Messages

1

Suggestions and Requests / Swimlanes

« on: November 22, 2003, 09:03:54 am »

Hi,

I would like the swimlanes in the activity diagram to be more than just a set of lines... first of all, I would like them to behave like a boundary, i.e. when I move/resize a swimlane, all the objects in it move with it.
Also, if I have specified a classifier for a swimlane (in my case typically an actor), would it be possible to automatically create an association between the classifier (actor) and the objects in the swimlane?
That would save a lot of work and help to bring the relationship matrix to a new dimension!

Thanks,
Bruno

2

Suggestions and Requests / Re: DDL to manage a changing schema

« on: November 21, 2005, 02:31:03 pm »

Excellent :-) This would make the database modeling functionality in EA really usable.

Personally, I would like it if, just like on elements, there were a Status (and maybe Phase) field on the Column/Attribute level. Then when generating the DDL, one could filter the tables/columns by Status/Phase, only the selected ones would be relfected in the final DDL.

Not a crucial thing as there is a workaround for this even now, but definitely a nice-to-have!

Bruno

There are plans in the pipeline to add such a feature.  

We envisage that when generating the DDL script, the user will have the option to generate an "ALTER" script instead.

EA will then connect to the target database through ODBC and make a comparison with existing objects and prompt the user to resolve any conflicts.

Any comments/suggestions would be appreciated.

3

Suggestions and Requests / Re: DocBook support in Enterprise Architect

« on: November 24, 2004, 12:30:38 pm »

Hi Chris,

try menu Tools > Export Reference Data :-)

Bruno

4

Suggestions and Requests / Re: DocBook support in Enterprise Architect

« on: November 23, 2004, 02:57:12 pm »

Keeping up with the positive note :-) this sounds like a very simple modification of the HTML documentation templates, or really a creation of a new style of web documentation with some tags thrown it. Chris, have a look at creating your own Web Style Templates, it seems like it could do the trick.

Bruno

5

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Port to OS X?

« on: March 24, 2006, 01:35:10 pm »

Well, I do not know enough about the customer base either, it is quite possible that I am misjudging the situation :-) I would not mind if EA were usable on OS/X, but there are other things that I would much like to see first. I think that more than OS/X users, Sparx is missing out on sales to large companies partially due to technical issues (team collaboration - locking/unlocking, security...), partially due to insufficient release notes, non-transparent issue resolution process etc. In my opinion (misguided as it may be), focusing on this segment of the market should be easier and rewards could be great.

Bruno

Fair enough. I don't know enough about Sparx Systems and their customer base to say they *should* support MAC too. It just seems to me - as a software engineer that is used to develop OS and DBMS agnostic software - that they took a couple of abstraction shortcuts they shouldn't have.

The argument about marketshare etc... Absolute figures mean more than relative, and you are talking about non-specific users while SparxSystems should be interested in their target groups. And it reminds me a lot of the argument of why you don't have to support any other browser than IE, which is an argument I heard a lot the last few years.

Also not that I am not even arguing for a native OS X port. A *decent* Linux port would work too. And anyone arguing that Linux doesn't have market potential missed something. Imvho of course

Yes, resources are limited and there might be things more important than porting. I am just dissapointed that I can't use this product anymore.

6

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Port to OS X?

« on: March 24, 2006, 05:18:22 am »

Hi,

I do not mean to rain on your parade, and personally I have nothing against Mac, I rather like it in fact. But, according to both Gartner's and OneStat's studies published recently, Windows accounts for more than 97% of the desktop OS market share - and in fact, Windows' market share has risen, not declined. Amongst larger companies, Mac OS/X is almost non-existent.
At the risk of getting torched alive, I would much prefer Sparx focused on all the great things that they can do with EA, instead of working on porting it onto another platform, with doubtful sales results.

Bruno

7

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Port to OS X?

« on: February 07, 2006, 05:43:52 am »

Hi,

just out of curiousity, you think EA is quite expensive? What other tools with remotely similar feature set have you seen at lower price?

Bruno

That is so sad! I wonder who could possibly make a design decision like that when working with UML - it beats me completely - but that point has been made in other posts.

For me it's simple. I think this is a great product. I can use it at the customer site. I don't use windoze at home, so I'm not going to buy it, or recommend it to the client. I've been looking at other products that do UML well, and there aren't many that are this good, so I think that I'd like to get it - it is quite expensive, but if I could get it for that price on both my Mac and the MSdros machine at work, then it would be well worth it.

It's a pity, really, as I have to decide what tool actually to use for the process design that I'll be doing over the next few months and this is a tool that I was recommended, and I like. All for a silly design mistake - it makes the point of the usefulness of open design and UML rather strongly, though, if you don't mind the irony!

8

Suggestions and Requests / Re: More than one instance of the Project View

« on: May 09, 2006, 06:08:33 am »

Still, the multiple Project View idea is excellent!

I did not mean to suggest it wasn't :-)

Bruno

9

Suggestions and Requests / Re: More than one instance of the Project View

« on: May 08, 2006, 09:56:01 am »

Hi Patricia,

you can do that without multiple instances of Project View - that is what Views (admittedly, there is a bit of confusion of terms) are for.

Bruno

Me three ... out desire was to have multiple views of same project directed towards the user (business analysts versus quality assurance analysts versus developers) where each would want to see the project from different starting points.

10

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Help with the trial version of EA

« on: April 30, 2006, 03:13:19 am »

http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=general;action=display;num=1146390131

11

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Font properties

« on: April 16, 2006, 04:28:21 am »

Hi,

try right-clicking an element on a diagram and have a look at the menu Appearance.

Hope this helps!
Bruno

12

Suggestions and Requests / Re: NetBeans 5.0 MDG integration...

« on: April 15, 2006, 08:20:45 am »

Read here:

http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=suggestions;action=display;num=1138890666;start=1#1

Bruno

13

Suggestions and Requests / Better release notes, please

« on: April 09, 2006, 05:06:37 pm »

Hi,

most of this has been asked before, but I would like to reiterate this in the hope of getting at least some of this implemented.
What I would like:

1. Better release notes
I would much like more details in the release notes. I am not looking for long unreadable document, but I would like to be able to read RN and know what are the differences compared to the previous release.
Example of this would be the time when "Sort Features Alphabetically" was implemented and switched on by default. Brief scan through the forum will show how much confusion has this caused). In short, anything that will in any way impact existing models, be it the contents or the form, should be clearly indicated.

2. Clear indication of which bugs have been resolved
This is related to the previous point. I would like to know which bugs have been resolved in a new release. Detailed list of the bugs would be great.
Of course, collaborative bug tracker would take care of this as well...

3. Advanced warning
I would like to know what is coming up in the next release even before the release is out. I would also like to know when to expect it.
Given Sparx' aggressive release schedule (which is great), one usually does not have to wait too long for things to be fixed. And it is understandable that deadlines may shift. But it would be great to know what to expect in an upcoming release and when. Especially in the corporate world it would help with planning rollout of the updates or deciding to wait for the next release.

Thank you,
Bruno

14

Suggestions and Requests / Re: customize code engineering?

« on: April 03, 2006, 10:25:15 am »

Me too

15

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Linked document also in generated HTML docs

« on: March 01, 2006, 07:57:38 am »

And give birth to a developer who will make the required changes ;-)

No doubt soon, running the reverse engineering feature on EA itself will produce a set up up-to-the-minute documentation ;-)