Messages

1

Suggestions and Requests / Save reqyured after copy

« on: August 01, 2003, 12:02:08 am »

I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, but possibly I haven't been looking in the right places.

When you use ctrl-c to copy text from a field in the operation or attribute window, EA seems to think that you have  changed the entry and requires that you hit save before moving to another entry, when in fact you have just copied text from the entry onto the clipboard. This is counter-intuitive and irritating. When I first started using the product I kept thinking I had accidentally changed the entry.

Bruce Fountain

2

General Board / Re: Data Modelling Strategies

« on: September 28, 2004, 08:50:53 pm »

This is exactly what I was looking for, thankyou. I wonder why there isn't a copy of the document, or a pointer to it, somewhere on the sparx site? Perhaps there is and I missed it.

3

General Board / Data Modelling Strategies

« on: September 26, 2004, 07:56:17 pm »

I have just discovered the data modelling features (<<table>> stereotype etc). I am trying to design a process which has a fairly close meshing with a relational database and this is excellent.

What I am trying to work out is how my <<table>> classes relate to the rest of my design. I had planned a class to correspond to each table, with rows mapping to object instances. I can generate the SQL to create the tables from the <<table>> classes, but I can also generate C++ classes from the tables. Should I use these generated classes? Should I add the extra functionality to these classes, or derive subclasses, or perhaps the class should have some sort of relation with the table class.

I am sure this is a common sort of problem, perhaps people could describe how they go about modelling their data-oriented designs?

4

General Board / Re: Any plans for EA on Linux?

« on: August 04, 2003, 06:16:12 pm »

The other option of course is the one of the Windows emulators (and I have not tried this so cant guarantee it would work) VMWare is apparently quite good and WINE I think has come a long way - but then you need the Windows O/S as well as the Linux ... gets a bit complicated.  

You don't need to install Windows if you are using WINE, although you do for VMWare. I haven't tried  running EA under WINE.

You might like to look at umbrello (at sourceforge.net). I had a look at it about a year ago. I was impressed, but it was still a bit immature. The project seems to be quite active, so I should think it would be worth another look.

Bruce Fountain

5

General Board / Re: Class view per class diagram

« on: July 31, 2003, 07:04:26 pm »

I have a slightly different take on  this topic. I feel that if you have so many attributes and methods that it is cluttering up your class diagram then this might reflect a problem with your design. Hiding private/protected members is a different matter - inaccessible members are probably not of interest  when modelling the relationships between classes.

If you find that you use a subset of the methods and attributes in one context and a different subset in another context then maybe you should be splitting the methods out into interfaces which reflect the roles played by the object in these contexts. You can then use these interefaces in your class or sequence diagrams, rather than the class that implements them.

Personally, I think it would be confusing to see two different class diagrams that contain the same class, and see different members assigned to that class in each diagram.

Bruce Fountain

6

General Board / Re: Copy Attributes and Operations?

« on: July 16, 2003, 06:57:41 pm »

Create a class diagram and drop your target class onto it. Open the source class in the workspace browser. Drag the attribute/operation onto the target class. It will be copied, not moved.

It doesn't seem to be entirely natural, but it does work. Mostly. I have managed to lock up EA a couple of times.

Bruce Fountain

7

General Board / Diagram properties lost after importing package

« on: July 07, 2003, 07:51:39 pm »

After importing a package from an XML file, I find that the diagram properties have been lost. To reproduce:

* create a new EA project

* under the Logical View, create a new package

* under the new package, create a new class diagram and a new
 class

* add an attribute and a method to the class and add the new
 class to the class diagram, the attribute and method
 will be visible

* bring up the diagram properties and set the "Hide Attributes"
 and "Hide Operations" checkboxes. The attribute and operation
 will no longer be visible from the diagram

* select the new package  and export to XML

* remove the new package, select the logical view folder, and
 import the package from the XML file

* the diagram is restored, but the changed properties are lost
 - the attribute and operation are visible

I assume that this is a bug, but perhaps there is some workaround? I have some diagrams with 20 or more classes. I suppress attributes and operations to reduce the clutter in the diagram, but everytime I import the package I have to adjust the diagrams.

Bruce Fountain

8

General Board / Re: Usability Questions on Class Diagrammer (EA3.5

« on: June 12, 2003, 01:32:21 am »

1. Open the  RTF using word, then select Edit->Links. Select all the
 links and click "Break Links". This will cause the images to be copied
 into the doco, so that you can distribute the doc without the
 Images subdirectory, if I understand the problem correctly.  I got
 this from the help under  CreatingDocuments/RTFDocuments/
 UsingMSWord/ImageHandling. It seems to work even if you save
 the doc as RTF

I am new to EA, but I was just playing around with this stuff
yesterday.

Bruce

9

General Board / How can I specify the date format?

« on: June 11, 2003, 01:18:58 am »

The default format for dates in the generated RTF is US-Style
(MM/DD/YYYY). Is there somewhere I can change the format to, say,
DD-MM-YYYY or DD-MMM-YYYY?