Sparx Systems Forum
Enterprise Architect => Suggestions and Requests => Topic started by: q2 on December 11, 2007, 01:40:35 am
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I’m using EA from 2 years, and in my opinion this is the best UML tool on market (from time to time I’m forced to use another products e.g. RSA, MagicDraw and I’m always very happy when I come back to EA).
From my experiences, UML modeling is always combination diagrams and texts (sometimes quite long text descriptions). Description should be often prepared in more than one language (e.g. english as base and second polish – it happens in international projects/teams).
In all my projects, documentation generated from EA was very important (customers always want to have comprehensive documentation in doc/pdf format instead of “eap” file, which can be only attachment to documentation).
For documentation I prepared set of “xslt” transformation from XMI to HTML, and generated HTML I just copy to MS Word (of course I know that EA have possibility to generate documentation directly to RTF format, but I prefer XSLT because I love “xslt” and I fell free in defining format of specifications – sorry ;) )
Based on above, now I have 2 problems (and suggestions) with EA:
1.
I want to have possibility to put descriptions of elements in more than one language (one should be base e.g. English). I think about all “description” controls in EA (e.g. “Notes” fields).
2.
Writing and reading more than one paragraph of text in description fields (e.g. scenarios of use cases) is unbearable to eyes in EA. Additionally I can’t to format text (bold, italic etc). Maybe the best solution of this problem will be change format of description controls from plain text to HTML (more precisely XHTML). I saw something like that in MagicDraw.
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q2, see the bottom of the post, the rest of ya...
I think this is a terrible idea. I mean it might destroy the entire idea of the EA UUI concept.
I mean that over the last three or so years we have fought long and hard to maintain one of the most unintitive, confounding and teethgrindingly infuriatingly pieces of software on the planet completely unintuitive, confounding and teethgrindingly infuriating.
... and what do you want, you want to destroy all that we have been fighting for.
... for lawds sake, the next thing you'll be asking for is multiple select.
fwiw
bruce
q2: the entire above is possibly, slightly or even moderately sarcastic, but not aimed at you. ;D
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FWIW, as bruce says.
Rich text - RTF or otherwise, just as long as it supports and responds to markup - is one of the oft-recurring pleas we've made to Sparx over the past few years. So far we've had a (very) few (very) limited improvements to overall notes visibility and formatting. Collectively, these slightly broaden diagram presentation options, but do little to address our problems, and nothing whatsoever to solve yours.
However...
You are certainly not alone in using XSLT to handle multiple text handling situations. While XSLT can be a lot of work - in almost any context, and certainly with EA and UML - the potential leverage of any solution makes it a compelling option.
That said, why not just store your XML in the Notes compartment? Pretty much everything in EA supports Notes, so you have a fairly universal way of storing and retrieving the XML. Just design your models so that you don't display Notes compartments - this is the default - and you won't clutter your diagrams. However, on processing you can direct the Notes text to your XSLT processor.
You'll have to handle things with care during transformations, since you are probably limited in how you can pass the Notes to an external routine. [You can do this via the EXEC_ADD_IN function macro.] With luck you won't have to do anything radical during transformation, since the sorts of things you identify won't require too much processing during a transform.
Now for the nifty part. EA stores its model in an SQL-accessible schema, regardless of back end. Many XSLT processors (or their supporting environments) support OLE DB connections to databases. You should be able to capture the Notes fields of elements (or sets of elements) and process them as you choose, singly or in batches.
So, while we wait for richer Notes fields (which, as bruce implies, is all we do) you can move ahead with your work.
HTH, David
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Hi guys!
What we are talking about!?
I would like to have only two things:
1. possibility of formatting fonts in “description” controls of EA (increasing fonts is most important). If you try to write scenarios of use case by all day - you admit me right ;)
2. possibility writing alternative descriptions in another languages (for example I write use case scenario in English and after I order translation it in EA directly into Bulgarian for example)
You can treat above as a user requirements ;)
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q2, I'm with you.
Rich text formatting of notes would be a great improvement. Inserting XML into the notes would make updating of the model a nightmare.
At the very least, and I mean least, Sparx should allow the user to change the font size. I'd even be happi-er if it was changing the font view size on the screen so my already failing middle-age vision wasn't taxed so hard when running use case sessions.
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q2, I'm with you.
Rich text formatting of notes would be a great improvement. Inserting XML into the notes would make updating of the model a nightmare.
At the very least, and I mean least, Sparx should allow the user to change the font size. I'd even be happi-er if it was changing the font view size on the screen so my already failing middle-age vision wasn't taxed so hard when running use case sessions.
See "Rich Text Notes" (without quotes) in the EA help or user guide. This documentation item might have changed in the Build 818 help file.
If you downloaded the full EA install kit for build 818 you've got the correct file. If you patched your earlier installation, you've got an out of date file, due to a known problem on the Sparx site. The problem has been resolved, so download the help or user guide again, and you should find the item.
It won't do all we ask for (yet) but it is a step in the correct direction.
David
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See "Rich Text Notes" (without quotes) in the EA help or user guide. This documentation item might have changed in the Build 818 help file.
I tried... No Joy... The User Guide definitely identified itself as: ( 818 )
Paolo
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I downloaded the EA.chm 7.0.818 file and placed this in my EA installation directory. It does indeed mention these "Rich Text Notes".
I installed the 7.0.818 upgrade zip and do not appear to have these "Rich Text Notes" available to be used. I double click on a model element and have a plain notes section with no rich text features available!?
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I tried... No Joy... The User Guide definitely identified itself as: ( 818 )
Paolo
Paolo,
Download the file again, for the reasons I mentioned. Note that for some (doubtless good and true) reason, the text on the download page still says it is the September file, but the file itself has been updated. This was done in response to a request I made last week.
David
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I feel like I'm the victim of a sick joke here. I downloaded the latest version of the documentation and, gee, you are right, it does say that there are rich notes and even has several pretty pictures of the toolbar. I spent 20 minutes trying to find the toolbar in all the locations mentioned and looked through all the options looking for something like "Enable Rich Text Notes". Couldn't find anything. Then I noticed the documentation says Enterprise Architect 7.1 User Guide (thanks for the rich text capability in the forum BTW ;-) ). Unless someone doesn't want me to have EA 7.1, the latest published version that I am aware of is 7.0, build 818. Perhaps this is something we'll see released in a couple of weeks? Awfully cruel to dangle upcoming enhancements by releasing the documentation first! Of course, if I have just completely missed the boat here, please tell me what I'm doing wrong!
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My apologies. When we updated the Help on the Registered Users | Download web page last week, we drew from the wrong directory. I am in the process of getting the correct version (7.0, Build 818 ) of the Help files put onto the web page.
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Couldn't you just release 7.1 instead? ;) Any ETA?