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Suggestions and Requests / Re: IDEA: Better element resizing on text size

« on: May 02, 2007, 12:31:33 am »

[snip]
I don't think it is good style to add a lot of options for controlling this and that. Very often I found myself in the position where I forgot ANOTHER option. Look a the OPTIONs for a single diagram. You even can't count them.

Seconded. Whenever I want to do something new (i.e. sth I didn't try before) I find myself digging through pages of options, help sources, and forum threads for minutes or even half an hour, until I finally find sth that more or less does the job (sometimes not really the way I orginally wanted it though)

There's basically two things, IMHO, that makes using the EA UI difficult:

1. Option and function labels (names) are being reused for different kinds of objects or within different contexts. While the eaxact meaning might be clear for the developers who know the internal model dependencies of EA, the users might have quite a different perception and understanding. For reference, look at the discussion about the 'Delete' function within diagrams.

2. Option dialogs are packed with all options that might or might not apply for the current object or context. It is not apparent for the user which of the options are mandatory, optional, irrelevant, or not applicable at all. This has a numer of negative consequences, but the baseline of all these is it takes way too much time to define all the needed options for each single object.

I can see why the sparxian designers did what they did, and reusing option labels or whole option sheets isn't a bad practice in itself. It is just being heavily overused within EA.

Just my 0.02 CHF

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Suggestions and Requests / Re: "delete" connectors

« on: March 23, 2007, 04:56:29 am »

Well, halfway it is, so I added to the topic.

My concern about the ability to destroy (using your terminology) connectors without the need to navigate through a set of dialogs for each of them is sth different though.

Also I don't understand why it's impossible to "undo" a newly created object.

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Suggestions and Requests / "delete" connectors

« on: March 23, 2007, 02:03:38 am »

What I would ask for is:

1. please rename any "delete" option to "hide", if the actual purpose is to hide an element in a diagram instead of destroying it. Example: the "delete" option in the diagram context menu for any object or connector. Counter Example: the "delete" option for any obejct within the process browser will actually destroy that object - after an explicit confirmation!

2. please provide a diagram context menu entry to actually and irrevokably destroy a connector (or other objects for that matter - however, since connectors are not shown in the project browser there is currently no easy way to get rid of them, even the Edit->Delete Selected Element(s) menu entry is disabled!)

3. please consider to provide the UNDO functionality for the purpose of deleting newly created objects (especially connectors!).

As an aside: I am referring to connectors mostly, there might be other diagram elements with the same problems however (i. e. no easy way to delete) that I am currently not aware of. Therefore it would be nice to make this a feature applicable to all diagram objects, not only one basic type.

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General Board / Re: How to fix multiple installation?

« on: February 15, 2007, 09:08:29 am »

To answer my own question:

After uninstalling all three versions I was able to cleanly set up EA Lite. I then renamed both the start menu program group and the desktop icon, then installed EA as well.

EA Lite and EA appear to work well enough concurrently.

I'd still like to know whether such a use might cause unforeseen problems - I wouldn't want to accidentally loose my work just because EA Lite functions are messing with system ressources EA is also relying on.

Does someone know the answer to that question?

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General Board / How to fix multiple installation?

« on: February 15, 2007, 07:42:42 am »

Forgive me if this has come up before (I am quite sure it has), but searching the forum didn't turn up anything useful - at least not within the last 500 days, and using the search expressions I used.

I have just installed the full version of EA, but in my state of joyful expectation unfortunately forgot to first uninstall the trial version. Moreover, just to see how it works, I installed EA Lite on top of that! (before I noted my first mistake, obviously)

Call me stupid, but now I have three versions of EA on my PC with only one (the most restricted) easily accessible. I can still access the full version (I simply created a desktop shortcut) and can run it in parallel with EA Lite.

However, I would like to get rid of at least the trial version. Is there a way to cleanly remove it from my system without disturbing the other two versions? Or, alternately, is there a way to cleanly remove all three of them, so I can install a fresh version?

As an aside, the EA Lite installation replaced the start menu program group entries with links to the EA Lite installation folder. This in itself doesn't impose too much of a problem. I wonder however, if this installation has removed links from the program group section that I would have access to as a registered user. If so, can I restore those?

As an additional question: I am not sure if this could be useful, but is it possible to install and use both the full version and Lite version without repercussions? Currently I indeed can run both versions at the same time, and there don't *seem* to be any problems, but you never know... And anyway, I would prefer the two installations to use seperate desktop links and seperate program groups, not share them the way they were installed on my PC....

Thanks,
Stefan

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General Board / Re: Apologies

« on: August 17, 2007, 12:21:08 am »

When I have a problem, I check out the search results by opening the interesting links in a seperate tab (quite easy provided your browser supports tabbed browsing - else you can always choose to open in a new window). This way I have no need to 'return' to the search results page.

I agree though, that actually finding relevant information is a pain with the current forum software. I've encountered cases where my initial search turned up nothing, although the topic in question had been discussed elsewhere.

After getting used to the quirks of the search engine I did get better results though.

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General Board / Re: Code Generation

« on: August 17, 2007, 12:58:37 am »

Rhapsody has this as a specific feature, and actually is capable to link it's diagrams to a running debugging session, so current states are being highlighted at runtime!

However, Rhapsody is also orders of magnitude more expensive than EA, so don't expect the same functionality

It is possible to adjust EA's code generation facility to your own needs within certain limitations: check out the menu Settings --> Code generation Templates (or [Ctrl]-[Shift]-P) and you will find the code generation template editor, along with a list of already predefined templates.

You will find however, that when you try to generate a new template, you need to link it to objects like classes, associations, and the like - not states. So, you would need an AddOn of some kind that allows code generation for other kinds of objects. I have no idea if those exist, but maybe the above helps you in finding information.

Good Luck!

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General Board / Re: Any plans for MDG integration into VS 2003?

« on: August 15, 2007, 05:23:48 am »

Simon, thanks a lot for the answer. I somehow missed that the MDG Link download wasn't linked to the older EA versions, I will definitely try this!

@bmioch: Since I had neither a bug report nor a feature request, both of the appropriate links (found on the support page) didn't look the right choice to me. There is no 'inquiry' link that I know of, so where else to put the question?

And: since a question like this is likely of concern for other people too, why wouldn't the forum be exactly the right place to put it?

I'd suggest adding a forum for such inquiries, but that would be a feature request, so I'll leave it at that.  

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General Board / Re: Any plans for MDG integration into VS 2003?

« on: August 10, 2007, 06:29:21 am »

Take the time to proof read your topic headers. Do you mean Orcas or 2003?

Not sure why you ask? I mentioned Orcas only in my last posting, and it should have been clear enough what I'm talking about. We currently use VS 2003, and that is what I'm asking about from the start.

I mentioned Orcas only to make a point of us not not intending to switch from VS 2003 to VS 2005 any time soon, or at all for that matter, since the next version of Visual Studio is already in the line (Orcas)

I would presume that others are in the same situation - not everyone has bothered to switch to VS 2005, and with the new version at the horizon it becomes increasingly unlikely these people will change to VS 2005 at all.

Whether there will be EA 7 MDG support for Orcas is another question altogether, but I expect sooner or later this will be implemented. I'm not so sure about the older version VS 2003, that's why I'm asking.

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General Board / Re: Any plans for MDG integration into VS 2003?

« on: August 10, 2007, 04:42:11 am »

@Sparxians: can anyone please confirm that you at least read my inquiry?? I'm not asking you to do it, now or within a short span of time, just whether or not you intend to.

Considering that VS 2008 (Orcas) is already in beta stadium we are not going to switch from VS 2003 to 2005! So, switching to EA 7.0 would mean the loss of MDG to us. We can certainly live without it for some time, but if no MDG for VS 2003 is forthcoming, we will have to weigh the new features and fixes against the return we currently get from MDG.

What we definitely cannot do is switch to EA 7.0 and hope for the best - because as I understand it we will not be able to switch back to EA 6.5 once we created models using 7.0!

Please, it can't be that hard to answer this question!?

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General Board / Re: Any plans for MDG integration into VS 2003?

« on: August 06, 2007, 06:56:51 am »

*bump*

As I've noted two more IDEs have been graced with MDG upgrades in the meantime. Can I hope for a VS 2003 MDG integration too?

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General Board / Any plans for MDG integration into VS 2003?

« on: July 10, 2007, 12:04:21 am »

Subject says it. The MDG integration client for EA 7.0 into VS 2005 was just released, and since I intended to switch to the new version I would very much like to know if my IDE will be supported as well?

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General Board / Re: c++ code generation - include file statements

« on: August 06, 2007, 07:21:33 am »

I've worked with EA for a couple of months now and I found that the process of first writing code (or taking some already existing files), importing them into EA, and then generating new code out of the resulting class diagram virtually always misses something important. (actually, most of the time a *lot* of things - until I find the obscurely hidden options to somewhat improve my results)

Apparently C++ is to blame, since it has a lot of hooks and requirements that are not really based on the purpose it serves (i. e. writing object oriented code), but on it's procedural programming language legacy. Most of the newer languages EA supports are not weighed down by such a legacy and thus the default settings often behave ... curiously ... in the eyes of a C++ programmer.

EA is an UML tool, so everything in your model *needs* to be an object of some kind. So, when importing existing (as in: not generated) C++ code the model is bound to misrepresent some of the less object oriented aspects of your code. (such as 'using' statements, as I have learned recently)

Still, EA claims to "support" C++, so if you experience problems like this, be sure to report it. Sometimes changing a setting might help. And sometimes you'll find a bug.

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General Board / Re: How do I turn off Namespaces in code generatio

« on: July 05, 2007, 10:10:57 pm »

I've checked the search, but the options suggested within the postings I found (under Tools/Options/Source Code Engeneering, or package context menu-->Set as Namespace Root/Clear Namespace Root) are already set to the correct values

Done that - to no avail!

Or are you saying to avoid generating Namespaces I need to set the packages to "Namespace Root"? Sounds a bit counter-intuitive to me if that is the meaning of this option!?

P.S.: tried it - setting the containing package to "Namespace Root" finally did the trick.

I still consider the naming of this option misleading. After thinking about it I found what was my problem: You are thinking of the package hierarchy as equivalent to a namespace hierarchy (which makes sense for Java, but not C++). I wasn't getting what you referred to as 'Root' and just read 'Namespace' - and was thinking to myself: "No, I don't want a namespace for this package - clear that option!"

Basically you are asking the designer to "set" an option if he wants no additional qualifying and "clear" that option if he wants it. It's like asking a user whether he wants to really proceed with a process he started and have him press [Cancel] to avoid the aborting of the proces (which the software considers the sensible approach, even if it is not).

Please consider that in some languages package hierarchies are not equivalent to namespaces. There is no global setting to use or not use namespaces at all (or is there?), which means every sub-package explicitely requires the user to set that option, no matter the language, no matter how often he did it before for other languages!

Please change this option to something that is obvious and positive, such as "package is namespace" instead of "package is Namespace Root" ("Root"? what would it be "root" of??), and inherit that setting to subpackages!

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General Board / How do I turn off Namespaces in code generation?

« on: July 05, 2007, 04:37:40 am »

I've checked the search, but the options suggested within the postings I found (under Tools/Options/Source Code Engeneering, or package context menu-->Set as Namespace Root/Clear Namespace Root) are already set to the correct values - still, on generating new code, EA will inexplicably use the names of my packages as Namespace names and put them in front of all the definitions!

A couple of weeks ago everything worked fine, so apparently, at some point I inadvertantly changed some setting that now I cannot locate anymore Please help - these packages are not meant to be Namespaces and I don't want then generated.