Messages

1

General Board / Re: Document Generation - Connector target is a diagram

« on: December 06, 2025, 01:49:11 am »

I think this would give me the same issue whereby I would struggle to get the document to generate with a Use Case followed by it's diagrams. I don't think there is a way to point fragments at diagrams ?? as they are just called within a template which is associated to a Model Document element.

If I can point a fragment at a package that would fix my issue.

The fragment will always point to the package/element is was called upon.
With different model documents however you can use one model document that points to the use case, and the next that points to the Interaction.
Or you can put them in different packages and let the model document point to the package by dragging the package onto the model document.

Geert

2

General Board / Re: Keep on getting the login dialog on sparxsystems.com

« on: December 05, 2025, 10:50:37 pm »

I only get that when going to the registered section: https://sparxsystems.com/registered/index.html

Geert

3

General Board / Re: Document Generation - Connector target is a diagram

« on: December 04, 2025, 05:39:35 pm »

and I wasn't sure how to point the template at the Interaction/State Machine - how would you go about this?

I use a search that returns an element based on it's guid.

Geert

4

General Board / Re: Document Generation - Connector target is a diagram

« on: December 03, 2025, 11:03:43 pm »

There's no easy way to do that in a single template.

The easiest way is to create a virtual document with model documents that point to
- the use case
- the Interaction/State Machine that owns the diagram.

There are ways of making template fragments that use code to fetch the correct diagram, but is rather complicated.

Geert

5

Bugs and Issues / Re: v17.1 - Extended character issue with Name field in Properties window

« on: November 24, 2025, 06:50:21 pm »

Did you notice the 32-bit - 64-bit difference also?

No, didn't test that one.

Geert

6

Bugs and Issues / Re: v17.1 - Extended character issue with Name field in Properties window

« on: November 24, 2025, 04:05:43 am »

I can confirm this behavior in v17, but also in v15.2.1560

Geert

7

General Board / Re: How can an activity invoke a behavior defined in a subclass of its own class?

« on: November 21, 2025, 12:55:25 am »

Class A contains activity A() and a subclass B containing activity B().
But when A() calls B() a code error is generated:
   public void A(a, b) {
      // behavior is a Activity
      /*Warning: B - Invoking behaviors from other classes - Not Supported!!*/
   }
So how does an activity invoke a behavior defined in a subclass of its own class?

Don't you think it's a bit weird that a class knows about it's subclasses? I think that violates the Open/Closed principle

But regardless of that, apparently, as indicated by the warning messages, invoking behaviors defined in other classes (whether they are subclases or not) is not supported.

Geert

8

General Board / Re: Importing db Column Notes (Descriptions) via Export / Import

« on: November 18, 2025, 06:15:57 pm »

You can't export/import attributes using CSV.

You might be able to use the Office MDG, write your own script, or use the excel import/export tool I made https://bellekens.com/ea-excel-import-export/

Geert

9

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: When is a Metamodel not a metamodel?

« on: November 15, 2025, 07:54:33 pm »

You could also say it's a prototype model.
You are making prototypes of the concepts to illustrate their usage.

Geert

10

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: When is a Metamodel not a metamodel?

« on: November 14, 2025, 08:17:45 pm »

Hi Paolo,

I generally have three different models (with their corresponding diagrams)

1. A conceptual metamodel. This is where we start. The metamodel is basically a class diagram. Each element is a class, each property is an attribute. Each relation an association (sometimes with aggregationkind=composite). We also do taxonomy using generaralizations. These are the requirements for the MDG developers.

2. The EA UML profile model, used to generate the MDG. This is sort-of the platform (Sparx EA) specific implementation of our conceptual metamodel. Here we decide which elements will be stereotypes, and how to implement properties and relationship constraints.

3. The metamodel poster. This is a visually pleasing representation of the metamodel that can be printed and hung on the wall as a poster. It uses the visual representations as the users see them in the model and diagrams. Usually this is not complete, but more of a summary showing the most important elements and relations.
My experience is that this works best to communicate the metamodel to the average modeller.

Next to these models/diagrams we also have guidelines documents, detailing usage and rules of each of the metamodel elements. Here we include things like naming conventions, location in the model, etc...

Geert

11

General Board / Re: How to copy an Activity into an Activity that calls it?

« on: November 14, 2025, 12:51:19 am »

You can simply move all Actions (and decisions, etc...) from ActivityA to the calling Activity (drag in project browser) and then put them on the diagram.
Then you can delete Activity A

Geert

12

General Board / Re: How to prevent automatic diagram rescaling?

« on: November 13, 2025, 10:46:17 pm »

I've never witnessed this behavior. Do you remember setting a specific setting that started this behavior?

Geert

13

General Board / Re: Does EA allow capturing Win32 UI simulation input and sending it to a database?

« on: November 13, 2025, 08:15:37 pm »

EA is a modelling tool that can do some form of simulation.

It is not intended as a subsitute for a real application that can be used in a real environment.

There are other tools that are intended for this purpose (e.g. Camunda)

Geert

14

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Connector multiple selection

« on: November 13, 2025, 06:59:17 pm »

I've recently become a user of Enterprise Architect again after several years away and this was the first pain point I ran into when trying to change the line style of my connectors.

I found a work around for my (Data Model) case:
 - Select all diagram elements (Ctrl + a)
 - Open the "Relationships" window
 - Multi-select the relationships / connectors that you want
 - Right click - change line style

That problem is mostly solved by the "apply line style on diagram" option, and without needing to open yet another property window and applying this quirky workaround.

But the fact remains, it would be very helpful if we could multiselect connectors on a diagram.

Geert

15

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: EA and ChatGPT 5 - the death of the forum?

« on: November 06, 2025, 07:12:35 pm »

I've had the same experience. It's a great timesaver, if you know what the result should look like.

If you have no clue, it might be very time consuming to figure out where exactly it goes astray.

Geert