Sparx Systems Forum

Enterprise Architect => General Board => Topic started by: Modesto Vega on November 15, 2022, 01:25:14 am

Title: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: Modesto Vega on November 15, 2022, 01:25:14 am
In Sparx EA v15 we used an Extension connector to link and stereotype to a metaclass. We are trying to modify an MDG created using v15 with v16 and the Extension connector is not available in the context model that appears when trying to draw a relationship by dragging the connector icon between to elements. However, it is available in the toolbox but all attempts to use it result on non-UML compliant error message.

Has anything changed?
Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: Geert Bellekens on November 15, 2022, 02:15:34 am
I'm afraid you'll have to turn off strict connector syntax, and use the toolbox to create the Extension relation.

And of course report it as a bug.

Geert
Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: Modesto Vega on November 15, 2022, 03:38:14 am
Thanks Geert, v16.1 was released today before submitting a bug I probably should the I can reproduce the issue with v16.1, we are using v16.0 (build 1605).
Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: Geert Bellekens on November 15, 2022, 03:48:50 am
Thanks Geert, v16.1 was released today before submitting a bug I probably should the I can reproduce the issue with v16.1, we are using v16.0 (build 1605).
You can submit the bug for 16.0. It's up to Sparx to see if this is still an issue in the latest version;
We (the users) do enough QA as it is.

Geert
Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: Modesto Vega on November 15, 2022, 03:56:06 am
Thank you, Geert; bug reported.
Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: Modesto Vega on November 15, 2022, 08:18:32 pm
Thank you, Geert; bug reported.
Reported as a bug and got a reply in less than 24 hours. To paraphrase the reply: it is not a bug, we cannot reproduce it.

Yet, I have no trouble reproducing it with 16.0.1605 64-bit and was not given an indication of whether it was fixed with v16.1 released yesterday.

[SNIP]
We (the users) do enough QA as it is.
We do, and sometimes Sparx support appears to be tasked with batting all balls out of bounds.

Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: Geert Bellekens on November 15, 2022, 08:57:55 pm
I can reproduce the issue, on the latest 16.1.1621

The quicklinker gives me
- Substitution
- metaconstraint
- metarelationship
- stereotyped relationship

But no Extension.

I'll report a bug as well.

Geert

Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: Modesto Vega on November 15, 2022, 09:21:00 pm
I can reproduce the issue, on the latest 16.1.1621

The quicklinker gives me
- Substitution
- metaconstraint
- metarelationship
- stereotyped relationship

But no Extension.

I'll report a bug as well.

Geert
Thanks Geert, really much appreciated. This is exactly the same behaviour I am seeing in v16.0 (build 1605).
Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: qwerty on November 15, 2022, 09:25:39 pm
I wonder what those Sparxians are doing the whole day. Probably feasting upon the license payed by customers in the futile hope to get a better product.

q.
Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: philchudley on November 15, 2022, 10:34:59 pm
Bizarrely the following does work in EA v 16.1

Add a Stereotype onto a diagram
Drag the quicklink to an empty space on the diagram and select Metaclass
Extension appears as the first entry in the Quicklink menu
Choose the metaclass and presto all works fine

Go figure

Phil
Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: Geert Bellekens on November 15, 2022, 11:21:00 pm
Even weirder:

If I create a brand new .qea model and add a metaclass and a stereotype on a diagram, I get the extension relation in the quicklinker.

Digging a bit further I found that the difference is the fact that existing metaclasses have stereotype metaclass, whereas the new metaclasses have stereotype UML Standard Profile::metaclass

So it's only an issue for existing metaclasses, not for new metaclasses.

Geert

PS. Damn, I did it again, I should really let Sparx do their own QA and support. ;D
Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: Paolo F Cantoni on November 16, 2022, 12:01:13 am
Even weirder:

If I create a brand new .qea model and add a metaclass and a stereotype on a diagram, I get the extension relation in the quicklinker.

Digging a bit further, I found that the difference is the fact that existing metaclasses have stereotype metaclass, whereas the new metaclasses have stereotype UML Standard Profile::metaclass

So it's only an issue for existing metaclasses, not for new metaclasses.

Geert

PS. Damn, I did it again. I should really let Sparx do their own QA and support. ;D
I know the feeling!
However, you needed to get to the bottom of things.  Until you understood why you weren't sure how far the "rot" went.

We've found similar issues.

Thanks for tracking this one down.
Paolo
Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: Modesto Vega on November 16, 2022, 12:29:46 am
Geert and Phil thank you for tracking this down.

In conclusion, it is only a bug if you are updating a profile or MDG put together with a previous version of Sparx EA. If you are starting from scratch with each version is not a bug. Only a sparxian will think that way.

Has Sparx Systems decided to change something so fundamental without providing an upgrade mechanism and making an effort to bringing to the attention of their customers?
Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: Geert Bellekens on November 16, 2022, 01:06:00 am
Has Sparx Systems decided to change something so fundamental without providing an upgrade mechanism and making an effort to bringing to the attention of their customers?
Yeah, par for the course I'm afraid. :-\
"upgrading" is not really difficult though. A 20 line script should suffice to set the fully qualified stereotype. Even an XMI export/import could be enough to solve the problem.
(make sure you don't have a metaclass stereotype in the model stereotype list)

Geert
Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: Modesto Vega on November 16, 2022, 01:13:42 am
"upgrading" is not really difficult though. A 20 line script should suffice to set the fully qualified stereotype. Even an XMI export/import could be enough to solve the problem.
(make sure you don't have a metaclass stereotype in the model stereotype list)
I presume that script that loops through all elements in package will do the "upgrade" job. Not too please about having to find the time for such "upgrade".
Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: Geert Bellekens on November 16, 2022, 01:15:49 am
Yeah, but I would try the xmi export/import route first. That won't take more than 5 minutes

Geert
Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: Modesto Vega on November 16, 2022, 01:48:36 am
My primary concern right now is backward compatibility. Not everybody is running v16 and don't want to run the risk of updating the MDG with v16 just to find out that it does not work in v15.

Curiously v15 (Build 1560) does recognise UML Standard Profile::metaclass as valid, as well as just metaclass.
Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: Geert Bellekens on November 16, 2022, 01:54:32 am
I'm would expect both stereotypes to work in both versions.
The only annoying thing in v16 is the missing quicklink (and the error is you haven't disabled strict connector syntax).

But when you use the option "Edit with Profile" helper, you don't need to create those extension relations manually.

Geert
Title: Re: Where has Extension gone?
Post by: Geert Bellekens on November 26, 2022, 12:48:02 am
According to the release notes this should have been fixed in version 1622:https://sparxsystems.com/products/ea/history.html#1622 (https://sparxsystems.com/products/ea/history.html#1622)

Geert