Messages

1

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Feature request - change background colour and fon

« on: August 08, 2018, 07:33:37 pm »

+1

I think it's very poor that this kind of very basic feature still isn't there eight years later... What's the purpose of being able to change font sizes at all when it's not possible for all texts on a diagram?

We've got a lot of BPMN diagrams that we like to print out for review. Especially message names on message flows are very important information but turn out to be almost unreadable.

2

General Board / Re: BPMN 2.0: tags not appearing on Activity elements

« on: June 25, 2018, 11:51:35 pm »

One other possible solution/workaround could be to add text annotations to the activities and configure them to show your custom tagged value.

Create a text annotation element and link it to the activity with a note link (e.g. create the connection with the Quick Linker and select Link in its menu. Association doesn't work). Then from the newly created connection's context menu, select "Link this Note to an element feature...". Then select "Single tag and notes" as feature type and your tagged value in the list of features.

Hoping I was able to help,

Benno

3

Bugs and Issues / Re: MDG Technologies overwrite local scripts

« on: June 05, 2018, 09:18:58 pm »

I still consider this to be a bug and do hope to get the attention from some Sparx staff here as well...

Benno,

Posting here will only inform the other users.
Sparx staff may see this, but they can't really act upon it as posting on the forum is not considered as a "real" bug report.

To officially log a bug report please use this link

Geert

I know, I know, Geert...

But any bug reports I have posted there up to now triggered not more than some automatic standard-reply email. And recently I helped identify and replicate a problem here in the Bugs and Issues Forum which subsequently was very quickly fixed by Sparx... (see http://www.sparxsystems.com/forums/smf/index.php/topic,39716.msg244740.html)

This is giving me the impression that forum posts here may raise more attention than "official" bug reports... Also, it gives the opportunity to discuss if it really is a bug and to collect opinions from other people. This is probably worth something to the Sparx guys when determining the urgency of a bug fix.

So I guess it might be a good strategy to discuss a bug here first and then, if necessary, submit it to the official bug tracker.

Which I'm going to do did right now 

Benno

4

Bugs and Issues / Re: MDG Technologies overwrite local scripts

« on: June 04, 2018, 07:58:11 pm »

  8. A group "testMDG" appears in the Scripting window. The group is empty (expected behavior: the group should contain the script "mytest")

is an incorrect assumption.

...or maybe I just didn't express myself clearly...

Script groups in an MDG Technology project are flattened into a single group with the MDG Technology's name.

...because that's exactly what I meant. There is a group with my MDG Technology's name ("testMDG") which should contain all the scripts of the Technology (in this case, the script "mytest"). Except it doesn't.

I think it's your importing of an MDG Technology into the project where you develop it that's tripping you (or EA) up.

The problem occurs if I load the Technology by other means as well, for example by specifying a path to load it from in the MDG Technologies Dialog (Advanced -> Add Path...). It's not specifically related to importing a Technology into the model.

I always do my testing in a different project, separate from my MDG Technology development project.

I do that as well, but for some quick testing it's convenient to be able to do that in one single project instead of having to switch all the time.

I still consider this to be a bug and do hope to get the attention from some Sparx staff here as well...

5

Bugs and Issues / MDG Technologies overwrite local scripts

« on: May 31, 2018, 01:56:14 am »

Has anyone done script development for inclusion of the scripts in MDG Technologies with EA14? I've encountered a bug that renders this almost impossible...

It seems that, if you write a script, then include it in an MDG Technology and finally load the Technology into the project, your local copy of the script gets overwritten by the version from the Technology each time you load the project. Thus, you loose any changes you made to the script and didn't export into the Technology...

To replicate,

• Create a new project
• In the Scripting window, create a new Normal Group "test"
• In this group, create a new script "mytest" (script type seems to be irrelevant, I tested Javascript and VBScript with identical results)
• Now generate an MDG Technology "testMDG" (I created the testMDG.xml in the folder where my .eapx file was located; gave other settings ID: testMDG; Version: 1; Notes: testMDG)
• In the MDG Technology Wizard, remove the checkmark at Profiles and check Scripts
• Then choose to include "mytest" from the scripts
• Import the generated testMDG.xml into the model
• A group "testMDG" appears in the Scripting window. The group is empty (expected behavior: the group should contain the script "mytest")
• Now open "mytest" from the local group created in step 2
• Make any change in the script's code
• Save the script
• Close the script editor and reopen the script. The changes are still there, as expected.
• Close the project and reopen it
• Open "mytest" as in step 9. The changes from step 10 are gone. Expected behavior: changes should be there.

Seems like a bug to me, probably caused by the scripts from the MDG Technology retaining some internal ID.

If you delete the script ("mytest" from group "test" created in step 2), close and reopen the project, the script now correctly appears under the group testMDG from the Technology.

Has anyone experienced this?

Best wishes,
Benno

Tested with EA14, Build 1421

6

Bugs and Issues / Re: V14 different browser order

« on: May 09, 2018, 07:18:39 pm »

6. I closed and reopened the project. It opens with a changed order of root nodes:

Three
Two
One

I'm still getting One,Three,Two. My suspicion is that you performed step 7 before reloading.

No. I performed the steps exactly as reported.

7. I changed the order with the arrow icons of the Project Browser toolbar ...

Things get interesting here... If I try to re-order with the arrows I don't see any change, but I can see a change in the database. When I reload the model the changes are reflected.

Strangely, for me the arrows do work, same as Ctrl+UP/Down.

Reordering with Ctrl + Up/Down shows me the order immediately.

At this point, I have reproduced a bug. Unfortunately it's not that the model is loaded incorrectly.

I know it's hard to share models, could you try running the following query in the SQL scratch pad?

Code: [Select]

select Name,TPos from t_package where Parent_ID = 0 order by TPos
How does the result compare to the order of root nodes in your model?

Is there any way to attach files to posts in this forum? I could provide the model as it is just an empty eapx project with three root nodes.

Anyway, your SQL query returns

Name;TPos;
One;1;
Two;2;
Three;3;

while, at the same time, the Project Browser shows the root nodes as

Three
Two
One

So there is clearly a bug.

Edit:
I found out that Project Browser sort order seems to be by Package_ID in descending order (instead of TPos).

7

General Board / Re: Why is editing of names in the project browser gone in V14?

« on: May 08, 2018, 08:54:55 pm »

I'm actually quite happy that the edit-by-double-click is gone.

Hated it when I double-clicked to open a package but clicked to slowly so it went into edit mode. Happens to me all the time.

F2 is such a widely used shortcut that I guess almost everybody knows it. And if not you can use the Properties view or the properties dialog anyway...

Just my $ 0.02...

Benno

8

Bugs and Issues / Re: V14 different browser order

« on: May 08, 2018, 07:52:37 pm »

This seems to be a bug.

I've got version 14.0.1418 and did the following:

1. Created a new empty Project (local project, i.e. file on my harddrive, ending with ".eapx")
2. Renamed the root node "Model" to "One"
3. Added a new root node "Two" (context menu -> "Add Root Node...")
4. Selected the newly created root node
5. Added a new root node "Three" => The new node is created above the root node "Two", not below as I would expect

The order of root nodes is now

One
Three
Two

6. I closed and reopened the project. It opens with a changed order of root nodes:

Three
Two
One

7. I changed the order with the arrow icons of the Project Browser toolbar to

One
Two
Three

8. Closed and reopened the project. The changed order was not remembered, it reverted to

Three
Two
One

=> Bug.

We will postpone going from EA 12.1 to EA 14 until this bug is fixed...

Benno

9

Bugs and Issues / Re: Javascript engine broken... or am I missing something here?

« on: April 04, 2018, 06:07:34 pm »

Thank you, Simon, for your quick answer.

Unfortunately, I don't know much about COM and have never been told not to compare true values...

What I was actually trying to do in my code is find out if an element has got at least one of two stereotypes:

Code: [Select]

if (el.HasStereotype('testcase') || el.HasStereotype('something')) {
Session.Output("alright1");
}

if (el.HasStereotype('something') || el.HasStereotype('testcase')) {
Session.Output("alright2");
}

This code, appended to the code in my first post, prints

Code: [Select]

alright1
alright2

when run as JScript, but prints only

Code: [Select]

alright2

in Javascript. I don't understand if this is caused by the same issue... As I don't understand what is happening here.

What do you suggest to do in Javascript in this case?

By the way,

Code: [Select]

Session.Output(el.HasStereotype('testcase') == -1);

prints "False" in both scripting engines. Comparing to 1 instead of -1 prints True in both...

10

Bugs and Issues / Javascript engine broken... or am I missing something here?

« on: April 04, 2018, 12:42:48 am »

Hi everybody,

I have written a bunch of JScript scripts which I want to port over to Javascript now to benefit from stuff available only there (e.g. the filter() method of Array objects).

I'm getting a couple of very strange problems with this, for example with Element.HasStereotype(). Its return value is boolean both in JScript and Javascript. In Javascript there seems to be something wrong, though. If the function call returns "true", it evaluates to "false"...

Let me demonstrate:

1. Create a diagram (e.g. a "Custom Diagram" from EA's Extended category) with a test case element on it (because we need an element with a stereotype ("testcase")).
2. Create two new scripts, one JScript and one Javascript in a Diagram Scripts folder. Replace the automatically generated code with this identical code in both scripts:

Code: [Select]

!INC Local Scripts.EAConstants-JScript

function main()
{
Repository.EnsureOutputVisible("Script");
        Repository.ClearOutput("Script");
var currentDiagram = Repository.GetCurrentDiagram();

var el as EA.Element;
el = Repository.GetElementByID(currentDiagram.SelectedObjects.GetAt(0).ElementID);

Session.Output("Stereotype: " + el.Stereotype);
Session.Output("HasStereotype('testcase'): " + el.HasStereotype('testcase'));
Session.Output("HasStereotype('testcase') == true: " + (el.HasStereotype('testcase') == true));
Session.Output(typeof(el.HasStereotype('testcase')));
}

main();

3. Execute both scripts by right-clicking on the testcase element and selecting the script from the Scripts submenu.

Here is what I get with the JScript:

Code: [Select]

Stereotype: testcase
HasStereotype('testcase'): true
HasStereotype('testcase') == true: true
boolean

So far, so good.

Now here's the output of the identical code executed as Javascript:

Code: [Select]

Stereotype: testcase
HasStereotype('testcase'): true
HasStereotype('testcase') == true: false
boolean

As you can see, HasStereotype returns true in both cases and typeof() says the return value's type is boolean. Only difference: HasStereotype('testcase') == true evaluates to false in Javascript.

What is going on here???

Any clarification or help is highly appreciated.

Benno

11

General Board / Re: Batch edit of elements?

« on: March 15, 2012, 05:00:13 am »

Thanks for the hint concerning SQL. I will have to dig into that, could be useful for many things...

12

General Board / Re: Batch edit of elements?

« on: March 15, 2012, 04:11:14 am »

Thank you for your answers...

The possibility to do such things with SQL is nice, for sure, but I doubt I want to give every member in our team the rights to change the central model repository with SQL commands... Heck, I don't even know if I will be allowed to do that once our EA installation is set up  

13

General Board / Re: Batch edit of elements?

« on: March 13, 2012, 10:53:38 pm »

Hm, I can't find any way to edit more than one element at the same time in Package Browser or Diagram List View... But at least it's possible to see the values at a glance.

Too bad selections aren't synchronized between List View and Diagram View...

14

General Board / Batch edit of elements?

« on: March 13, 2012, 12:47:09 am »

Another feature I might be just too blind to find... ;-)

Is it possible to batch edit elements? Like: Select a bunch of elements in a diagram (or in the Project Browser), then add a keyword to all selected elements at once.

Or change all elements in a diagram to "Approved" status...

Is there a way to do that?

15

General Board / Re: Something like keywords, but with a dropdown?

« on: March 13, 2012, 09:21:18 pm »

You are both right, I was talking about the keywords property as well as tagged values...

So thanks for your answer, Geert.

It's very cool that it's possible to define dropdown tagged values, but the most important thing for me is - is it possible to filter for these? It's possible to define diagram filters even for something like "selectable" but not for tagged values...