Messages

1

Suggestions and Requests / Improve free sorting in the tree

« on: December 19, 2005, 06:46:55 am »

Hi!

To get logical order for element descriptions in the documentation, we use free sorting in the tree. Elements are sorted manually to the order that seems most natural from the viewpoint of reading the diagrams in package (alphabetical order did not seem appropriate as we have requirements, activities etc in the same package).

Currently, using the sorting icons is really a pain already when the number of model elements is above 20. Usually the number is much bigger in our case …

I would suggest the following improvements to sorting:
-sorting by dragging a model element in tree
-option “sort by object type” – will sort the model elements in selected package by element type and alphabetically within one type
-sort by diagram – sorts elements in the selected package using the order in current diagram (options could be whether the order is determined by “rows” or “columns”)
The latter two could open for instance from the right-mouse-button popup menu and apply to the selected package.

My current problem with moving elements one-by-one using the buttons would be solved by any of the proposed improvements J

Best regards,
Tonu

2

Suggestions and Requests / RTF generator generates until excluded node only

« on: December 19, 2005, 06:34:08 am »

Hi!

When you use the feature "exclude details for" in the template based document generator, then only elements BEFORE first excluded element are included in the document.

The template I have, prints element type, name and description for each model element in a package. When I excluded a few elements we never write descriptions for (choice, junction, decision) I discovered that only elements appearing before the first choice element in the tree. We use tree sorting for ordering elements in the document. I did not do any additional tests, but any of the excluded elements that caused problems did not have name.

I was lucky that on e of the models had choice as a second element in tree. I had already generated several documents with choice somewhere in the middle and did not notice part of the elements were missing

I got around the problem leaving all the elements in  document while generating and removed them later manually. If anybody suggests the problem is in the template not the generator, I can send the exported template for testing. Did not run any additional tests myself …

Best regards,
Tonu

3

General Board / Re: filter tests in RTF documents

« on: August 13, 2007, 05:04:27 am »

I am also happy to hear abut the potential filtering in RTF output.

A hint to bEAr. We have managed to generate filtered documents using automation. We have an add-on, that makes a new package, then, based on filtering condition, copies all relevant elements to this package. After that we can generated document using standard document generator. This allows us to make documents answering questions
"Show all requirements related to selected actors and all elements connected to those requirements using <<trace>> dependency" or "output all requirements related to the selected use-cases" or "all requirements with certain priority"  ...

Of course, it would be possible to make a script that writes data directly to RTF document. However, this means that you need to make also all formatting yourself ...
Also, the advantage of "temporary package" is the ability to change grouping of elements (by making sub-packages) before me generating documentation.

Tonu

4

General Board / Re: Default Diagram

« on: October 19, 2006, 04:02:17 am »

Hi Tonu,

I don't think we're arguing at cross-purposes...  I'm not suggesting that when you move the diagram the link is broken.  Just when you formally mark the Element as non-composite, the link is broken.
/--/
Unsetting Composite Element should really mean Unlink diagram...

I too like to move diagrams around and appreciate the fact that the link is maintained.  But if I say it's no longer Composite; I mean it... Break the link!

Paolo

Sorry, I ovelooked this point before   and I completely agree with you!

And I still miss the feature to visualise and maintain the links somehow (eg dependency with specific stereotype or simply a modifiable element property) .. but this now goes far from the initial topic, doesn't it ...

5

General Board / Re: Default Diagram

« on: October 19, 2006, 02:27:18 am »

Sorry...

I thought it used to do it that way... However, the problem is that unsetting the composite element doesn't clear the link...  That's a bug.  The least it should do is to ask you if it should clear the link.

Report it...

Paolo

Whether not clearing the link it is a bug or not depends on the viewpoint ;-)
I have found several useful application for that:
 - cross referencing between different packages -- for instance I have domain model in the use case-view. For clarity of documentation I prefer to gather significant behaviour of domain objects in sub packages of dynamic view rather than having them scattered below different classes. I was quite pleased to find, that when I move the elements and the diagram to different folder the link remains (or copy a diagram created elsewhere under a class and after making the class composite, put the diagram back to its original location)
  - this may sound like a misuse, but couple of times I have found logical and most expressive way to navigate from several UML element (class or process) to the same sub- diagram. This can be easily done when copying the diagram under the first element, making this composite and then doing the same trick with the next element. Both links are preserver :-)

Of course, I would prefer to control cross-references explicitly, rather that copying diagrams around and guessing what points where.

Tonu

6

General Board / Re: How to automatically number requirements?

« on: August 13, 2007, 09:11:10 pm »

Mconnen is right (if I haven't missed some new features in recent versions) -- you will have to write your own script to renumber requirements.

However, you do not need to upgrade database. If you want to do it in a safe way you probably want to use automation interface. With large amount of elements, it will be faster to  do it directly in database using ODBC. EAP file is normal Jet database so you can open it either in Access or use Microsoft Access ODBC driver to access the data.

7

General Board / Roundtrip engineering breaks VB class declaration

« on: August 13, 2007, 04:17:29 am »

Hi All,

I was trying to get a VB 6.0 ActiveX project in sync with model and suddenly discovered the classes I used to export from my ActiveX DLL where not exported any more !!! What I did was to import code, fix comments of attributes and operations (as well as add some attributes) and synchronize changes back to code.

The reason was easy to find -- EA generates VB_Creatable and VB_Exposed attributes (as well as some others) based on global settings and ignores completely what I had before in the file. That is OK when generating new code. However in synchronizing with the old code it is unacceptable.
The correct way would be to import the attributes from source file and use global defaults only in case of generating new code (or when there was no specification in the existing file).

Question 1: Can I fix it somehow by modifying the code generation template? The absolute minimum I wanted to see is that the code generator would not touch the Attribute VB_* lines when I already heave something written there!
This part of the declaration is generated by template
--------
Attribute VB_Name = "%className%"
Attribute VB_GlobalNameSpace = %genOptVBGlobal == "T" ? "True" : "False"%
Attribute VB_Creatable = %genOptVBCreatable == "T" ? "True" : "False"%
Attribute VB_PredeclaredId = False
Attribute VB_Exposed = %genOptVBExposed == "T" ? "True" : "False"%
Attribute VB_Ext_KEY = "SavedWithClassBuilder" , "Yes"
Attribute VB_Ext_KEY = "Top_Level" , "Yes"
--------
If I remove problematic rows, it deletes my old code also. Is there any other way to make script conditional so that it would generate code only when the section is missing?

Question 2: (a more general one) What would be semantically correct way to import those attributes. The easiest would be to import them as tagged values. However, may be there are some "more visible" attributes of a class that have the same semantics.

Best regards,
Tonu

8

General Board / Re: Decomposing Activity Diagrams

« on: October 19, 2006, 02:45:15 am »

You are quite right, except the example for control flows - if you create a connector between two elements that appear in different diagrams, then the connectior alo appears on all of them. Th eonly case, the connectors are not displaed, is when your connector goes through intermediate node (fork, sunch, etc)

Tonu

9

General Board / Re: red downside arrow icon on top of a class

« on: October 19, 2006, 03:45:22 am »

Thanks! Quite useful feature if you know what it is :-)
Shift-Space is the hotkey.

10

General Board / red downside arrow icon on top of a class

« on: October 19, 2006, 02:32:19 am »

Hi

Recently I discovered, that EA 6.5 puts small red arrow icon on top of some classes. First it appeared to classes having stereotype <<view>> so I assumed it is somehing realted to views ...

Now I just got one while compiling a new profile on one of my freshly created stereotypes. Does anyone know what it is?

Tonu  

11

General Board / Re: Preventing showing associations

« on: October 19, 2006, 02:37:12 am »

Hi Jan,

Try opening diagram properties and clearing "Show relationships" from the "Appearance options".
I have no idea if it can be set as a default for new diagrams but on already existing diagram it will do a trick.

Tonu

PS I have often missed a feature to display associations of certain type or having a certain stereotype (or at least filter connectors in the documentation). That seems to be a dream :-)

12

General Board / Re: Requirements Matrix

« on: October 17, 2006, 02:04:05 am »

> BTW - if anybody wants the matrix the other way
> around (so the Columns are rows and vice versa) this > can easily be achieved in Excel. Select the whole
> range, copy it, and then in a new worksheet click on
> Edit->Paste Special and check the Transpose check box.

Well, you can easily do the same thing in EA -- just swich source and target ;-)

13

General Board / Re: Requirements Matrix

« on: October 17, 2006, 01:51:23 am »

Hi,

If you mean "Relationship matrix" (and I have not overlooked a special matrix form for requiremetns), then this can be easily exported to cvs ... though, almost impossible to find since the feature is not in menus

- Open reltionship matrix
- In the upper bar where you have filters (Source, target, Profile etc) click mouse right button
- you should get a popup menu with selections "Matrix", "Options", "Profile", "Help"
- You will find CVS export under "Matrix->Export to CVS ..."

From CVS you can get the table to anywhere (of course, you format manually)

Tonu

14

General Board / FYI: irresponsive pane in EA

« on: October 17, 2006, 01:39:57 am »

Hi,

This message is just an information for those who may face similar problem. I do not blame Sparx for the bug, since I can not reproduce it nor explain how I got to this state. It may as well be something with MS window management. However, as it took some time for me to get the tool back working, it thought it may save this time for someone else if I document it here ....

While working with EA 6.5.797 (Windows XP SP2) discovered that project browser does not respond to any mouse clicks. Navigating to the tree from a diagram using Ctrl+G worked fine as well as all other windows of the tool. The whole left pane (containing project browser, pan and zoom, properties, notes) did not respond to mouse even if I was able to resize it. Closing and restarting the tool did not help nor loading a different project. The problem was fixed after I changed visual view from "View"->"Visual layouts" to "Iconix" and then back to default.

Tonu

15

General Board / Re: Referencing diagrams

« on: May 15, 2006, 01:02:11 pm »

Hi!

The fact that I never answered to Bruce's posting above does not mean I ageed it is a "fish on a bicycle type of exercise". The need is still there. For me it does not come not so much form the size of my own organisation but rather from the large number of stakeholders. Usually they are distributed, do not have access to the same file server .. and even if they were, I still need as easy as possible way to direct them to the right piece of information.

The workaround I have used so far is an "index diagram" -- I always make an index page for my models with hyperlinks to diagrams and mark it as model default. The index diagram is grouped using notes and each note contains diagram hyperlinks in the order that seems most logical for going them through. This way I can reference to the root URI from documents and give the name of diagram that must be clicked.

Best regards,
Tonu