Messages

1

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Validating MDG Technology Stereotypes and Tagged Value Types from Database

« on: December 27, 2025, 02:57:59 am »

We're new to using MDG technologies and UML profiles in our models, and have recently discovered some issues with our existing automation tools and a new data type that was created as an MDG technology.

Previously, we'd been using class objects, with stereotypes and tagged value types defined in the UML Types dialog, and have a number of automations built that, before inserting an element or tagged value, check in the database to a) validate that what's being added is valid and b) to determine the type of tagged value being inserted, to know how to insert it (i.e. if Type=Memo, add to the Notes, not the value, if Type=RefGUID, lookup the ea_guid first, and insert that, rather than the name, etc, etc). We'd been looking at the t_propertytypes and t_stereotypes tables to get this information for the automation.

What we've found, however, is that our new object type that is derived from an MDG technology does not insert stereotype names or tagged value definitions into those tables, which means that validation fails when our automation tries to manipulate these new types of objects. When creating the UML profile for these new types, I'd initially tried creating the tagged values in the UML Types dialog, and adding them to the stereotype object in my profile diagram: but, that didn't create new tagged values in the objects to which that technology stereotype was applied: so I added them as features on the stereotype element, and created dataType / enumeration objects that I associated with the features (and added the "Type=RefGuid; Values=Actor;" string that you'd normally put in the notes in the UML Types dialog into the notes of the data type, and they worked as I'd expect them to - apart from not being in the database table. I'd wondered if perhaps I'd done this wrong (the documentation was a little unclear to me - though I assume that's an understanding issue, not a documentation issue...), or whether this was expected behavior, and I was looking in the wrong place for where these stereotype / tagged value definitions appear in the database?

2

PCS General Board / WAIT_TIMEOUT for multiple operations / login to PCS

« on: July 10, 2025, 07:56:55 am »

Hi, we've been having a few users that have been running into an issue with EA and ProCloud Server: they're seeing regular WAIT_TIMEOUT messages appearing when they're trying to load a model, and when working within a model. We've tried a lot of troubleshooting, and, in the end the only solution that worked was to get them a new laptop from IT (which isn't a solution, just dodging the issue).

The thing is, now I'm getting the issue after my PC was upgraded to Windows 11. It worked perfectly before the update (same PC hardware, same network connection), and it works perfectly on my colleagues machines that were upgraded at the same time (same PCS, same model, same hardware specs, same version of Windows 10 / Windows 11, rolled out through System Center).

When connecting, I will see one or more "WAIT_TIMEOUT" error messages, with different SQL queries listed. If I can get it to load, as I make selections in the object browser, I will get these errors every few operations - which is getting really very irritating.

I do not see these errors working with a local model, and I do not see these errors working with a direct connection to a database - I cloned our model database and tried connecting to it directly, and it operates normally (so, the same model in a JET file works fine, and the same model in a connected SQL server works fine), the issue only appears to happen when I connect through PCS. My colleagues are all connecting to the same PCS without issues, and, when the WAIT_TIMEOUT errors are appearing, the server itself is barely ticking over (1% CPU). We're currently using 16, but I've also tried installing the 30 day trial of 17.1 (which was a good way to test fully uninstalling, deleting the APPDATA/SparxSystems directory, and reinstalling a new Sparx EA instance on my desktop) but I'm still seeing the same issue in 17.1.

Any thoughts on what other troubleshooting steps I could use to try to work out why this is happening and rectify it? It seems this is something that a few other users have seen (there's several WAIT_TIMEOUT errors listed in this forum) - but, those have mostly been associated with specific activities: the closest other thread to what I'm seeing was this one from 2020: https://sparxsystems.com/forums/smf/index.php/topic,43487.msg257547.html#msg257547 - so, it's not a unique issue, but, as I noted, it's happened to 5 other users in our environment over the past couple of years, so I expect it's going to happen again - and we're expanding our user base and want to be prepared and figure out what the mitigation steps are so we can fix it if it reoccurs (without having to get a new laptop) - plus, as I spend a good proportion of my day working in Sparx EA, I want to stop wasting 6000 ms waiting every time this occurs - thanks very much for any suggestions or pointers!

3

General Board / Viewing connector stereotypes in traceability pane

« on: December 14, 2024, 02:16:09 am »

Is there a way to display the stereotype of a connector in the Traceability window user interface? We have a number of relationships between objects that are specific to our environment, and we've used a "Connector" to create that association, and applied a stereotype to that connector to differentiate between the connection types. However, this is only visible on diagrams, I've not found a way to make that visible in the traceability window. Not all of these connectors exist in diagrams, so whilst "Find in Diagrams" can be a good solution, it doesn't work for all of our objects. If not, is there another UI element that displays connectors that I could be using instead (which also displays the connector stereotype?) Thanks!

4

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Custom Dialog Window from Script, Update

« on: July 15, 2024, 09:34:05 pm »

I'd like to know why you think HTA is not possible in Windows 10 anymore.
Here we are still using it successfully and I'm not aware of upcoming restrictions.

Apologies: that was just an assumption based only on the statement in the last post of the referenced thread - I should have checked my sources before echoing that assertion.

5

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Custom Dialog Window from Script, Update

« on: July 13, 2024, 09:51:57 am »

I was looking for an answer to how to create a custom dialog that can be displayed by a script, and allows multiple values to be specified by a user in a single dialog, rather than prompting them with multiple InputBoxes one after the other, and came across this old post: https://sparxsystems.com/forums/smf/index.php?topic=44685.0, which describes a similar problem to what I was encountering, but points out that one of the suggested solutions for creating custom dialogs (using HTML Applications) is no longer possible in Windows 10. I wanted to share another (not particularly elegant, but functional) solution, in addition to those already suggested in the previous thread, in case it's useful to anyone else searching the forum.

This script uses the capability of Powershell to be able to create and use .Net objects - which includes the ability to use the System.Windows.Forms objects, to create simple dialogs that include any of the Windows Forms controls. One of the specific use-cases I had was a need to be able to display combo boxes with pre-set lists of values, so they could pick from those values. The Powershell script is executed using "WScript.Shell": and, to get back each of the multiple output values from the dialog, the PowerShell script writes the values as separate lines to the console, and the Sparx script scrapes those from STDOUT, and pops them into a custom Class, so they're easier to utilize as an object by subsequent script operations. The dialog example was taken from Microsoft's Documentation on creating Forms in Powershell, here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/samples/creating-a-custom-input-box?view=powershell-7.4

Code: [Select]

' Create a custom class / object type, that we can use to return the results to the calling method
class DeviceDetails
public Name
public Domain_Name
public Description
public Environment
public IP_Address
public Server_Type
end class

'This method creates the dialog (in this example, passing 2 arrays as parameters, which have the lists of items used in combo boxes)
function getDeviceDetailsDialog(environments, server_types)
dim shell, ps_script, response, array, device, executor, env_def, env, st_def, st
'set the values that will be going into combo boxes (passed to function as arrays, extracted from t_propertytypes)
for each env in environments
env_def = env_def & "[void] $comboBox3.Items.Add('" & env &"');"
next
for each st in server_types
st_def = st_def & "[void] $comboBox5.Items.Add('" & st &"');"
next
'Powershell script to create the dialog box and print its output to stdout
ps_script = "Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms;" &_
"Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Drawing;" &_
"$form = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Form;" &_
"$form.Text = 'Create Device';" &_
"$form.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(300,420);" &_
"$form.StartPosition = 'CenterScreen';" &_
"$form.ShowIcon = $false; " &_
"$form.ControlBox= $false;" &_
"$form.FormBorderStyle = 'FixedDialog';" &_
"$okButton = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Button;" &_
"$okButton.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(75,345);" &_
"$okButton.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(75,23);" &_
"$okButton.Text = 'OK';" &_
"$okButton.DialogResult = [System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult]::OK;" &_
"$form.AcceptButton = $okButton;$form.Controls.Add($okButton);" &_
"$cancelButton = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Button;" &_
"$cancelButton.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(150,345);" &_
"$cancelButton.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(75,23);" &_
"$cancelButton.Text = 'Cancel';" &_
"$cancelButton.DialogResult = [System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult]::Cancel;" &_
"$form.CancelButton = $cancelButton;$form.Controls.Add($cancelButton);" &_
"$label1 = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Label;" &_
"$label1.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10,20);" &_
"$label1.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(280,20);" &_
"$label1.Text = 'Device Name'; " &_
"$form.Controls.Add($label1);" &_
"$textBox1 = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.TextBox;" &_
"$textBox1.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10,40);" &_
"$textBox1.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(260,20);" &_
"$form.Controls.Add($textBox1);" &_
"$label2 = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Label;" &_
"$label2.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10,60);" &_
"$label2.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(280,20);" &_
"$label2.Text = 'Device Description:';" &_
"$form.Controls.Add($label2);" &_
"$textBox2 = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.TextBox;" &_
"$textBox2.Multiline = $true;" &_
"$textBox2.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10,80);" &_
"$textBox2.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(260,80);" &_
"$form.Controls.Add($textBox2);" &_
"$label3 = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Label;" &_
"$label3.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10,160);" &_
"$label3.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(280,20);" &_
"$label3.Text = 'Environment:';$form.Controls.Add($label3);" &_
"$comboBox3 = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox;" &_
"$comboBox3.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10,180);" &_
"$comboBox3.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(260,20);" & env_def &_
"$form.Controls.Add($comboBox3);" &_
"$label4 = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Label;" &_
"$label4.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10,200);" &_
"$label4.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(280,20);" &_
"$label4.Text = 'Device IP Address:';$form.Controls.Add($label4);" &_
"$textBox4 = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.TextBox;" &_
"$textBox4.Multiline = $true;" &_
"$textBox4.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10,220);" &_
"$textBox4.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(260,20);" &_
"$form.Controls.Add($textBox4);" &_
"$label5 = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Label;" &_
"$label5.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10,240);" &_
"$label5.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(280,20);" &_
"$label5.Text = 'Device Type:';$form.Controls.Add($label5);" &_
"$comboBox5 = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox;" &_
"$comboBox5.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10,260);" &_
"$comboBox5.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(260,20);" & st_def &_
"$form.Controls.Add($comboBox5);" &_
"$label6 = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Label;" &_
"$label6.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10,280);" &_
"$label6.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(280,20);" &_
"$label6.Text = 'Domain Name:';$form.Controls.Add($label6);" &_
"$textBox6 = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.TextBox;" &_
"$textBox6.Multiline = $true;" &_
"$textBox6.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10,300);" &_
"$textBox6.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(260,20);" &_
"$form.Controls.Add($textBox6);$form.Topmost = $true;" &_
"$form.Add_Shown({$textBox1.Select()});" &_
"$result = $form.ShowDialog();" &_
"if ($result -eq [System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult]::OK)" &_
"{    Write-Host $textBox1.Text; Write-Host $textBox2.Text; Write-Host $comboBox3.Text; " &_
"Write-Host $textBox4.Text; Write-Host $comboBox5.Text;Write-Host $textBox6.Text;}"
Set shell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set executor = shell.Exec("powershell.exe -windowstyle hidden -noprofile -command " & ps_script)
executor.StdIn.Close
'extract the text that the Powershell script wrote to the console (Write-Host)
response = executor.StdOut.ReadAll
array = split(response, vblf)
'create response object
set device = new DeviceDetails
with device
.Name = array(0)
.Description = array(1)
.Environment = array(2)
.IP_Address = array(3)
.Server_Type = array(4)
.Domain_Name = array(5)
End with
set getDeviceDetailsDialog = device
end function

'usage example:
'dim device
'set device = getDeviceDetailsDialog(array("prod","dev","test"), array("AppServer","WebServer"))
'MsgBox(device.Description & " - " & device.Environment)

The big lump of Powershell script code in the middle is, admittedly, ugly: you could make the script cleaner by saving the PowerShell script as a .ps1 file to disk, but that adds a dependency for all users to have the script in the same place on their workstations: I preferred the idea of keeping this all in the model / database, so there's no individual user set up for new users for my use-case.

Anyhow, I hope someone finds this useful! 

6

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Is it possible to run a script on the selection in a List View window?

« on: June 01, 2024, 02:16:13 am »

Perfect! Thank you very much Geert, I wasn't aware of an Element Group type, as I'd been looking just at the list of group types available in the New Group drop down (but found this in the group properties, thanks to your suggestion). That's giving me exactly what I needed, thanks very much!

7

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Is it possible to run a script on the selection in a List View window?

« on: May 31, 2024, 10:46:02 pm »

To automate repetitive tasks, we use a lot of project browser scripts and model search scripts, so users can select one or more items, right click and select Specialize->Scripts->(script name) to perform the task. We're expanding our user base to include users without SQL query authoring skills, but need to view lists of elements based on tagged values. Viewing a package in List View and adding tagged value columns is a good alternative to SQL queries for these users: but, I've not been able to figure out a way to execute scripts based on the users' selection in list view, as there's no "Specialize" option on the context menu, and does not appear to be a script group type that correlates to List View. Is there a way to add scripts to list views?