Help! Tag dialog inconsistency on multiple machines!

[Paolo F Cantoni]

I have a number of machines which are running the same version of EA using the same MDG file - with a complete set of tags defined for that profile.  On my principle one, when I use the Add Tag dialog, I get the full list, the general (so-called default), internal tag list and the profile tags.  In the others, I've just noticed (don't know how long this has been going on) that ONLY the general (and internal) are listed.  The profile tags are missing!

Has anyone seen this, or has a clue as to why this is happening? Is there a setting that controls this?  It's a pretty severe problem for us!

TIA,
Paolo

[Geert Bellekens]

Probably has something to do with selecting a perspective.

Geert

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Probably has something to do with selecting a perspective.

Geert

Perpective, pershmective!  I'm not using perspectives AFAIK (or am I)

However, you may well be right!

I'll investigate.

Paolo

[Geert Bellekens]

Probably has something to do with selecting a perspective.

Geert

Perpective, perspective!  I'm not using perspectives AFAIK (or am I)

However, you may well be right!

I'll investigate.

Paolo

You wouldn't be the first that inadvertently was using a perspective that hid part of the MDG's

Geert

[qwerty]

Argh. KP recommended to use perspectives for hiding elements in that dreaded model wizard. Looks like have to replace one plaque with another. Or more precise: deal with both of them. So far I could avoid that.

q.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Probably has something to do with selecting a perspective.

Geert

Perpective, perspective!  I'm not using perspectives AFAIK (or am I)

However, you may well be right!

I'll investigate.

Paolo

You wouldn't be the first that inadvertently was using a perspective that hid part of the MDG's

Geert

So how do I find out if a perspective is active?  A quick read of the help didn't provide me with that information.

Paolo

[Geert Bellekens]

So how do I find out if a perspective is active?  A quick read of the help didn't provide me with that information.

Paolo

I haven't really figured that out (since I don't use perspectives myself either)
What seems to work is start adding a diagram. Then from the New Diagram dialog select "All" perspectives.

I'm pretty sure there a "better" way

Geert

[Uffe]

So how do I find out if a perspective is active?  A quick read of the help didn't provide me with that information.

Main window, bottom right. Just left of the zoom slider.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

So how do I find out if a perspective is active?  A quick read of the help didn't provide me with that information.

Paolo

I haven't really figured that out (since I don't use perspectives myself either)
What seems to work is to start adding a diagram. Then from the New Diagram dialog select "All" perspectives.

I'm pretty sure there's a "better" way

Geert

You beat me to it by a "whisker".
I used the perspective "all-seeing eye" dropdown at the top right of the screen and selected ALL.  Suddenly, all my profile tags returned!

Since multiple perspectives can appear to be active, there should be an "Active" tab on the Manage Perspectives... dialog.

For the moment... "Panic over, chaps!"

Paolo

[Paolo F Cantoni]

So how do I find out if a perspective is active?  A quick read of the help didn't provide me with that information.

Main window, bottom right. Just left of the zoom slider.

Ah, yes, now it reads "All Perspectives"

Thanks, Uffe!

Paolo

[Eve]

Perspectives are a tool that every EA power user should become familiar with. EA supports a lot of technologies and modeling languages that you will never use. The default perspectives will help reduce that clutter for the built-in technologies. But use the 'All Specialized' perspective and magic happens. You will instantly see only the stuff your own technologies define.

In other posts you complained about how your stuff gets pushed to the bottom of big lists, that you couldn't find your technology tags etc. The 'All Specialized' perspective is the answer to those complaints. But it gets even better when you define custom perspectives to select one or more of your specialized technologies. Then even your own types don't need to get in your way while you're using another technology. You'll also be glad to see that your custom defined perspectives appear at the top of the available perspectives.

If you want to go one step further, try making one or more of those perspectives strict. It will suppress all toolbox items and quicklinks for anything outside of your perspective. Even "Common" items. EA becomes tightly focused on the type of model you are trying to create in that moment.

You can also take a strict perspective and further restrict the items it exposes. Again, tightening your focus on what you are doing, removing distractions. You can always change back to another perspective that doesn't have the restriction when you're done.

The big picture of this is when you as a model administrator can then assign a set of perspectives to each security group so that those users are limited to the perspectives you provide. When you've done this, even their 'All' perspective is limited to the technologies that you have allowed them.

[Geert Bellekens]

Perspectives are a tool that every EA power user should become familiar with. EA supports a lot of technologies and modeling languages that you will never use. The default perspectives will help reduce that clutter for the built-in technologies. But use the 'All Specialized' perspective and magic happens. You will instantly see only the stuff your own technologies define.

In other posts you complained about how your stuff gets pushed to the bottom of big lists, that you couldn't find your technology tags etc. The 'All Specialized' perspective is the answer to those complaints. But it gets even better when you define custom perspectives to select one or more of your specialized technologies. Then even your own types don't need to get in your way while you're using another technology. You'll also be glad to see that your custom defined perspectives appear at the top of the available perspectives.

If you want to go one step further, try making one or more of those perspectives strict. It will suppress all toolbox items and quicklinks for anything outside of your perspective. Even "Common" items. EA becomes tightly focused on the type of model you are trying to create in that moment.

You can also take a strict perspective and further restrict the items it exposes. Again, tightening your focus on what you are doing, removing distractions. You can always change back to another perspective that doesn't have the restriction when you're done.

The big picture of this is when you as a model administrator can then assign a set of perspectives to each security group so that those users are limited to the perspectives you provide. When you've done this, even their 'All' perspective is limited to the technologies that you have allowed them.

Eve,

In theory that sounds good, but we did have some hickups when trying to implement that strategy (custom perspectives linked to user groups) and in the end we opted to simply remove the MDG technology files we don't need from the program files folder. (this clients works exclusively on remote desktop, so that was a doable option)
Unfortunately I don't remember exactly what those hick-ups where, but I think it had to do with like tagged value types that didn't get filtered

I must say that I do find it annoying that we now again have multiple ways to sorta do the same thing.
You can limit the MDG technologies in a repository (but that didn't work 100% reliable either) through the model settings, or now with the perspectives.
They both work almost, not not quite 100%

Removing the files from the program files folder works 100% reliable

Geert

[qwerty]

Unfortunately at my customer they deliver a "standard installation" only. Means, the department gets EA as it is with no way to remove that rubbish MDGs/patterns from the program folder. Insane, but that's what you find in large companies.

I remember having looked into perspectives and I also remember having thrown the towel (pretty sure because of Sparx' banana software strategy). Well, I'll give it a second try. I'm prepared to anything when it comes to EA. So let's see...

q.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Perspectives are a tool that every EA power user should become familiar with.
[SNIP]

When I first heard about them, I could see that they were very powerful and that I should become familiar with them!  But, based on my view that they were more intimately related to and managed better by the new metamodel based regime, determined that I would investigate them when I'd converted to the new regime.

In the meantime, life should proceed as before.  But as we can see, it didn't!

Again, with my scant overview of the Perspectives functionality, it's not clear to me if this is a repository, user or machine settings set.  Can you advise?
We need to understand how to make EA "an offer it can't refuse" with respect to the Perspectives available to my users until we're ready to implement them more fully.

Paolo

[Edit: A colleague has pointed out that "All Specialized" is a bit of an oxymoron.  I agree.  It reminds me of a car mechanic's shop I pass every day on my bike ride to work.  It advertises: "Specialist in ALL makes and models".  Now THAT's an oxymoron!]

[Eve]

@Geert, if your problem was the tagged values then that one would appear to be solved. I don't know if you have multiple technologies left over. If you do, you may still find that perspectives help so that you can easily switch between one at a time.

@qwerty, you can probably assume anything I'm talking about applies to the latest version of EA. Some of the useful things I mentioned are only in 15.1. You may not see them.

@Paolo, there's very little related to the metamodel contstraints in perspectives. The one thing is that you can further restrict what the rules allow for your connectors. (eg. if one role only needs to use a connector in one of the circumstances it's allowed)

Custom perspectives can be defined at a model or user level. The selected perspective is a user setting, but EA will remember different settings if you use a model where a restriction is applied to you.

The offer EA can't refuse would probably be to define a model perspective that only includes the technologies you define. Assign that to all user groups you don't want to be able to play with other stuff.