Messages

1

Suggestions and Requests / Re: UML Singleton notation

« on: August 08, 2005, 07:40:34 am »

That worked.  Thanks for the help!

2

Suggestions and Requests / UML Singleton notation

« on: August 05, 2005, 08:26:39 am »

The UML notation to indicate that a class is a singleton, according to what I have read, is a numeral "1" in the upper right corner of the class.  Is there a way to accomplish this in EA?  

3

General Board / Class diagram layout

« on: September 20, 2006, 08:36:09 am »

I sometimes use EA to reverse engineer a class diagram from existing source code in order to get an idea of the overall structure.  If there are a lot of classes (often several hundred), none of the layout options give me a satisfactory arrangement (In fact, I often can't tell much difference between the effects of the different layout options.)  It does give me a good starting point, though.  I'd like to start from the automated layout and drag things around as needed.  The problem with this is that many of the connectors have several "bend" points that aren't appropriate after dragging clusters of objects around.  In a small diagram, I could manually move or remove individual bend points.  In a large diagram, that would be an enormous waste of time.  

So here's the question...
Is there a way, after moving several classes around in a class diagram, to have EA recalculate the connector lines without moving the classes?  If not, is there a way to at least remove *all* bend points from all connectors in the diagram?

Thanks in advance!

4

General Board / Inheritance relationship in DDL transformation

« on: March 06, 2006, 09:22:15 am »

Hi,

I've noticed that when I perform a model transformation from a Class Diagram to a DDL Diagram, Any inheritance relationships (i.e. generalization) are ignored.  No attempt is made to reflect this type of relationship in the resulting data model.  

This particular transformation is something I use frequently.  

I realize that there are at least three typical ways of mapping inheritance in the data model and perhaps this is why the transformation makes no assumptions, but I'm hoping that there is a way that I could indicate my preference and then have the transformation use that to generate an appropriate model.  The three options for mapping inheritance that I'm referring to are:  

Single Table Inheritance - One table for all the classes in the hierarchy.

Concrete Table Inheritance - One table for each concrete class.

Class Table Inheritance - One table per class in the hierarchy.  

Currently all classes in the hierarchy are included in the model, but no relationship between them is shown.  

Is there a way to do this?  If so, then how?  If not, is this in the works?

Thanks!

Myles

5

General Board / Re: ODBC Schema Import problem

« on: May 08, 2006, 01:16:05 pm »

I found the problem.  The import option was set to "synchronize existing" instead of "create new".  Since there were no existing tables to synchronize with, it went through all the motions, but accomplished nothing.  

6

General Board / ODBC Schema Import problem

« on: May 08, 2006, 10:14:11 am »

I tried importing a rather large database schema and it appeared to work successfully, meaning that in the Project View I could seee the list of tables that had been imported in the "Model" folder.  I noted that the "save" button was greyed out, so I assumed that evrything was saved and I closed EAP.  (The .eap file was 10MB, also indicating that quite a bit of data had been imported.)  When I reopened the project, the Model folder was empty.  I tried reimporting the schema but now the "Model" folder is empty even before I close the project.  Help!

7

General Board / Generating code from association classes

« on: January 12, 2006, 03:08:45 pm »

EA doesn't seem to generate the code for association classes correctly.  If I have 2 classes, A and B, and I create an association class between them (call it AB).  Instances of A and B should each hold references to instances of AB, *not* to each other directly.  EA creates a one-way relationship directly between A and B (A is given an attribute of type B) and neither A nor B is given an attribute of type AB.  

8

General Board / 3-way Association Class

« on: December 16, 2005, 08:10:32 am »

In a class diagram, I can add an association class, complete with attributes and operations, to handle the details of a many-to-many relationship between two classes.  Now I have a need to create a 3-way association class, i.e.  I have a relationship based on combinations of three classes.  I tried the "n-ary association", but I need a class to hold the additional attributes and operations that relate directly to each specific 3-way combination.  How can I accomplish this in EA?  

Thanks in advance!  

Myles Pippenhagen

9

General Board / Re: associate connectors when reverse engineering

« on: August 11, 2005, 09:57:49 am »

Darren,

Getting back to the original question.  Although I haven't found a way to get EA to initially choose the compose connector, I have found a way to set up the connector in the diagram so that EA accepts it on reverse engineering and doesn't try to add its own association connector.  Once I have set it up this way, I can do roundtrip engineering without any problems.  The trick is to specify the "role" for the composition connector.  To do this, create the composition connector between the two classes, then double-click on the connector itself.  Click on the "Source Role" tab and, from the Role combobox, select the attribute in the Target class that actually does the compostion (such as an array, vector, etc.).  

As to the use of composition in the first place, a simple one to many association corresponds more closely to aggregation than to composition.  The advice of the creators of UML is essentially "don't bother with aggregation" and "use composition when appropriate."  

Myles

10

General Board / Re: "Show Package Contents" option doesn

« on: August 12, 2005, 07:56:52 am »

Thanks for the tip.  The more I use it, the more I understand what I *should* have done.  EA is a really nice product, but there is a considerable learning curve.  

11

General Board / "Show Package Contents" option doesn't

« on: August 11, 2005, 08:23:42 am »

I defined some packages (with classes as contents) and then dragged a couple of the packages into a class diagram.  I right clicked on the diagram, selected Options and made sure that "Show Package Contents" was checked.  No good.  The package displays as an empty folder.  When I double click on the package, it takes me to the package diagram with all of its contents.  (I placed the contents in the packages as simple links, not instances.  I don't know if that should make a difference.)  

12

General Board / Re: 2 styles for showing returned values

« on: March 30, 2005, 07:53:26 am »

Okay.  I'll use implicit returns when applicable.  Thank you to everybody for the feedback.  

13

General Board / 2 styles for showing returned values

« on: March 24, 2005, 09:49:46 am »

In sequence diagrams, I have seen 2 styles of showing returned values.

1)  Show the returned value as "val := message" on the outgoing message line, which is the default in EA.

2)  Show the returned value on a separate, dotted return message line, which I would prefer.

Is there a way to have EA automatically use the 2nd style?  I can fake it by creating the return message separately, but for it to look right, I have to leave the returned value blank on the outgoing message which isn't right.  (Especially if I'm using the "Operations" button to use a previously defined method.)  Faking it like this will also be likely, I suspect, to cause problems in automatically updating the class diagram when messages are added to a sequence diagram (which should be an optional feature in EA in my opinion).  

14

General Board / Re: sequence diagram messages

« on: March 30, 2005, 07:50:25 am »

Yes.  That works.  And since the Operations button pulls up the dialog box for a class, I suppose it makes sense to only show methods for that class.  I had been using the Operations button for selecting existing methods as well as for defining new ones.  If I use the drop down for existing methods, everything should be fine.  Thanks for your time!

15

General Board / Re: sequence diagram messages

« on: March 29, 2005, 07:35:49 am »

I agree that checking the inherited box *should* cause the inherited methods to be included in the operations list,

but it doesn't work...  That's the problem.  Try it out.