Messages

1

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Port to OS X?

« on: January 11, 2006, 10:05:06 pm »

I actually asked the same question directly to Sparx rather than through the forum about a year ago, and was told I was one of about 3 (from memory) requests ever. Maybe if all OSX users on these forums make themselves known!

As you said, very frustrating to need a windows machine for one application!

As for EA being implemented in Access, can't you store the model in Oracle as well if you are using the enterprise version, this must mean a database abstraction layer? From what I've seen of the table structure there isn't very much Access'isms.

I imagine what would be much harder is the OCX interfaces for the automation and document generation.

Colin

2

Suggestions and Requests / Keyword filter for reporting

« on: November 16, 2005, 09:07:42 pm »

The current document options are useful for filtering types of objects, but not very good for picking out particular items.

It would be handy if we could specify a keyword contains ; similar to the current status =.

That would allow us to build any sort of categorization of elements and include them in various documentation as appropriate.

Thanks, Colin

3

Suggestions and Requests / Autonumbering and titles

« on: July 07, 2005, 05:14:18 pm »

Auto numbering is a nice adition but it is hard to use since you loose titles.

This would be much better if it generated the autonumber and leaves the title field free for entry.

Obviously this is more difficult as it involves adding a new field into all element types but it would make generating readable documentation very straightforward.

Colin

4

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Matrix View Enhancements

« on: July 24, 2005, 05:17:21 pm »

I have put this request elsewhere http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=suggestions;action=display;num=1121995532 but was asked to join it with the matrix view requests, which makes sense.

It would be useful if you can select the Use Case or requirement (or really any object) on the relationship matrix page and select the object in the project browser. At the moment it can be difficult to find the item sometimes. This is particularly the case when I am working with requirements where some packages easily have 50-60 items.

Even being able to double click on the label and have the object brought up; instead of / as well as the current link information would simplify the process greatly.

Thanks, Colin

5

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Matrix View Enhancements

« on: July 07, 2005, 04:47:58 pm »

Thanks for that ,
 There are many things hidden in here that aren't all that easy to find; but certainly help make it such a powerful program once you do!

Colin

6

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Matrix View Enhancements

« on: July 06, 2005, 04:57:45 pm »

While on the topic of matrix view enhancements I have another one.

That the source and target packages are not displayed in the titles. Space is tight on this screen and it's seems a waste to display it on every line when it is displayed in the source/target fields at the top anyway!

Thanks, Colin

7

Suggestions and Requests / Similar functionality to Alt-G for requirements

« on: July 21, 2005, 06:25:32 pm »

It is sometimes difficult when using the relationship matrix or drilling into external requirements from elements to find those requirements in the project.

It would be useful if there was a similar function to Alt-G to directly locate the requirement.

8

Suggestions and Requests / Re: RTF support in notes and scenario

« on: July 07, 2005, 06:09:08 pm »

The ability to this sort of markup would make using Cockburn type of notation for use cases scenarios a breeze. At the momemt it is very hard to indicate that part of the description is actually another Use Case to indicate a Use, Include etc. relationship.

And of course a Bold or Underline button markup type of control would be the perfect way to do this (for the user that is  )

ciao Colin

9

Suggestions and Requests / Import / Export of requirements to include Package

« on: March 03, 2005, 02:33:27 pm »

It would be extremely useful if the CSV import / export of requirements also included the package they are located in. This would make it much easier to maintain and create them in a seperate application.

Thanks, Colin

ps. Along similar lines, has anyone done any work on XSLT processing the XMI file into a format for access import ?(or any other database that could be used).

10

Suggestions and Requests / Appearance of process invocation

« on: March 02, 2005, 10:22:28 pm »

I have various business processes created, that I include in other processes to try and show common processes.

When I select invocation of a process, ie. describing a particular instance of the process, the appearance changes to a rectanglish object with a fork in the corner.

Is it possible to have this appear with the same appearance as the original processes, it is confusing for my business users as to why their is a new , unfamiliar icon type.

Thanks, Colin

11

General Board / Re: Representing data attributes within BPMN

« on: July 18, 2007, 04:28:56 am »

Yeah' that's what I'm doing, but it ends up being an extra layer just for the sake it.

I haven't quite worked out the Use Case BPMN correspondence yet either; but so far I've been experimenting with using BPMN to show the process flow, with scenarios within each activity. This helps solve the normal problem of how to indicate the 'flow' between use cases, without resorting to activity diagrams that business users tend not to understand.

The two styles certainly aren't a perfect match though.

Colin

12

General Board / Representing data attributes within BPMN

« on: July 17, 2007, 05:11:12 pm »

I am wondering what others do for representing the data objects in BPMN.

The Data Object provided is actually a UML Object, which can't have attributes.  

I am guessing the reasoning is to keep the the data object at a very high level, then provide an implementation or trace link through to a Class; however it is useful to capture the high level attributes at the document level before drilling into data lengths etc. (eg. Name at high level; through to the detail of First name char (20) , Surname char (20)....

Any ideas?

Colin

13

General Board / Re: BPMN - Return values

« on: July 16, 2007, 03:52:58 pm »

In my understanding BPMN has no concept of a method call, function call, etc. whatever it is called in your language of choice. Instead you model everything as an explicit flow.

The reasoning is that it is fundamentally about business processes and workflow systems, that don't have these concepts.

There seems to be movement towards allowing the intermediate link event to be a 'gosub' rather than the current 'goto' in the next BPMN specification, in the meantime it's painful for system level modelling.

14

General Board / Re: Importing XMI from Altona UModel

« on: November 16, 2006, 08:30:34 pm »

Converting to UTF at least is pretty straightforward (now that I know after someone told me about a week ago...)

Go into your Tools/Options/XML menu on EA, and just specify UTF-8 as your encoding....


I am trying to interchange with Holocentric and have found they use
tag="documentation" value="text stuff" where EA uses

tag="description" value="text stuff"

oh well XSLT it is....

Colin


Oops; that's EA uses documentation and holocentric description.....

15

General Board / Re: Importing XMI from Altona UModel

« on: November 16, 2006, 08:28:49 pm »

Converting to UTF at least is pretty straightforward (now that I know after someone told me about a week ago...)

Go into your Tools/Options/XML menu on EA, and just specify UTF-8 as your encoding....


I am trying to interchange with Holocentric and have found they use
tag="documentation" value="text stuff" where EA uses

tag="description" value="text stuff"

oh well XSLT it is....

Colin