Messages

1

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Partial Classes

« on: March 23, 2007, 04:14:59 am »

Could the reverse engineer process add a <<Designer>> stereotype to the class generated from the Class.Designer.cs code? This would make it easier to identify the part of the class that the programmer is allowed to change.

2

Suggestions and Requests / Multiple  dialogs & copy/move operations/

« on: June 20, 2007, 12:59:56 am »

I would like to be able to duplicate operations, for example copy an operation from one class to another. One scenario for this is to derive an interface class from an existing class. In this scenario I would create a new Interface class and copy existing methods from a class that would inherit the interface and make them pure virtual.

I can move operations between classes using the project browser but not copy them. I suppose I implement this scenario by moving the desired operations from existing to interface class and then use the implement interface operations but this all seems a bit long-winded.

In Rose   I can do things like have two properties dialogs open at once and either copy, move or cut/copy & paste operations and attributes between classes.

3

Suggestions and Requests / Usability improvement top ten wish list

« on: July 13, 2007, 12:40:09 am »

I've seen many gripes and moans about EA's usability (suffered from them myself) and I know that Sparx are keen to improve their product. How about a place to vote for our top issues that we'd really like Sparx to fix? This may also help them to prioritise work internally.

For a starter my top issue is not specifically UI but more the way it works. I hate the fact that generated and then reverse-engineered associations get modelled twice - once as an attribute and once as an association. This duplicates information and they're not coupled, so (for example) changing the name of the attribute has no effect on the association.

My second issue is less tangible: consistency. For example on a class Context\Advanced presents a different list from MainMenu\Element\Advanced. This has led to several support calls because I could not find an option to do what I wanted to do and it turned out there was an operation somewhere I hadn't expected.

4

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Attach note to message on Sequence Diagram

« on: July 04, 2007, 10:48:45 pm »

Found it, thanks. Would it be possible for this to be available as a quick link?

5

Suggestions and Requests / Attach note to message on Sequence Diagram

« on: July 04, 2007, 05:04:45 am »

I'd like to be able to attach a note to a message on a sequence diagram to provide commentary on the message. At the moment I can only attach a note to the (invisible) border of the element's lifeline which looks peculiar or leave the note floating unattached.

Dare I say it: Rose does this and I rather miss this feature (and the other UI features that make Rose a more pleasant place to work )

6

Suggestions and Requests / Add  more properties to association context m

« on: June 20, 2007, 12:28:43 am »

I think usability would be improved if the context menu for associations were to include facilities to set the following properties:

Navigability
Containment
Aggregation
Access

Otherwise the user has to open the association properties dialog, select the appropriate role and set the properties there.

It seems inconsistent that the only property that can be set at the moment is multiplicity.

7

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Diagram context menu: locate diagram in browse

« on: June 20, 2007, 01:03:42 am »

Doh! Thanks.

I just hanker after a modicum of consistency in the UI. Oh well, I suppose I should be used to this by now. I keep forgetting to look in the less obvious places.

8

Suggestions and Requests / Diagram context menu: locate diagram in browser

« on: June 20, 2007, 12:10:36 am »

I would like to have an item added to a diagram's context menu to locate the diagram in the project browser. The reason is that I tend to have many diagrams open at once and forget where they came from.

This should work the same way as the identical feature for diagram elements.

9

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Deleting items at diagram scope

« on: May 24, 2007, 03:03:19 am »

Paolo,

Thanks for that. I guess I got carried away in the heat of the moment and forgot to check the forum. Is there any evidence that they're listening to suggestions on UI usability?

David

10

Suggestions and Requests / Deleting items at diagram scope

« on: May 24, 2007, 01:05:01 am »

It would be nice to be able to delete a class from diagram scope rather than only from the browser. For example on the context menu have an extra item 'Delete class from model <CTRL-SHIFT-D>'. This would apply to connectors as well.

Why do connectors not support CTRL-D? I guess this is because connectors have to be hidden rather than removed from diagrams whilst preserving the connection in the model. This is OK if you're used to it but not consistent behaviour.

11

Suggestions and Requests / Access to element 'Advanced' features in GUI

« on: May 24, 2007, 12:28:43 am »

This puzzles me: if I want to override some methods from a base class I have to select the derived class and then go to the main menu Element\Advanced\Overrides and implementations but I can't do this from the context menu \ Advanced. On the other hand there are various weird and wonderful methods on the context menu that don't appear in the main menu. It would enhance the GUI usability to make this more consistent.

On a separate note, I can only get a context menu \ Add operation or Add Attribute once I've selected an element in the attributes/operations compartment. It would be nice to have access to these from the normal context menu.

12

Suggestions and Requests / Spelling checker could split compound words

« on: May 23, 2007, 07:18:39 am »

The spelling checker could be made more intelligent by splitting compound words. For example it flags 'SampleRequestMessage' as an error. Camel-case and pascal-case are widely used within industry, along with '_', so a simple algorithm could split words at capital letters or underscore and check the resulting smaller words (Sample, Request, Message).

Similarly it could remove prefixes such as 'm_' etc.

13

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Roundtrip-Engineering Problem: Generics

« on: March 27, 2007, 06:02:38 am »

It does the same in C++ - I've raised a fault report.

14

Suggestions and Requests / Re: C# class, method and member variable attribute

« on: March 26, 2007, 10:54:31 pm »

Thanks. I hadn't spotted the Tagged Values window, I was only looking in the Class and Methods dialog boxes from where there is no reference to tagged values and in the class diagram where there is no indication of a tagged value being attached.

15

Suggestions and Requests / Re: C# class, method and member variable attribute

« on: March 25, 2007, 11:20:59 pm »

I've checked the tagged values in the C# conventions page and these don't apply to C# attributes. In the example in my post a C# '[]' attribute can be applied to a class, interface, property, method or member variable. An attribute is an instance of a class attached as metadata to the item to which it refers. The C# page refers to modifiers such as const, delegate etc that are part of the C# language. C# attributes are user-defined extensions. I'm not sure how these would be expressed in EA as they're not really stereotype - for example they can take parameters.