Messages

1

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Include JPG image on diagram?

« on: April 14, 2011, 02:32:39 am »

Thanks everyone for your replies, they were very helpful.

I got it working. Here are my results with your suggestions:

1. I tried dragging a .jpg and a .png file onto the diagram from File Explorer and dropping it there. I got the circle with an slash cursor and no drag-drop-insert functionality. Maybe it's specific to version of EA.

2. In File Explorer I copied the selected the image file and copied onto the clipboard. Right-clicking on the diagram my "Paste Image from Clipboard" was greyed out. Paste from the menu and Ctrl-V didn't work either. I couldn't figure out how to get the menu active. Note that pasting from a file this way works in Word, PowerPoint, etc... so not unreasonable to figure it works here too. You can also "Insert Image from File" in many programs as a more direct approach, which was a menu i was looking for.

3. So, continuing down this path I opened the file in a graphics editor (Snagit Editor) and did a copy there of the displayed image. Now "Paste Image from Clipboard" WAS enabled and the copy worked!!

4. I followed the instructions in the help file under "Create Custom Diagram Background" topic and that worked, but it requires certain type of diagram and boundary element (incidentally it adds the images into the Image Manager same as going into Settings > Images). This has the advantage of sharing the image (I think) if you reference it multiple times in different parts of the model, but right now I don't have that need.

Method #3 seems the easiest right now so I'll stick with that.

BTW - if the diagram is is a child element of the Use Case element you have to modify the Use Case template as it does not normally include child diagrams in the report.

Funny how sometimes it's the little things that sidetrack you. Assembling the final report and subsequent revisions will be much easier now. EA is a fantastic tool.

Thanks again everyone.

2

Suggestions and Requests / Include JPG image on diagram?

« on: April 13, 2011, 01:41:01 am »

Hi, when working the business process and use case models I often have screen shots (JPG) of mocked up screens. I know the I can add the graphic files as "linked files" to my use cases or put a document element on the diagram, or put a hyperlink on the diagram, but what I really want is to be able to view the picture on the diagram and have it print out in the generated RTF documents. If there was a option to do this directly, or an option to automatically show / expand / include linked files on the diagrams and generated reports it would work too.

Editing the RTF documents afterward (to include the documents) is a poor option as I don't want to lose everything when regenerating the file.

Am I missing something? Is this possible? Running V7.5.845 Corporate.

Thanks, Rob

3

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Copy Element Listing to Clipboard

« on: April 20, 2011, 02:26:13 am »

Thanks Geert, that worked although I had to fiddle a bit with the search criteria to get my items. I was also able to make a listing report that put my fields on a single line separated by commas but it requires constantly re-generating the document.

Rob

4

Suggestions and Requests / Copy Element Listing to Clipboard

« on: April 16, 2011, 02:43:53 am »

Hi,

I need to be able to copy / paste from EA into programs like Excel or Project. I was able to list my use cases out in a nice grid, but there is no COPY function. I have a small project so I can re-type into Excel but if I had hundreds of use cases that will wear out quick. I tried to write a custom report template, but all those are block style.

Any ideas if this is possible? If not please consider it a suggestion / enhancement request.

Thanks, Rob

5

Suggestions and Requests / Text Element paste does not prompt new or link.

« on: April 18, 2011, 04:15:31 am »

I copied a Text Element from one form to over a dozen others to label some diagrams. I did this via copy/paste mostly because I had set the appearance (Font, Font Size, etc...) on the Text Element and did not want to do it over and over again. Unfortunately, when you do a copy / paste, the default action is to paste a link to the SAME Text Element. And, EA does NOT add the "Text Element" to the Project Browser tree so it is impossible to see that you are dealing with one element linked to every form vs. unique Text Elements. So, I chased myself in circles fixing diagram labels and wondering why they were always wrong. Only by going to the Element -> Find In Documents dialog can you see that you actually have the exact same element in several diagrams. I cannot find any way to "break" the link, changing the Text Elements into unique instances so I have an afternoon of busy work ahead of me.

I think the utility of sharing a single link across all documents might come in handy once in a while, but based on why someone would use a "Text Element", by default I think it should create new/unique instance every time unless you explicity want a universally shared one.

Rob