Questions about Model Glossary

[Ewout124]

I am doing some experiments with setting up a Model Glossary. When I am defining a new glossary entry, I would like to specify some other versions of the entry. For example, when I am defining a noun, I would like to specify the plural form of the noun. Thus, when the plural form is specified somewhere in a description, the plural form should be recognized as a defined term, and the definition (of the singular form) should show up as a tooltip. Is it possible to accomplish this?

Somethind else: I noticed that when a term is used at the end of a sentence, i.e. when the term is immediately followed by a period, the term is not recognized as a defined term. This seems very strange to me. Is there a way to make sure that a period is not interpreted as belonging to the term? (For example, when a glossary entry has been defined for the term XYZ, and the glossary has been reloaded, the term XYZ will be underlined when it is used somewhere else, for example in the definition of another term. This works fine in most cases. But when the term XYZ is followed by a period (like '[...] XYZ.') the term XYZ is not underlined.)

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Hi,

I raised almost identical issues over a decade ago.  You can probably still find the posts in the forum.  Nothing has changed, and likely will not.  The only solution for the present is to create separate entries for the different word forms with duplicated descriptions.

You might also try adding an entry with the trailing "." to see if the editor picks it up at the end of the sentence.  Let us know how that goes.

Paolo

[qwerty]

Well, I found out early that EA's glossary is a cul-de-sac. So I made up my own stereotypes to model golssary definitions. Since I'm also creating documentation my own way, it's easy to include a custom glossary that covers only those terms actually being used in a documentation. Of course these terms can not be used as the hyperlinked EA glossary terms. Choose your death.

q.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

I wasn't quite correct in saying nothing had changed in the decade.  There has been an attempt to allow the creation of Glossaries from within the model itself (as model elements) but, from memory, that didn't really address the issues mentioned here.


Paolo

[Ewout124]

Paolo, I understand your suggestion ('The only solution for the present is to create separate entries for the different word forms with duplicated descriptions') but this does not seem to be a sound solution. I am afraid it would soon result in a maintenance nightmare.

I get the impression that using the Model Glossary would not be a good choice. Do you have any suggestions for a good alternative? I am wondering if it would possible to use SKOS in some way. Does Sparx EA support SKOS? I have not yet found any detailed information about this.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Paolo, I understand your suggestion ('The only solution for the present is to create separate entries for the different word forms with duplicated descriptions') but this does not seem to be a sound solution. I am afraid it would soon result in a maintenance nightmare.

I get the impression that using the Model Glossary would not be a good choice. Do you have any suggestions for a good alternative? I am wondering if it would possible to use SKOS in some way. Does Sparx EA support SKOS? I have not yet found any detailed information about this.

We have developed our own Ontological Modelling mechanism (vaguely related to some of the SKOS concepts).  We use it as the basis for our Controlled Language.  We can generate vocabularies and Glossaries from that, but in order to get that output into EA itself so that the terms are linked, we generate the solution I previously described.


You could, if you wish, create a SKOS MDG yourself, but that is as far as support from Sparx is likely to go.  We've found our ontological model useful since we can now connect real-life artifacts, tables, columns, reports measures, KPIs etc to the model element directly.

HTH,
Paolo