What am I missing

[ChrisMW]

I distinctly remember being able to link to activities using a control flow, yet currently, I get a message that this is not UML complant. So, create an activity diagram, add a statr node and 2 activities and when I try to add any controlflow, it refuses. This is on EA 15.2. and 15.1, however, on 14.1 it works fine (although for a control flow between two activities I have to drag from the toolbox, rather than using the diagram control). When I load the 14.1 diagram in 15.2, it shows the flow, I can edit it, but it still refuses to add new flows to those elements. What am I missing, or is this not as it should be?

[qwerty]

Probably some misconfigured MDG with constraints for relationships. You can temporarily fix that by turning of Strict Connector Syntax in the General/Connectors settings.

q.

[Geert Bellekens]

Yes, EA used to allow control flows between activities.
This was always wrong, and has been corrected in a recent version.

Control flows are allowed between actions (and decisions, etc...). You should not have control flows from/to Activities.

Geert

[ChrisMW]

Ok, so if I look here:  https://www.uml-diagrams.org/activity-diagrams.html
It says "Activity Edge is an abstract class for the directed connections along which tokens or data objects flow between activity nodes. It includes control edges and object flow edges. The source and target of an edge must be in the same activity as the edge.

Activity edge is notated by an open arrowhead line connecting two activity nodes. "

And the picture shown looks to me like a control flow, so rather than discussing what the name is, which relationship should I use in EA to do what it says here?

[qwerty]

Oh yes. Did not read carefully. What Geert said!

q.

P.S. You were pointing to Actions, not Activities in UML-diagrams...

[Geert Bellekens]

Ok, so if I look here:  https://www.uml-diagrams.org/activity-diagrams.html
It says "Activity Edge is an abstract class for the directed connections along which tokens or data objects flow between activity nodes. It includes control edges and object flow edges. The source and target of an edge must be in the same activity as the edge.

Activity edge is notated by an open arrowhead line connecting two activity nodes. "

And the picture shown looks to me like a control flow, so rather than discussing what the name is, which relationship should I use in EA to do what it says here?

It says between activity nodes, not Activities, so the things that are defined in an Activity such as Actions, decistion, start nodes, etc...
Activities are not activity nodes, but merely the owner of these activity nodes. That's also why it says The source and target of an edge must be in the same activity as the edge e.g. all of these things are owned by the Activity.

This is comparable to StateMachines and States. StacheMachine is like Activity, the owner of the States. But on a StateMachine diagram you won't find any StateMachines.

Geert

[ChrisMW]

Got it, I've gotten lazy with EA's previous relaxed approach..... The comparision with states and state machines was very helpful.... Thnx.....