Messages

1

General Board / Re: Best method to differentiate between AS-IS and TO-BE

« on: February 06, 2023, 08:30:34 pm »

Another question: how do you guys resolve navigating to what will be developed in what sprint?
We try to abstain from using the browser but prefer navigation cells; We accomplish this by building project pages; But in the end it delivers a huge clutter of pages to maintain.

What are the better practices?

Thanks in advance for the answers

We use change objects and link them to model items using a script.
https://github.com/GeertBellekens/Enterprise-Architect-VBScript-Library/blob/master/Projects/Project%20A/Diagram%20Group/Link%20To%20CR.vbs
https://github.com/GeertBellekens/Enterprise-Architect-VBScript-Library/blob/master/Projects/Project%20A/A%20Scripts/LinkToCRMain.vbs

Change objects are then grouped into releases/sprints

An SQL search gives us an overview of all changes in the model per change and per release.
We do not use diagrams for this purpose.

Geert

Hi Geert,

I've also been looking at versioning recently and i honestly thought the time aware modelling was a good way to go.

I'm now considering your workflow with these scripts and i have to ask how do these scripts compare to the team collaboration windows using 'EAReview' elements that is in v16?

Tim.

2

General Board / Archimate 3.2?

« on: January 26, 2023, 08:24:22 pm »

Archimate 3.2 was released in October last year, when do we expect to see that available in EA?

3

General Board / Manual for EA 16.1 "Customize Preferences and Application Data Storage" feature?

« on: November 18, 2022, 11:43:13 pm »

I want to try this feature out, to share my preferences across desktops. I have looked, but I cannot find any details on how to use this feature in the preferences section of the manual.

The manual currently says:

You can customize these settings to define your preferred behavior of the system. Most of the settings are stored in your registry and they are set for your use only, on any model you open. For a networked workplace, registry settings can be copied down to any network workstation you log in to. Otherwise, the settings control operations under your login on the current machine only.

So maybe i am missing something, looking in the wrong place or waiting on a manual update...  but before i spend more time in the recursive manual rabbithole, i thought to check to see if anyone else has used this yet and can offer some help and/or links?


 

4

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: What happened to the "Easy with Model Add-in Recipes" Linq.js based feature?

« on: November 03, 2022, 08:50:55 pm »

Is there a source for that that doesn't come from a 49 minute video?

That is literally the same question i just asked!

I haven't watched that video in the past and I don't have the available time to watch the whole thing in hopes of finding out what you're referring to.

Here's our documentation for model add-ins.
https://www.sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/16.0/add-ins___scripting/modeladdins.html

To be honest i also do not have the time (even when playing at 2x speed). I have had to occasionally look at videos from the summits for clues and inspiration because the documentation linked above barely explains how to create a JavaScript add in, and the white-papers/documents i have found (including EA16 model wizard examples) seem to be broken with EA16.
For example, this one slide has more information in it about the javascript console and its methods, than is available in any of the published Sparx documentation i have access to..

It's also worth saying the presenting in that video is a partner, so I don't have access to anything used to present that video.

I kind of assumed that as this was presented at a summit, more information would be available somewhere inside Sparx. Or if not from Sparx then from community members who participated in that summit and did watch that video.

5

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / What happened to the "Easy with Model Add-in Recipes" Linq.js based feature?

« on: November 02, 2022, 08:02:33 pm »

Hi,

I came across this summit video from 2019 Repository Updates and Administration Made - Easy with Model Add-in Recipes that claims:

"Save time and mitigate risk with this innovative and powerful library and its accompanying Easy-to-Follow and Extensible Recipe Book. Do in 4 lines what might take 50 - 60 lines of scripting with more Rigor and Precision. Take home a COMPLIMENTARY copy of the Recipe Book. "

The video demonstrates the advanced capabilities of the EA JS engine and Addin development that i would like to know more about.

Specifically:

• Shows the JS engine running an "off the shelf" JS library with sophisticated functionality inside a JS-Addin: Linq.js.
• Shows a mature JS-Addin development process, including a form of unit test harnesses for model transformation.

Having a well developed and tested JS-Addin development methodology would go a long way to JS becoming the default scripting language.  Especially when combined with point 1. Point 1 implies that there is a documented manual or automated transpilation method for porting "off the shelf" JS libraries to the EA JS environment or as a side-loadable web-assembly library.

I cannot find any recipe book or other documentation/manuals/whitepapers describing how to do any of these things. Does anyone know what ever happened to this?

6

General Board / Re: Sparx EA v16 and the Floating license server

« on: October 27, 2022, 11:14:55 pm »

This may be of use for reference purposes:
https://github.com/IDI-Systems/SSProCloud-Docker

7

Bugs and Issues / Re: Problems deleting elements in qeax files

« on: September 22, 2022, 12:57:48 am »

Sounds like a potential nasty bugs, I don't have v16 available right now, it will be good if somebody could try to replicate it.

I was finally able to track it down to being related the IDEA plug-in, so happily it is not native to EA 16.

8

Bugs and Issues / Re: Problems deleting elements in qeax files

« on: September 21, 2022, 10:11:55 pm »

What do you mean by "having trouble"?

Geert

When i select one or more elements in the project browser, then right click and select Delete, the warning pops up, i select 'yes', then element does not get deleted. It still appears in the project browser. when i run a project integrity, there are no problems reported.

If i put the element(s) i want to delete into a package, and then delete the package, the elements are deleted.

So having trouble

9

Bugs and Issues / Problems deleting elements in qeax files

« on: September 21, 2022, 09:04:41 pm »

Hi,

I seem be be having trouble deleting elements from my model, unless i add them to a package and delete the package. Any suggestions?

10

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Visual indication for elements that is shared in multiple diagrams

« on: September 15, 2022, 06:20:59 pm »

I think this icon feature, if considered, should be more abstract than a de-duplication like rule.

The abstract feature would be an extra icon+tooltip text generated by a scriptlet. That way, the icon can be used to support user specific model validation/diagram helper rules. Possibly two icons, an icon associated with the diagram rules and an icon associated with the model rules...

11

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Tips on collaborative MDG development?

« on: September 15, 2022, 06:08:49 pm »

Thanks for all the suggestions to help not mess up the MDG development. We want one or two (so not loads more people to get it all messed up hopefully) to help out and remove the single point of failure.
Was timoc's Team Library suggestion intended as a way of team communication? I've never used that feature but it doesn't seem to address any other issue.

Team Library is a part of a model database that can be 'shared', with others working on other model databases. The Team Library seems to have been created with a specific idea about how teams should communicate, share information, etc. with a detailed review/team-support workflow in mind.  It essentially allows you embed 'assets' with documents in a document tree. Where an asset can be a package an element, other resources that can be exported via XMI. This tree can be 'shared' with other model databases. Shared in this case means that it is available and editable while working in other model databases, and so can be used to share packages like a poor mans version control. Think of it like a kind of wiki+model pastebin? The manual seems to imply the documents are supposed to be some kind of team forum or something, i am not sure why.

The upshot is, if it is an asset that can be exported via XMI or 'cut and paste' to another model, then you can store it as a Resource alongside a document in the Team library. It is a nice feature if you are not using a central modelling database, a RAS or version control.

Anyway, my experience with Team library since EA 12, is that it has not seen alot of love since it was created. The implementation seems to rely on a cached index or something, and i have had to go back to backups in the past to recover library information. It seems a bit wobbly in EA16 with qeax files (bug submitted), but YMMV.

As a side note: Like pretty much everything else in EA (not just 'marketing features') the manual describes all of the menu options and what each option does. The manual assumes you know why it was designed the way it was, how and who it was designed to support, how it links to other features (associated report templates, calendar features, journals etc.). I am sure there are well defined user roles, use cases, review workflows etc. somewhere, but they are not in the manual. Users are essentially forced to bend the underlying design to fit their needs, re-implement 'out of the box' reports, possibly relying on edge cases or unintended features to support your reverse-engineered re-interpretation of the Team Library feature.

Meaning: the wobbly nature of EA16 may be due to my misusing Team Library in some way

12

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Tips on collaborative MDG development?

« on: September 13, 2022, 12:22:10 am »

A couple of hints:

- Use version control to manage your MDG files (generated xml files, but also icon files etc..)
- Make sure everyone maps the version control workspace to the same path (e.g. H:\VC\MDG) because EA uses absolute paths to link images in stereotypes
- Use version control and/or security locking (Require user lock to edit) on a central database repository
- Communicate!

Geert

Can you use a central/shared Team Library for this?

13

Bugs and Issues / Re: EA16 JavaScript DLGInputBox bug

« on: August 02, 2022, 08:38:09 pm »

Hello all,
Could this issue be that the current EA configuration is calling a 32-bit "ActiveX" object which is why the 64-bit version comes back with an error?

I am not sure but it sort of looks like it.

Thanks, Adam

I was having similar issues, and found that if you look at the code in the include file you will see:

Code: [Select]

function DLGInputBox( promptText /* : String */, title /* : String */, defaultText /* : String */ ) /* : String */
{
// JavaScript has no intrinsic InputBox method, therefore we have to steal VBs
var vbe = new COMObject("ScriptControl");
vbe.Language = "VBScript";

return vbe.eval( "InputBox(\"" + promptText + "\",\"" + title + "\",\"" + defaultText + "\")");
}

After some experimentation with the Javascript interpreters COMObject( ) method, i started looking at the Javascript EA-Addin functionality.

The JS-Addin feature claims to have EA UI integration for menu items, dialog boxes and such, but I have not yet been able to get it working in EA 16. note the EA16 plugin examples in the example repository seem to be broken (reported).

If you do manage to get the add-in route working, please post..

Update:
After some digging in the JS-Addin documentation, the dialog box i can find is the JavaScript implementation of Session.Input.
Try this in the JavaScript console:

Code: [Select]

Session.Input("Hello")
It may be that any JS-Addin with a UI more complex than a simple dialog-box, requires a diagram with elements and uses the element properties for inputs.

14

General Board / Re: Migration from EA15 to EA16; What do we lose?

« on: July 22, 2022, 08:17:27 pm »

In my experience, EA 16 performs a conversion. If you want to be able to use an EAP file between users with EA15 and EA16 i suggest installing Pro cloud server, and setting the EAP file up as a shared repository. Its pretty simple to share a model from a desktop system using this.
If you go this route, make sure to limit access to the EAP file, so that only PCS can access it.

15

General Board / How do i enable the Ultimate edition "Instant Integration" feature?

« on: July 21, 2022, 06:56:32 pm »

Hi,

As an Ultimate user, I have some questions about the Ultimate Edition "Instant Integration" feature. According to the blurb:

Get instant access to the Pro Cloud Server external data integration capabilities. No additional client fees - just install and connect. In addition you get the MDG Integration for MS Office product ( separate download ) for working with MS Office tools and Enterprise Architect models.

How do i turn this feature on in PCS?
If so, how? I cannot find any reference on how to enable this feature using the Ultimate license in the documentation. For example WebEA seems to require an explicit license token.

Does it cover custom Integration Plugins?
The last conversation i saw mentioned that you need an explicit license to develop your own integration plugins.

How does Sharepoint Integration differ from the MS Office MDG sharepoint sync integration?
There does not seem to be any overlap.