Sparx Systems Forum
Enterprise Architect => General Board => Topic started by: GerenukConsulting on June 12, 2015, 01:57:11 am
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I have discovered a letter "A" in red font inside a package on a package diagram.
Can anyone explain its significance?
Numerous searches in the online help (and this forum) for "red", "letter" and "a" have failed to produce the answer.
Thank you for enlightening me!
GC
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The element has a linked document.
Geert
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I am not sure that Geert's sales pitch quite answered my question.
Does anyone else have an answer to offer?
Many thanks,
GC.
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It does answer your question, though (and not just for pushing my own sales).
Maybe you can post a picture?
q.
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From TFM (http://www.sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/12.0/modeling_basics/linking_documentation.html)
In diagrams, any element that has a linked document is marked with an A symbol in the bottom right corner.
Actually typing in "red letter A" in the helpfile index will get you to the same page.
Geert
But you probably won't believe me and my "sales pitch" I guess :(
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Seriously.
Just searching for "red" works...
It returns:
Border
Exclamation Mark
Letter A
Letter T
Object Outline
Package Icon Corner
Triangle
Triangle, In Model Search Results
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To be fair AndyJ, you were using the EA help itself,
in which case searching for "letter" also works.
But if our friend was using the website search, then, and I am going to use a technical term here, the website search sucks.
A search of the website EA user manual (which is hard because the website really wants you to search "Sparx Systems") returns the following (it seems the website people do not understand what a token is).
(http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn245/copperkiwi/Sparx/2015-06-19%2013_02_08-Sparx%20Systems%20-%20Search%20-%20red_zpszswr2dmx.png)
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That is pretty funny.
:D
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designed to make the difference between structured, structugreen and structublue ;D
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Our kiwi friend is on the money. I used the website to search for my answer. I agree with his analysis.
However, I have now used the index of the built-in application help function and can find the answer, as pointed out by AndyJ. The morale of this story would appear to use the application help, which is a pain because the same contents could be available on the website and I wouldn't need to occupy a floating license just to educate myself.
Apologies to Geert if I misunderstood his offer of assistance. I read "The element has a linked document" and understood that this was posted by the forum editor to indicate that he had posted a link to EA-Matic. Doh! He was giving me the answer! Far too succinct and subtle for me, Geert. Do you forgive my ignorance?
Thanks to all for your assistance and I'm glad if the post has brought a few more smiles to the world. There should be more smiling!
:)
GC
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No hard feelings here :)
Geert
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I thought I'd try the search above out on the all new (http://www.sparxsystems.com/products/ea/12.1/#user-guide) 12.1 user guide (http://www.sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/12.1/index/index.html).
(http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn245/copperkiwi/Sparx/otobucket_zps7kksvh5r.png)
Apparently the search is not 'all new'.
I quote from the 12.1 beta notes
The Enterprise Architect User Guide or Help has been redesigned to make it [highlight]easier to search[/highlight] and navigate. By default, it will be accessed via the Internet.
Access to the Help and the ability to search the Help, is now seamlessly embedded into the Enterprise Architect 12.1 menu system
The format of the Enterprise Architect User Guide is now web based, ensuring that you always have access to the most up to date and relevant Help content at all times
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fail
q.
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Oh no! What a c***-up. Or perhaps I'm being unfair, may be it'll get fixed before the official release of 12.1
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And now 12.1 has been officially released ...
(http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn245/copperkiwi/Sparx/2015-12-11%2015_50_34-Help%20Index%20_%20Enterprise%20Architect%20User%20Guide_zpsjpezxvfw.png)
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The Mickeysoft help is almost a PITA. But that web interface is more than that. Good job if you consider "replace bad by worse" to be that.
q.
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However, I have now used the index of the built-in application help function and can find the answer, as pointed out by AndyJ. The morale of this story would appear to use the application help, which is a pain because the same contents could be available on the website and I wouldn't need to occupy a floating license just to educate myself.
Part of the problem is every EA version's of help seems to be on the website and the only reliable way to put bounds on your search is to search through the application.
I've worked on enough horrible CMS projects that I sympathise with Sparx.
I do think that the help should move to a wiki with trusted community members given access to help finesse the pages.
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Part of the problem is every EA version's of help seems to be on the website and the only reliable way to put bounds on your search is to search through the application.
Yep. I've just tried searching for the red things in 12.1 and I just can't find it in the help, via any method.
I must have missed an option to install the help locally.
So far, none of my efforts at RegEx etc. has assisted in searching the online help either.
For example, searching for " red " (spaces either side in case that's not visible) still returns every word containing red.
The search utility is stripping everything out of the search query.
>:(
I can see that I'm going to spend a lot more of my time explaining things to users.
May I second the suggestion of a user maintained help wiki?
Andy
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Yes, the web search seems to ignore spaces. Just as when you enter two or more words and it searches for each word separately rather than in combination.
If you are in EA, select the Help > Search Help menu option and type (for example) ' red triangle'. That searches the entire Help and produces two hits on 'red triangle'.
Searching on ' red ' (with the space before and after) produces a list of hits on all red objects - triangles, exclamation marks, borders, crosses, circles and icons. The red letter A is now referred to as an 'A symbol', so you would need to search for that text to find it.
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Sorry Roy, in 12.1 it really doesn't.
I searched for 'red triangle' in the application, and it flicked to a web search:
Search Results
Your search for 'red, triangle' found the following documents (of 2574 documents searched):
Displaying documents 1-6 of 6, with best matches first:
No mention of red triangle in the return.
Andy
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I tried this and, because triangle is such a unique word, at least in terms of EA documentation, it is there (results 3 and 4), but a search for "red letter a" or "red delta" (it is a delta symbol after all) doesn't make the cut.
I think the online search still needs work, the first action of which should be to, IMHO, by default search by token when only a single word is entered into the search.
(note that searching for "red triangle" including double quotes works quite well, but searching for 'red triangle' including single quotes sucks (that's such a technical term)).
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Whatever else the search does or doesn't do, it can't find a text string that doesn't exist in the Help. I have edited the text on those two instances of 'red triangle' to include '(or red Delta symbol)', because I think that is what the original poster was searching for.
We used to refer to a red letter A, but I don't think that was technically correct.
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Now for "red triangle" it appears at position three. Being picky I might ask: why not at first place? The first two matches highlight only "red" while #3 has both :-\
"red letter a": no avail.
q.