Hyperlinks not resizable (7.5)

[Paolo F Cantoni]

In past versions, Hyperlinks could be resized (to be as big or a small as desired).  We would put borders around them and they would behave like "composite" boundaries.  We have them all over our models!  They were VERY useful!

In v7.5 (844) they aren't resizable any longer.  Our diagrams have been distorted and no longer "make sense"

Steps:
Create a hyperlink, format it with a border.  Attempt to resize.  Observe hyperlink shape returns to the default size...

Reported,
Paolo

[«Midnight»]

Ouch!

Variations on hyperlinks have been the only way around some limitations of EA navigation. Without resizable borders it is particularly easy to have hyperlinks malfunction (from the users' point of view, which is all that matters). Not only that, but once you make the borders invisible you can 'lose' the hyperlinks easily. If the links are resizing then they become particularly difficult to locate.

Not good, not good at all.

[Eve]

Text elements where changed to auto-size so that selection (and following hyperlinks) worked as expected.  You'll find that if the hyperlink has a background color, it works like a note, only resizing up if the contents doesn't fit.  If no background is being displayed it resizes down too so that you don't click on empty space and find it's actually a text element.

The behavior previously was messing up a lot of users.

If I could actually get a border to display without setting a background color, I would say that it should behave the same way as the background color.

So, my question is.  How can you format a hyperlink with a border.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Text elements where changed to auto-size so that selection (and following hyperlinks) worked as expected.  You'll find that if the hyperlink has a background color, it works like a note, only resizing up if the contents doesn't fit.  If no background is being displayed it resizes down too so that you don't click on empty space and find it's actually a text element.

The behavior previously was messing up a lot of users.

If I could actually get a border to display without setting a background color, I would say that it should behave the same way as the background color.

So, my question is.  How can you format a hyperlink with a border.

I think I missed that change in the release notes.... Can you point me to it Simon?

I REALLY wanted a "composite" (navigable) border but since I couldn't have that, as David (Midnight) points out, the next best thing was a hyperlink.

How to format a hyperlink with a border:

USE EAUI of course.... Because EA's UI is SO self-inconsistent you just use one of the many incompatible ways to format your items.  In this case, you create a shape script and use the fact that you can assign stereotypes to all sorts of items via the Properties [Alt+1] Window.

What we, the users, would prefer is complete control over the rendering of items in a consistent manner....  [Yes, I know I'm taking a very broad generalization - but I'll await any contradiction by any other user....]

I've got the work-around by unmarking the [  ] Use default colour checkbox for the (*) Background colour radio button on the Set Default Appearance [F4] dialog.  STILL, I have to reformat ALL the affected diagrams... "Not happy Jan..." (reference to a famous Australian TV commercial for Yellow Pages)

Paolo

[Eve]

I think I missed that change in the release notes.... Can you point me to it Simon?

Modified handling of text elements so that they automatically resize to fit the text being displayed.

Well, I admit I hadn't thought of shape scripts.  But I've applied a shape script.  It no longer resizes, so there must be something else.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

I think I missed that change in the release notes.... Can you point me to it Simon?

Modified handling of text elements so that they automatically resize to fit the text being displayed.

Well, I admit I hadn't thought of shape scripts.  But I've applied a shape script.  It no longer resizes, so there must be something else.

Well, no wonder I missed the change... It's NOT intuitively obvious that a hyperlink is a text element;  AND in any case, the statement is NOT true... It ONLY applies if the [X] Use default color checkbox is makred for the appearance!

Here's my "Clayton's" Shapescript...

Code: [Select]

shape main
{
      setlinestyle("Dash");
      rectangle(0,0,100,100);
      Drawnativeshape();
}
Paolo

[«Midnight»]

Hyperlinks are actually text elements - this has been documented someplace I think, but was not very obvious when I first used them through automation. That causes some interesting side effects on its own.

I think there's only one way out here: create an option to autosize a text element. There might be a global version of this option, but it should also be applicable on an individual basis for each text element and instance.

What say?