Messages

1

Suggestions and Requests / Re: XML doc comments

« on: August 27, 2007, 07:54:05 am »

I think I might just do that!  But first, I need to continue my evaluation and need to convince the team that we should use this product as a standard for design documentation. I'm creating a shopping list of little "issues" I find. So far, EA is still better than any of the other tools, despite it's quirks.

Cheers!

2

Suggestions and Requests / XML doc comments

« on: August 27, 2007, 06:38:13 am »

It would nice if we could have more formal support for XML doc comments. We use Sandcastle for documentation and one of the main reasons this product stands out is for it's ability to understand and create ///<summary>...</summary> comments on members.. An editor would be cool too.

3

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Partial Classes

« on: August 27, 2007, 05:25:24 am »

Good morning,

I just got my hands on EA for evaluation.. One of the first problems I ran into was how partial classes are (not) supported. First, I thought there was a serious bug during the reverse engineering process... where multiple model entities would be created for a single class. Took me awhile to find the cause.

Still waiting for the first response from the support team.. but maybe someone else knows. Is this something that is being worked on?  It's a small fire in my book. Causes much confusion and adding stereotypes are good from a designer standpoint, but can easily lose sync with the code base.

Best regards,
-Sean

4

General Board / Trying to model relationships for ASP.NET web appl

« on: June 20, 2009, 06:27:15 am »

Hi guys,
I'm trying to model some relationships between ASP.NET pages as well as intra-page behaviors.  I discovered this "Web Modeling" diagram type.  It seems promising, but I can't find any documentation on how the elements are supposed to work and their interactions. Does anyone have any ideas? Perhaps I should stick with pencil and paper (again).

TIA!
-Sean

5

General Board / Re: Having trouble with nested components

« on: December 16, 2008, 01:57:05 am »

Ha! I just figured it out. It was the Z-Order!  EA won't allow me to move a component "inside" of another unless the component that needs to be become the child has a higher Z-order. Go figure! (Wonder if there is a way to actually see this Z-order attribute.. hmm)
Cheers!

6

General Board / Having trouble with nested components

« on: December 16, 2008, 01:55:06 am »

Good morning! I'm trying to put together some component diagrams (using EA 7.1 build 828), and I've run into a peculiar problem with nesting components.  Basically, it doesn't always work. For instance, I have a component inside a package. I create another component. I may or may NOT be able to drag and drop the second component into the first. This feature seems a bit unpredictable. I couldn't find any supporting documentation that helps explain the apparent rules of nesting components.
Does anyone know whats going on here?
Best regards!
-Sean

7

General Board / Re: .NET Framework model elements...

« on: April 26, 2008, 01:54:57 am »

great ideas! Also, I found an easy way to pull in the assembly is to copy the full path from VS object browser and paste into the dialog box in EA. It works when usually you can't browse the GAC...

I like the Author trick.  

8

General Board / Re: .NET Framework model elements...

« on: April 26, 2008, 12:53:16 am »

Well... thats what I'm doing now.. Just kinda a pain to have to copy the assemblies out of the GAC and hand pick them..

Thanks for the reinforcement though!
-Sean

9

General Board / .NET Framework model elements...

« on: April 25, 2008, 01:38:48 pm »

Good evening,

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions to facilitate the usage and representation of .NET classes and elements in a diagram. The solution I currently have is to import assemblies from the GAC.. I was thinking maybe there is a more formal way to do this.

Any suggestions?

Best regards,
-Sean

 
-Sean

10

General Board / Re: Generics

« on: August 27, 2007, 11:36:00 am »

So... seeing as how C# 3.0 is right around the corner, when do you suppose formal generic support (mainly generic methods) be supported?

11

General Board / Re: Using MDG Link with Version Control

« on: December 21, 2007, 07:57:06 am »

Our goal is to allow a developer to get a working copy, open a solution, work on some code, and quickly create and maintain diagrams related to the code.  Putting the EAP file on a file server would add a nasty dependency..  All in all, the DB based project seems to be the way to go.  Setting up version control isn't completely transparent (maybe a new release of EA will link and include the libraries needed to use Subversion without the need for a separate executable)... but the setup is simple enough that things are good.

I've been instructed to talk to the person responsible for purchasing about the upgrade to Corporate. This is good news.

I'm still frustrated that it took such extensive testing to determine the correct configuration.. and I'm still surprised that the MDG Link marketing / support team didn't have more detailed documentation on how we might want to setup EA with a version controlled codebase (am I crazy?). Maybe toss them white papers and include this valuable fact in the documentation..  I feel that the product documentation should have this information.. rather than having to scour the forums or read 'whitepapers'. I digress.

Thanks for all the help. Maybe this will help the next person.

Cheers!
-Sean

12

General Board / Re: Using MDG Link with Version Control

« on: December 20, 2007, 02:44:33 pm »

I just tested the DBMS integration with the COrporate trial. I think it solves our problem. Not ideal (as it's one more dependency we have to maintain), but it works. It's actuall quite cool how two people can work on one diagram..

But yes, I believe that I was taking for granted that our current setup:
Visual Studio + Subversion

Would play nice with
MDG Link + EA (Advertised to 'support' version control)

.. I didn't realize the small hitch surrounding the EAP file and the complexities of 'deployment'. I thought it would play much nicer with our source control repository... especially since MDG link seemed to just create the needed project file, which I think I gave too much credit. My assumption that it was 'merge friendly' was too much.  Further testing and reading would have uncovered that.

But, I was spending most of my time testing the product and integration.. not determining if this advertised source control integration would work as we assumed. Lesson learned.

I still feel that the MDG link docs should elaborate on the very VERY common scenario of having your source code under source control. It just seems like a natural match.

Cheers!
-Sean

13

General Board / Re: Using MDG Link with Version Control

« on: December 20, 2007, 11:30:06 am »

Oh yeah.. one more piece of humor. In an email that I sent to their support team starting with "I am having serious problems trying to incorporate the MDG link visual studio integration with our Subversion backed codeabase"..

Nowhere in their reply do they mention MDG Link. It's as if they pretend it doesn't exist!

14

General Board / Re: Using MDG Link with Version Control

« on: December 20, 2007, 11:27:35 am »

The bottom line is that we use version control today to co-ordinate and allow multiple developers access to work against a rather large code base. This works wonderfully.  When I was reading about the different versions of EA, I read that the professional version supported version control. "Superb!", I thought. In addition, there was a tool to allow integrating the EA projects with Visual Studio. (Great!)
So, I tried it all out on my machine. It worked well. The side effect of there existing a project file (EAP file) was one that I didn't think too much about. ALso, my focus was on using the tool, not reading white papers on deployment, etc.  Honestly, the DBMS support seemed like an alternative to using versino control from what I was reading out of it. And, because support comes from AU, and it's as responsive as I would have liked, I couldn't get the straight answers I wanted.. so I took a chance.

The real problem I'm seeing comes in the form of vague documentation with respect to the use of MDG Link. It's sold as an integration solution, but it ends there. Not ONCE is the term version control even mentioned in their documentation... And I took it for granted.

Now that I have learned the hard way, I see the grayed out option to connect to a server repository when establishing an MDG link connection. Call me crazy, but I was convinced that the other version control support in EA would replace the need for a DBMS repos. (I'm even wondering how they will take my pitch to have to place EA projects in a database... "oh yeah.. it supports version control... but we have to use a database for some things") Thats a smelly statement in my book.

I have a much clearer understanding of what is required now for using EA with Visual Studio in a team environment. It would be nice to have this explained a little more directly. I've been accused of not reading documentation. I assure you, I have read a lot...  but I apparently missed some of the important parts about the DBMS usage and what it's for...

Perhaps they should view it from the eyes of a developer who is used to putting everything under version control..  and ESPECIALLY update the MDG Link docs and requirements to explicitly state that "You MUST use a DBMS repository in order to share your linked EA projects if you use version control!"  (This would trump the need for VC in EA then, wouldn't it?... guess I need to continue to RT(many)FM(and white papers)) This can't be too foreign a concept...

I appreciate the folks who helped. I don't appreciate Sparx for lousy US support and lacking MDG documentation..  ALthough the product is good at the actual diagramming and integration piece. I hope someone can benefit from my wasted time and embarassment. Good thing the upgrade price is cheap.

Cheers!
-Sean

15

General Board / Re: Using MDG Link with Version Control

« on: December 19, 2007, 12:57:22 pm »

Wow.. I think I know the problem. We were sold the professional version. It doesn't seem to give is the option of using a database for storing project data.

The minimal correspondence with Sparx never led to the possibility that we needed the Coporate version. This is a major issue.

So... it seems that to truly use MDG link and EA on a team, with version control, the Corporate version is mandatory..

Can anyone back this claim? I think Im' seeing the dim light at the end of the tunnel here. I'm not too excited about explaining that we need to purchase 15 'upgrades' to the corporate version..