Sparx Systems Forum
Enterprise Architect => Bugs and Issues => Topic started by: Midi on October 12, 2009, 10:29:08 pm
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Hello all,
did anyone already successfully use the mind mapping functionality of EA? May be I am missing some important point but as far as I could find out, I find the mind mapping part barely usable:
The topics come labeled with their identifiers which:
1. in my view does not make much sense in a mind map
2. does not allow for any textual formatting and/or markup
On the other hand, one cannot make the "notes" compartment visible, which would be a usable alternative, although I would prefer to simply draw a plain mind map just as one would do on a piece of paper.
Misusing the topics' identifiers for the topics' descriptions does not seem a viable solution to the problem either as:
3. EA issues a warning each time you violate identifier conventions (which in my view is the right thing to do)
4. it clutters up the project tree
So unfortunately I really think that this is a serious useability problem.
I have already read the post by Simon M. dated 2008-07-24 which seems related, so I see that I am not the only person having difficulties in using this part of EA.
May be there is any progress to this subject that I am not aware of yet? Any hits much appreciated.
Best regards,
Midi
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Hello. No solutions but here are a couple of workarounds
1) On the Mind Map diagram properties, set the option to use Alias if available. Then when adding an element, put its short descripton in the alias field, and use the name as the identifier
2) You can change the format of the text displayed within each topic element - select the element, right-click, choose appearance/set font..
3) You can get en element's notes displayed by adding a Note element to the diagram, linking it to the element and setting it to display the element's notes.
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Hello Graham_Moir,
many thanks for your tips. I have however just resorted to using Note elements exclusively because it is far less complicated than having to alter appearances later on.
I mainly want use mind mapping inside EA projects to document parts of these projects that I know will rest for a while, so I can pick up work quicker later on. It would be nice if one could also use it for brainstorming. But particularly when you are just in a brainstorming process, focus needs to stay on your train of thoughts and should not need to deviate to tool-usage so much.
Anyway, thank you for your hints, much appreciated!
Best regards,
Midi