where we try to show either the entire enterprise or a significant portion thereof) for one or more specific topics, we encounter performance issues (with such large diagrams with hundreds of vertices on them). We've established there appears to be a Zooming problem (as you zoom in and out of such a diagram, there's a point where performance disappears down a "black hole").
There have been hints both from our own observations and from Sparxians that (at least some of) the problems are related to the relationships on the diagram. As the number of arcs associated with the diagram (whether visible or not) increases, performance degrades. Now if the arcs are visible, this seems reasonable, but it seems as though visibility doesn't seem to affect this.
Arguments can be made that since one can unhide an arc at any time, you need to track even the hidden arcs as you affect items (either by moving or zooming etc.).
However, we're noticing that the vast majority of our "landscape" diagrams IGNORE arcs completely. That is, although in the background the vertices may be related by manifold arcs, we're just not interested in them. They are Vertex ONLY diagrams.
Accordingly, it seems to me that if we extend the [ ] Show Relationships concept to add [ ] Ignore Relationships (which, by definition, requires that [ ] Show Relationships is unmarked) to say don't bother with arcs on this diagram. EA can then completely skip the arc processing aspects of diagram management. This should greatly reduce the processing load.
The Show Visible Relationships dialog would be amended so that if [X] Ignore Relationships is marked, it would say "You can't show/hide relationships because you've marked [X] Ignore Relationships. Would you like to unmark [X] Ignore Relationships?" If yes, it would then populate the dialog.
Thoughts?
Paolo
