Messages

1

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Setting element as Composite Element/NType=8

« on: June 22, 2010, 03:47:04 am »

Instead of accessing the database via jdbc and getting hurt asking your db admin, I would suggest to use the Repository.Execute-Method with the desired SQL-Statement.

And, of course, I would apreciate very much if there was an enhancement to the API. As one should not manipulate the database directly, it is not comfortable to be forced to do that.

2

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Not able to create CompositeDiagram via Automa

« on: June 22, 2010, 03:43:39 am »

Hi Paolo,

I am coming back to the problem just today, and with the thread you mentioned it works.

Finally a                                
_repository.Execute("UPDATE t_object SET PDATA1 = '" + eaDiagram.DiagramID + "' where Object_ID = " + eaElement.ElementID); helped.

I will just have to think on how I will get this one through a code review ;-)

So thanks again for your help.

Take care
Sascha

3

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Not able to create CompositeDiagram via Automa

« on: June 15, 2010, 12:21:07 am »

Hi Paolo,

thank you very much, as well for the link as for the hint using the Search-Button. I used the small search bar on the right before posting and it is just now that I learned: that one does not really search the entire forum :-(

I will give a short feedback again, when I have read the thread and tried the solution proposed.

CU
Sascha

4

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Not able to create CompositeDiagram via Automation

« on: June 12, 2010, 07:51:38 pm »

I need to set a CompositeDiagram to an Element via Automation and I am using EA 7.5.850, and I it does not work ;-)

What I am able to reach is:
 - create the diagram as a subnode in the project explorer
 - leaving the element in a state, in which selecting it in any diagram where it appears, and by choosing Context Menu -> Advanced -> MakeComposite results in the desired behaviour: I can navigate from one diagram via the composite object to the more detailed diagram.

What I am not able to reach uo to now is:
 - Creating the composite element with the correct behaviour from the automation interface. The element created has neither the little "infinity-like" symbol showing it is composite, nor can I navigate to the associated model by clicking it.

What I tried up to now is:

Code: [Select]

               

//Creating the element in some package
EA.Element eaElement = (EA.Element)eaParentPackage.Elements.AddNew("someName","Activity");
eaElement.Stereotype = "BusinessProcess";
eaElement.Update();
eaParent.Elements.Refresh();

//trying making it composite
tryToMakeCompositeBefore();

//Creating the Subdiagram
EA.Diagram eaDiagram = (EA.Diagram)eaElement.Diagrams.AddNew("someName", "Analysis");
eaDiagram.Update();
eaElement.Diagrams.Refresh();
eaElement.Update();

//trying making it composite
tryToMakeCompositeAfter();


What I tried as well in tryToMakeCompositeBefore as in tryToMakeCompositeAfter, was

Code: [Select]

eaElement.Subtype = 8;
eaElement.TaggedValues.AddNew("diagram", "EAID_" + eaDiagram.DiagramGUID.Substring(1,eaDiagram.DiagramGUID.Length-2)); eaElement.TaggedValues.Refresh();

I tried also to use only one of the rows. The idea to add the tagged value came from analyzing the difference between XML-Exports between a working and a non working version.

Any help would be appreciated, as well as uncommented sample code creating working composite elements in any other context.

Sascha

5

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Interface between EA and ARIS

« on: November 20, 2009, 09:17:08 am »

@Geert:
1. I appreciate very much your comment on the same object displayed in different lanes of one single model, because I will probably have to face this problem. I will post on this issue again, when I have understood the concept of instances.
2. If I can support the heroic struggle, just let me know ;-)

Thank you for you wishes
Sascha

6

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Interface between EA and ARIS

« on: November 19, 2009, 11:30:28 pm »

Hi,

first of all, as a feedback after the interface is implemented: I can strongly encourage everyone in the need to write a lot of data to the repository to use the automation interface.

Now, I have two new issues where I would like to discuss my ideas.

The first one concerns the concept of using diagram elements as a link. This is a nice concept as the name of an element, tagged values, etc are changed in all diagrams, if someone changes them in one. I have learned that I cannot use the link to an element in the same diagram.

Unfortunately the source data I use does not meet this constraint, so what I did is creating a new element for each instance and tagging them to refer to the same original identifier. This is more or less a workaround as in future poeple will have to modify the imported diagrams and I suppose that then they will miss the link feature.

What I thought as a solution is to merge multiple occurences of the same element in one single diagram to one element. (That is in fact what I would advise a modeler to do, if the diagrams were manually created). Are there alternative concepts or do you agree that this is the way this issue should be solved?

That leads me to my second question: layouting flow and swimlane-diagrams (what I will have to do when I merge elements from the original diagram). I am doing some basal layout from scratch, but I do not want to extend this to complex layout as I do not think that I will get good results in a reasonable time.

I saw that the automatic layout will not help me (as I am not dealing with structural diagrams). Is that true or is there a hint I did not see?
So what I am thinking to do is looking for a graph library that will do some layout tasks for me and itegrating it. I would appreciate any feedback or experiences you have ob this approach.

If the layout issue is interesting for other people, please let me know, I will then post my results.

7

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Interface between EA and ARIS

« on: October 31, 2009, 01:33:40 am »

Thank you for your comment, proceeding the work on it, I have chosen to use automation for exactly the reason you mentioned. I wonder if the XMI-Format is anywhere used with different tools for more than trivial use cases.

8

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Interface between EA and ARIS

« on: October 28, 2009, 02:33:58 am »

I am creating an interface between ARIS and Enterprise Architect.
Focus is on using data from ARIS in EA, the other way round might be of interest in future.

I am quiet new to the tools, but have some experience in UML and other modeling languages and creating interfaces and extensions to modeling tools.

ARIS  is a more or less business focussed modeling tool with its own proprietary notation (EEPC) and rather poor focus on requirements engineering and software development, which we have to use for process definition from the business side. Enterprise Architect is the tool we use on the IT side.

I have some work done on mapping the specific ARIS Notation to the standard notation used in Enterprise Architect, which both contains a general mapping and a mapping needed for our customized ARIS notation.

On the technical side, I started with using standard techniques to transform a given ARIS XML Export (which comes with its own DTD) to an XML file, that I will be able to import to Enterprise Architect. What I did not solve up to now is a strategy of synchronizing when content changes in both tools, but this seems to me as quiet solvable.

I have to reasons for my post: The first one is, that reading the Forum Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools, I learned that Developers on EA choose the automation interface for generating packages and models in EA and do not use the XML interface. I would appreciate any feedback, wether I should rethink my design decision to use direct XML-Transformations.

The second reason is to get a feedback wether the topic of creating such an interface is of interest for this community. If this is the case, I would post some detailed ideas that could be discussed.

Sascha