Getting quick linker to work

[Jayson]

Heyo
Its been a couple of years since I developed an MDG and I fear I have lost some of my MDG mojo (actually most of it!).
I am trying to remember how to get the quick linker working and am having ZERO luck.
In order to remove as many possible causes as possible, I decided to use the sample MDG that the guys at Tiger Team publish .
From there I added a custom connector and a quick link definition file but am getting precisely nowhere.
If I look at the resultant MDG file the quick linker definition IS turning up in the <QuickLinkData> tag. However when I load the resultant MDG into a new project the quick linker doesn't work.

P.S. How can I upload the files here for you to look at?

All and any help appreciated

Jays :-)

[qwerty]

Well, a PITA is an amusement compared to getting a QL to work. My advice: start with a one-liner. Best from the help pages or where ever you get one from. Then step---by---step (many, many exclamation marks) add a copy of the first line and make one (!!!) change and see if it works. You know, that to test a QL you need to restart (again those exclamation marks!) EA. Just reloading the MDG won't do. Test the change. If it does not work - go back one step. Try again whether the previous one still works (after doing this a couple of times you will need a coffee or two). Git is helpful here by checking in a copy of the QL data. Also, transferring a QL definition from and to a spreadsheet holds lots of traps. It's such a pain. And never forget: only ONE change a time. If you need to maintain a large QL definition you know what you have done.

I don't believe that V15 brings any more happiness into that.

q.

[Eve]

My recommendation for defining a quicklinker is to define metamodel constraints within your profile. It bypasses most of the pain.

At its simplest, create a stereotyped relationship connector from your source stereotype to your target stereotype.

To test them I always select the profile in the project browser and select to Specialize > Technologies > Publish-Tech > Import Package as UML Profile. Then open to a diagram containing the elements you want and try the quicklinker. While debugging I would recommend disabling the 'Filter to Toolbox' so that everything shows. That's more helpful for end users of your profile.

When using the quicklinker table there are a lot of other things to watch out for. Off the top of my head.

• Filter to toolbox is a change to behavior from previous versions.
• Using a diagram filter, overrides the above but is its own source of subtle failures
• Exclusive to stereotype without a source stereotype is now completely skipped. (Which was itself a problem where a rogue rule could block everything on base UML types)
• Identical menu items are silently removed
• Typos anywhere. A rule that doesn't match your types is potentially valid for another type so there's no warning