847: Actors don't have rectangular notation

[Paolo F Cantoni]

I don't know if this is a bug or a feature request. A search of the forum reveals that at some stage Actors DID have the ability to display in Rectangular Notation.  Now, whether these were indeed "real" Actors (t_object.Type="Actor") or classes masquerading as Actors isn't clear.

What is CLEAR is that if you right-click on an (real) Actor and try to use Advanced>Use Rectangle Notation - you'll find it grayed out.

EDIT:  This is because the Actor had a stereotype that executed a shape script!

Why can't EVERY EA element type be displayed in Rectangular Notation?

EDIT: It turns out, if you take the stereotype off and switch to rectangular notation, you can THEN put the stereotype back and get a rectangular actor!

If you show the Notes for an Actor (Set Feature Visibility), they become visible, but you can't vary the width of the Notes display to greater then that of the Actor glyph itself.  So you end up with a VERY LONG, VERY THIN set of words trailing below the Actor...

EDIT: Notes BUG appears to be a rendering bug... The Notes, specifically, display in this distorted fashion, other Features (such as Responsibilities) are rendered more usefully.  Indeed, they even respond to the resizing commands of the Set Feature Visibility.

Reported,
Paolo

[Frank Horn]

We're still on 7.1.834 and it's perfectly allright, at least as far as the first issue is concerned: actors can be displayed in rectangular notation.

As to the second issue: the notes compartment can't be scaled seperately for any element, so I don't think they'll change this.

[Geert Bellekens]

Just tested on 847 and it works here.
(aha, the classical "works on my machine" response )
I can set my Actors (real actors) to rectangular notation.

Any chance the actors you are trying to change are locked? (or the diagram for that matter)

Geert

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Thanks for the pointers boys... As you can see from the edited main post, I've "sussed out" some of the issues.

I've now got to check if I can consistently create rectangular notation for any element (regardless of whether the stereotype triggers a shape script).  When I've got that sorted, we can discuss how the functionality should work more conistently...

Paolo

[Paolo F Cantoni]

I've received a request from Sparx seeking my views on how things aught to behave.  I've suggested to them that we use the forum to gauge user feeling on this matter (or two).

I'm just going to "kick off" with some preliminary thoughts and we can take it from there.

Firstly, following my manual experiments (followed up by some automation tests), it is clear that it is quite possible (using EA's inconsistent interface) to create a rectangular notation diagram object even though the item has a shapescript attached and therefore the option is disabled.  So, it seems to me that disabling the option to convert a shapescripted object to rectangular notation is spurious.  Just allow the user to do it.

Secondly, since we often want to expose the internals of the item on the diagram, at present, the only means of doing this is via "rectangular notation".  So, it seems to me that every element type (even if this is not currently so) should be able to be rendered in rectangular notation.

For many, though not all, element types (at least those for which rectangular notation is no the "default" rendering) when they change to rectangular notation place the previous shape in the top right hand corner.  This is a good paradigm, in my view, and should be extended to all such element types.  Actor, the subject of this topic, is an example of the rectangular notation NOT placing the little stick man at the top right.

We can extend the paradigm to say:  If we make the top right of the rectangular notation a "canvas"; then, if there is a shapescript applied, when we select rectangular notation the shapescript is drawn (reduced to scale) on the canvas.  Since most of the shapescript commands deal in percentages scaling should be easy.

Thoughts?
Paolo

[«Midnight»]

We should also consider invoking the event(s) related to compartments when rectangular notation is used for shape scripted elements, when they use rectangular notation. When the rectangular notation option is turned off then these events would or would not be triggered (or would or would not have visible effect) according to the 'normal' rules for scripted rendering scripted.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

I've sent a reminder prompt to Sparx:

Any advance on this?  In particular, the rendering of the long, skinny, notes if the Notes compartment is selected in Actor notation?  It's really getting a real pain!

Also:
If you enable the Notes compartment (in Actor notation) and then make the Actor composite, the chain link is placed at the bottom of the notes, not at the bottom of the Actor stickman!  

It looks really weird and interferes with the reading of the notes - big time!

Paolo

[Paolo F Cantoni]

See: Rectangular notation for ALL shapes... for more details and to provide support for a fix...

TIA,
Paolo