Sparx Systems Forum
Enterprise Architect => Suggestions and Requests => Topic started by: DJ on September 28, 2005, 11:59:10 pm
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Hey Sparx!
Just thought I would throw this one into the ring.
With the introduction of the RTF Document Generator I find myself thinking that the notes fields on all EA objects should support the RTF format. I often find the need for Bolding, underlining and other simple formatting features etc in scenarios and longer descriptions.
It would allow my documents to that much more readable straight out of EA.
Anyway thanks for the great product. Hopefully you can help me out in one of the upcoming releases. ;D
DJ.
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But how do you then sensibly read the text using Automation - or do you forfeit that by enabling formatting ?
Or perhaps the element contains two 'properties' - one formatted, one unformatted - kept updated from the former.
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I still work with meta-tags (similarly to those use here in YABB). Works quite well since my requirements for formatting are rather humble.
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Meta-tags? Please explain. Could not find anything on them in the FM, at least not under that name.
Jan
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Well, it's simply boiling with water ;) Write
[b]bold[/b] or something similar to bold text. You need a post processor to change the meta-tags into the desired formatting.
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FAQ! :-X
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The meta-tags are interesting option but I see it adding a level of complexity to reading the notes fields within the application and also requires a custom processor to format the text. :-/
As for dealing with RTF text within Automation, there is a couple of solutions:
1. EA provides a both a rtf and plain text interface to the notes.
or
2. Use RTF objects within your code to interpret the rtf notes and manipulate as you wish.
Cheers.
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IOW you will no longer deal with strings but with RTF-objects using automation. Would be a nice-to-have :)
FAQ! :-X
Sparx, I hope you do search for FAQ in this forum from time to time ::)
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RTF objects - yuk.
If anything, it makes the system more Microsoft-dependent. OK, the whole thing runs over COM, but apart from that you can use standard tools and packages.
Would prefer EA to give you a 'plain text' view of the notes, so that they can be crunched by (e.g.) one of Paolo's code generators.
Or go the whole hog and make them XML !!
Formatting could then be an attribute.
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RTF objects - yuk.
If anything, it makes the system more Microsoft-dependent. OK, the whole thing runs over COM, but apart from that you can use standard tools and packages.
Would prefer EA to give you a 'plain text' view of the notes, so that they can be crunched by (e.g.) one of Paolo's code generators.
Or go the whole hog and make them XML !!
Formatting could then be an attribute.
Since my name has been taken in vain... ;D
What I'd like is HTML formatting with Style Sheets. EA would then provide two renderings... one HTML and the other plain text. The plain text would be updated when the HTML was altered (say using HTMLToText).
In this way, One could do some very interesting things like: Scan the Notes text for model element names and format them accordingly. Perhaps even place Hyperlinks to open the appropriate dialog etc etc...
Paolo
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If anything, it makes the system more Microsoft-dependent.
It's already glued to Microsoft: why an MS-emulator and no direct Linux support :( And - as someone else quoted - RTF is not Microsoft. It's a quite common thing to transfer formatted text among different (!) platforms. Using HTML instead would not really make life easier. It's just a different way directly to hell.
I'll keep my meta-tags :-X
And - BTW - just omit RTF from RTF-object and call it TextFormatObject. Keep it in a black box and only allow bold, italic and a few more. Then let it be a generalization of either RTF or HTML or whatever and the emitted text is at your wish.
Edit: I forgot: TeX would be REALLY neat :)
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"RTF is not Microsoft"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Text_Format
The Rich Text Format (often abbreviated to RTF) is a document file format that has been continually developed by Microsoft since 1987 for cross-platform document interchange.
RTF (Rich Text Format) - Proprietary, closed specification by Microsoft
That's what I meant.
That's why XML might be better - you could then transform to HTML if you wanted, using XSLT.
Although EA does support RTF in its doc creation ...
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DJ,
Have you checked out the "Linked Document" option? Select a Use Case element in your Project View and use Ctrl+Alt+D to open up and RTF editor. Format to your hearts content.
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a document file format that has been continually developed by Microsoft since 1987 for
and therein lies the real problem, its not a standard, its (now) a product that changes at M$'s whim.
I'm with Paolo, lets go (x)html!
jm2cw
bruce