Messages

1

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Enterprise Architect and Sourcesafe configurat

« on: February 24, 2010, 11:31:13 pm »

With one post and no replies in 2 weeks, I suspect Ramiro is long gone, but just for anyone else's benefit...

The paper http://www.sparxsystems.com/WhitePapers/Version_Control.pdf gives detailed instructions on using version control with EA.

Sourcesafe is an SCC compliant database so page 8 onwards relates to this system.  It should be fine!

Personally, I'd actually suggest changing from VSS to Subversion (for everything!) but then I've had enough bad VSS experiences for a lifetime!  

2

General Board / Re: Open EA project with specific diagram

« on: March 16, 2010, 10:50:24 pm »

I was already heading down that Add-in line of thought and learned a lot about add-ins in the process.  I may need do a bit of development there later.

However, Michael kindly pointed out what I had overlooked - I can create a shortcut that carries out a diagram open action from the "Save project as..." menu item.  This is just the simple solution that I was looking for!

Thanks guys!  

3

General Board / Open EA project with specific diagram

« on: March 16, 2010, 09:35:37 pm »

Hi,

We have a QA system that requires us to create hyperlinks/shortcuts directly to key documents (Requirement spec, Use cases, etc) from an external system.

I can set a single startup diagram for a project and I can create a shortcut to open it, but I can't determine the diagram that opens.  What I'd really like is to specify a command line, environment variable or similar that determines the "starting diagram", e.g.

 EA.exe /proj=Myproj.eap /open={395F9D9F-6B4B-475a-9801-820DA7C4497F}

...but I can't find any support of this type.  Perhaps the only way is to create some sort of add-in, but I'd prefer something that I didn't have to deploy to all users.

I could also split the different models apart and give each one it's own start diagram.  However, that would stop me tracing requirements through to implementation, etc.

Any ideas how I might accomplish this?  It seems like a simple thing to start a project with a specific view!

4

General Board / Re: UI niggles - Keeping some panels, closing othe

« on: February 26, 2010, 09:43:03 pm »

B,

Thanks for the suggestion about Takeshi Kouno's add-in.  It definitely helps with the common situation of reading from one diagram and creating another.

It's a shame that it doesn't just unpin a window so that it could be used interactively (edited, drag and drop from one diagram to another, etc).

Still helpful though, even as a static image - cheers.  K.

5

General Board / Re: UI niggles - Keeping some panels, closing othe

« on: February 26, 2010, 09:01:51 pm »

LOL!  

Well - in 5 years I might change my mind.  By then it'll probably feel natural, like a pair of old jeans or comfy slippers!

Unfortunately, after 3 months it's still like new shoes.

6

General Board / Re: UI niggles - Keeping some panels, closing othe

« on: February 26, 2010, 12:02:37 am »

Hi Graham,

Sadly, while that does show the diagram as the first page, it doesn't get rid of the start page - it opens both.

The reason the start page gets in the way is that very often I need to work "between two diagrams".  If I had two word processed documents I would alt-tab between them; in this case I'd like to backspace between them.  The start page just gets in the way.

Thanks for the suggestion anyway!

Karl.

7

General Board / Re: UI niggles - Keeping some panels, closing othe

« on: February 24, 2010, 11:15:05 pm »

I presume that you didn't get it?  It does sound useful.  As you imply, this is a similar issue.

(Sorry for the slow reply - I got a bug myself!

8

General Board / Re: UI niggles - Keeping some panels, closing othe

« on: February 20, 2010, 02:56:35 am »

LOL.  Well, I suppose that I could, but having used Ctrl-F4 to close windows for the last 10 years I doubt that I'll switch to clicking a small cross instead that quickly  

As for the start page, it's just an annoyance.  If you only ever use a mouse then it's perhaps not too bad, but if you switch windows using the keyboard it's just one more window to "tab" or "backspace" through!  In any case, all the functions on it are available through the file menu (or elsewhere).    Ho hum.  If no-one has any ideas then I'll submit a request or hack it out with an API!

9

General Board / UI niggles - Keeping some panels, closing others

« on: February 19, 2010, 11:08:20 pm »

Hi folks - just thought I'd ask for your advice on a couple of niggles...

The EA UI is really quite usable but there are a couple of areas that consistently annoy me.  I was going to "just live with it" until I overheard a colleague complaining about the very same things too!

The thing that I'd like to get rid of is the "start page".  It serves no useful purpose (except as an intro page for newbies) and prevents me flicking between 2 open tabs.  I always close it in other products, e.g. Visual Studio; anyone know how I can do that here? - I've searched and searched!

The thing that I'd like to keep open is the project browser - it's vital but as I work through hundreds of diagrams, open, close, open, close, I inevitably hit Control-F4 while the focus is still on the tree -- I then curse it and press Alt-0 to re-open it again!   There will be at least 100 less curses in the world each day if someone can tell me how to fix that panel in position?!

Any advice most welcome!  Even just being told that I have to live with it

10

General Board / Re: Risk of using beta versions

« on: February 19, 2010, 11:22:14 pm »

I wouldn't normally advise use of beta software for production (maybe RC2, but not Beta 1 anyway!).  The risk is that, unless your model is trivial then a corruption that isn't spotted immediately might cause a lot of damage.

While EA has good export/import facilities you might find it time consuming to recover a large model that was damaged in this way.

If you really must, then I'd suggest version controlling it and having regular check-ins (daily/4 hourly) to ensure that you can roll back if necessary.  Alternatively, do an XMI export from the root level and save them to unique names on a very regular basis.

The other factor is balancing the cost of work-arounds (if possible) in 7.5 against any instability experienced in 8.0Beta1.  If you find the latter relatively stable then this might not be an issue for you.

In any case, good luck.  Fingers crossed that this Beta1 is more stable than most Microsoft Beta 1's

11

General Board / Re: Applying Auto Names to Elements

« on: February 02, 2010, 11:12:13 pm »

Thanks for that Chris.  I didn't do as you suggest but it did get me thinking!

Since it was on SQL Server I thought that rather than export/import I might do it 'in situ' through the back end.  So - I wrote this which worked fine (although it's perhaps overcomplicated).  It might help someone else, but if so, replace the prefix patterns and numbers to suit your scenario and try it with the 'Rollback' first!

Caveat Emptor of course! - I don't understand EA enough to know if it could break something but it appears ok.


--Let's take care here!
BEGIN TRANSACTION

--Create Table to contain number sequence lookup
CREATE TABLE SequenceLookup(
      PK int NOT NULL IDENTITY PRIMARY KEY,
      Prefix varchar(10),
      MatchValue varchar(1000))

--Set Unused Range: 50 -> 9999 in this case
DBCC CHECKIDENT('SequenceLookup', RESEED, 50)

--Insert range of values letting PK be created for ones missing prefix
-- Make sure pattern only selects the blank ones!
INSERT INTO SequenceLookup(MatchValue)
SELECT Name
  FROM t_object
  WHERE Object_Type = 'Requirement'
  AND NOT Name LIKE 'REQ%:%'

--Generate a Formatted Prefix
UPDATE SequenceLookup
SET Prefix = 'REQ' + Right('0000' + CAST(PK AS varchar(10)), 4) + ': '

--Join and update the original table
UPDATE t_object
SET Name = SL.Prefix + t_object.Name
FROM
      t_object
      INNER JOIN SequenceLookup SL on SL.MatchValue = t_object.Name

---View Results to see last assigned prefix
--to set Auto Name Counter to...
SELECT Name
  FROM t_object
  WHERE Object_Type = 'Requirement'
  ORDER BY Name

--Clean Up
DROP TABLE SequenceLookup

--Run with ROLLBACK here first!
COMMIT

12

General Board / Applying Auto Names to Elements

« on: January 28, 2010, 04:25:52 am »

I've finally persuaded my company to buy a few corporate copies of EA for the department and I've spent a few days now translating an unstructured requirements document for a new product into a very nice EA-based model.

However...I realised only too late that I had no unique names because I hadn't turned the Auto Name Counters on.  

My question of course is...how do I get the numbers/names applied retrospectively to the thousands of elements that I have already created?  

(Hopefully there is a way...? )

Thanks in advance....Karl.

13

Bugs and Issues / Re: SQL error when saving sequence diagram

« on: June 01, 2010, 09:22:20 pm »

I know that Sparx try to keep databases unchanged so they are perhaps reluctant!

I've not come across this, but it sounds as if the object layer and data access mappings/ORM are okay, but that Sparx have simply not created the database with a large enough field.

If so, then as a temporary workaround users could probably just increase the field size themselves.  Since SQL Server 2000 the limit is 4000 unicode characters (and 2008+ are effectively unlimited; nvarchar(max)).  It probably needs a table recreate though.

Of course a better fix might be for the Sparx team to pass in a shorter name!

14

Uml Process / Re: Easy question. Layer diagram?

« on: April 22, 2010, 02:44:28 am »

Thanks Geert,

That's an interesting view and quite true.

My aim is actually to have something to present to stakeholders that they would be familiar with.  The layer diagram "ticks all the boxes" since it is understood by everyone (although I appreciate that it's not really UML!).

15

Uml Process / Re: Easy question. Layer diagram?

« on: April 21, 2010, 09:14:47 pm »

Thanks Makulik.

I'll have a look on that basis.

Karl.