Stereotype adornment NOT working for some...

[Paolo F Cantoni]

We used to have things like «Table», «View», «procedure» adorned with specific appearance changes (via the Settings|UML... dialog - not using shape scripts but just the Default Colors).

Sometime in the recent past, these adornments stopped being applied for us.  Anyone else noticed this?  Not all stereotypes are affected - in particular it seems the "special" ones (where it appears EA uses the stereotype to, in effect, define a new type of element) are the ones that refuse to budge.

I was hoping this would be fixed in 846, but it would appear not and it's now getting a bit problematic for us.

TIA,
Paolo

[«Midnight»]

Looks like a bug. My tables don't update themselves with the new colors, that's for sure.

Did you report this? [Yes, I know. But somebody has to ask; it might as well be me.]

But hark yonder! Open the Stereotype dialog (via the [...] button) and take a look at the «table» stereotype that's listed. Unique among the offered list, this one has an "Apply to" entry of "class, class" rather than to just "class" as do the others. I wonder if this has anything to do with the problem.

I also note that this is a stereotype from the EAUI profile. At least it is in the aforementioned dialog. It also retains the "Apply to" anomaly in this profile.

I tried to trick EA by creating an 'explicit' stereotype of EAUI::table and assigning a fill color. No results. I did however notice that the Stereotypes dialog defaulted to a fill color of black, instead of the 'normal' background. That would not be good for new stereotypes. But I'll leave Sparx to pick up on that. The Stereotypes dialog has been fragile for far too long, and I have had no luck with bug reports in this area.

Back to you Paolo...

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Looks like a bug. My tables don't update themselves with the new colors, that's for sure.

Did you report this? [Yes, I know. But somebody has to ask; it might as well be me.

Reported now...

My setup is sufficiently different from the "norm" for me to confirm that others also see the problem and it's not just related to my specific configuration (see recent bug on Namespace browsing...)

As you suggest, David, there's definitely something "crook in Tobruk" with regard to stereotypes.  My model is sooo OLD that my table stereotype still only has "class" rather than the "class,class" we observe in the EAExample.

Some other stereotypes are also duplicated in the same way - which begs the question - are the two entires identical or not?  If identical, they should be normalized to a single entry.  If not identical then more information needs to be provided to the user to be able to select the correct one for the specific purpose in hand.

We'll see what Sparx has to say...

Paolo

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Feedback from Sparx...

The issue is related to the new Basic UML 2 Technology (Settings|MDG Technologies... - Switch this off, restart EA and your adornments appear).  I don't know what the implications of turning  Basic UML 2 Technology off are, but in any case, in my view, the Settings|UML... should override the supplied MDG adornments regardless - since that's one of the major reasons for the dialog...

Thoughts?
Paolo

[«Midnight»]

...
I don't know what the implications of turning  Basic UML 2 Technology off are, but in any case, in my view, the Settings|UML... should override the supplied MDG adornments regardless - since that's one of the major reasons for the dialog...

Thoughts?
Paolo

I agree.

And the Sparx-supplied UML 2 Technology seems to pop up all over the place. I suspect strongly (though without proof) that disabling this would affect how EA functions in several areas.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

I agree.

And the Sparx-supplied UML 2 Technology seems to pop up all over the place. I suspect strongly (though without proof) that disabling this would affect how EA functions in several areas.

Exactly, hence my reticence to turn it off...

Paolo

[«Midnight»]

We could always go back to UML 1.4.2. There would be solace in the fact that it is an ISO standard; the fact that it is so out of date is something that's easy and convenient to ignore.

Of course that route would leave one important question unanswered: why adopt EA in the first place?

One of the big selling points of EA is its solid support for UML 2. Another is the power of EA's handling of UML extensions. Both are mentioned in the first sentence of the Enterprise Architect product page on the Sparx Web site. Are we expected to choose between these?

Quite a conundrum...

[B3ip]

same problem ... Use Settings UML to change Default Colors for a particular stereotype ... and they don't work.  Existing stereotypes with different default colors still work correctly.