Sparx Systems Forum

Enterprise Architect => General Board => Topic started by: andykennelly on July 16, 2013, 01:05:05 am

Title: Impact analysis - objects rather than links
Post by: andykennelly on July 16, 2013, 01:05:05 am
I can drop an element as a link on a digaram, but only once. If I want that same element to appear more than once on the same diagram I have to drop it on as an object.
While this might be correct UML modelling, my questions about this are:-
1. If a particluar element is used a number of times in a diagram (or across several diagrams in the same folder/project) the project browser gets quite cluttered. Is there a way to hide these (assuming that's not bad practice?!)?
2. I can't find a way to trace back to the actual element, e.g. alt+G whilst cursor is on the digram object results in the project browser object being highlighted - it doesn't position on the element of which the object is an instance.
3. Similarly, View/Traceability doesn't "trace back" to the element itself.
I can't see how, in a scenario where I've had to use objects, that I can do full impact analysis on an element (i.e. if an element is stored in Folder 1 and modelled as an object in Folder2, how do I find out where that element is used in other folders?).

I'm sure I'm missing something basic.
Title: Re: Impact analysis - objects rather than links
Post by: qwerty on July 16, 2013, 07:33:17 am
You don't miss anything. It is NOT possible to place an element more than once on a diagram (except with a bad API hack). There are good reasons for this. Especially that you can not identify a clone as such when a diagram is printed. What you can do is to put an element in a 2nd diagram with smaller context and drop that on the main diagram.

Instead of Ctrl-G try Ctrl-U which shows where an element is used in diagrams (either as link or as object).

q.
Title: Re: Impact analysis - objects rather than links
Post by: Geert Bellekens on July 17, 2013, 04:09:17 pm
You can easily find the actual class using Ctrl-Alt-G

Geert