Topics

1

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Is MDG Eclipse Integration working with up-to-date Eclipse and Java versions?

« on: June 03, 2026, 07:37:34 pm »

I have been an intense user of Sparx EA during my earlier professional life (I am now retired) and was looking to maybe use it for a new pet project. I might even be willing to fork out the money for a professional license but precondition for using it again would be that it supports integration with current versions of Eclipse and that it can handle (i.e. consume and generate) Java v21+ (e.g. for reverse engineering and documentation of existing Java code).

I recall that this had been working very nicely in the early 2000's but then seized to function when switching to 64-bit versions (for Eclipse and Java) and that this got never updated.

When I just had a look to see whether anything happened since I see that Java and MDG Eclipse Integration is still listed as supported but there is no mentioning of any version numbers. When looking at the MDG Eclipse integration user guide (https://sparxsystems.com/downloads/pdf/MDGEclipseUserGuide.pdf) it reads "Copyright 1998-2008" ||-(  This is almost 20 years now - come-on!

Does that mean that Sparx is still bragging to support Eclipse and Java even though in reality it does *not*?

2

General Board / How can one reset the GUI?

« on: June 15, 2020, 07:10:00 am »

It's a bit embarrassing but I somehow managed to corrupt my EA GUI such that there is no more Project Browser! How can I get that back? When I open a project there is the name of the root node in the white top line. If I click on the right triangle I get a list of direct children nodes and continuing so I can actually navigate that tree (so that tree or its data) is apparently still there but I don't get a complete visual representation of that tree?!? Where has the project browser gone?

A similar effect with the toolbox: If I navigate to a diagram and click onto the << at the top right there is also no toolbox appearing, just a white pane about an inch wide is opening. But it's empty (i.e. white)!

Where have all those GUI elements disappeared?!? After fiddling with that for a while I decided to de- and re-installed EA (v15.1.1529) but after the reinstallation I got the exact same situation when opening the project that I had been working with! I then suspected it was the project that's corrupted but even opening the EA Example project doesn't look any better! No Project browser!

What can I do to get a properly working EA again??? How can one reset the GUI to factory settings?

3

General Board / Zoom in/out using scrollwheel not working in EA 15.1! What could cause this?

« on: June 15, 2020, 03:12:42 am »

For some strange reason the zooming into/out-of a diagram doesn't work for me! According to the manual (and also my memory) this is supposed to work by pressing the Ctrl-key and turning the mouse wheel up and down. However, after installing the latest version (v15.1.1529) this doesn't work anymore! Also with Ctrl key pressed the diagram pans up and down instead of changing the zoom factor. This makes editing some diagrams almost impossible!

What could cause this and how to fix this?

PS: Needless to say that my mouse's scroll wheel works perfectly fine and the very same zooming into/out-of gesture works fine as one would expect in other applications (e.g. Office apps like Word or Outlook or in all my browsers (Edge, FF, Chrome)).

4

General Board / Aggregates connector is shown the wrong way around

« on: August 14, 2018, 06:45:29 pm »

It is a long-standing peculiarity that the "Aggregates"-connectors in EA's class diagram were by default shown/drawn the wrong way around, i.e. the diamond was drawn at the target side, not on the source side. Fortunately there used to be a flag in the preferences (Pref's -> Links -> Association default - source --> target) that allowed to swap (i.e. correct) that behavior.
That flag is still there but in the v13.0 and also 13.5 this flag has apparently no effect, i.e. that connector is shown the wrong way round, regardless of whether that flag is checked or not.

To see, which way these connectors ought to be drawn correctly just have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_diagram or at https://www.uml-diagrams.org/composition.html?context=class-diagrams.

Is there some secret sauce to tweak EA to create correct UML class diagrams or does one now have to live with that bug?

5

General Board / How to hide {abstract} annotation?

« on: May 17, 2018, 05:52:27 pm »

I am using EA (v13) on two different systems. On one, when I open a class-diagram for some reason all (Java-)interfaces show an annotation "{abstract}" below the name. Of course interfaces ARE abstract, but this is redundant visual clutter, so I would like to hide this annotation. Where/how can I disable the display of these annotations (or whatever they might be called in EA) by default, i.e. for ALL diagrams.

Similar with the <<interface>> annotation above the name. Interfaces have already a different color, so no real need to display that, either. How/where do I adjust the visibility?

Sorry for asking these probably stupid questions, but since Sparx keeps moving toolbar items and settings menus around with each new version I have a harder and harder time finding things and navigating this beast. And the "help" is really none...

6

General Board / How to adjust code page for Java source code import?

« on: August 22, 2017, 11:48:44 pm »

I am frequently importing Java source code into class models in order to have a starting point when creating diagrams.
When doing so, then EA parses Javadoc comments into class/interface descriptions.

This is in principle a *very* good idea, however, in many comments our developers used national characters (Umlauts) and these get messed up and are replaced with several characters of gibberish each (and they are emitted such, if I re-generate/update the source file after that).

In an elder EA Manual and also an append on StackOverflow that I googled one can read about an Option in the dialog Tools -> Source Code Engineering (which looks like the one now in Start -> Preferences -> Source Code Engineering) that should allow to adjust the code page being used when reading/emitting source code. That option has apparently disappeared along the journey to v13.5. Is that option still available or is it gone?
Our source code is written using UTF-8, in case this important.

7

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Neither MDG Link nor MDG Integration for Eclipse are working

« on: August 22, 2017, 06:16:15 am »

As you probably know, neither MDG Link nor MDG Integration for Eclipse work with Eclipse 4.7+ (Oxygen).
I guess these two EA extensions are "dead", right? There hasn't been any update for these extensions since at least 2011.

Or is there any chance or trick to get these working?
Having to re-enter all the details of our classes by hand is really tedious and so superfluous!

8

Suggestions and Requests / links to local files should allow for env.vars

« on: July 30, 2014, 10:08:35 pm »

It would be nice, if a link to a local file would allow for environment variable substitution. This would allow to define links to local files that would work on different machines provided that each user has the corresponding env-var defined properly, e.g.:

${SVN_LOCAL_DIR}/some_dir/some_file.docx

9

Suggestions and Requests / Copy-pasting a UI element only gives errror msg.

« on: September 21, 2010, 04:59:10 am »

When trying to duplicate a UI element (in a UI Model) one currently only gets an error message:
---------------------------
This diagram already contains an instance of the element you are trying to paste.
Currently only one instance is supported, so you cannot paste the element here.
---------------------------
%$#@!
I am trying to draw a couple of dialogs which share many features. It would really be nice if one could first draw one and then duplicate that and continue by changing one of them. Why can't EA not simply give the pasted elements new names (e.g with some name suffix "-2" or whatever but ideally asking for a new name or name-prefix) and then paste that element into the diagram? It's tedious to have to start from nothing each time again!
Every simple paint program can do better and this un-invites from doing such sketches in EA.

Michael

10

Suggestions and Requests / Notes in Sequencediagrams not printing

« on: September 11, 2007, 01:34:04 am »

Hello, I bought a license of EA 7.0 begin of last week. Now I just noticed, that when I print out sequence diagrams, the content (i.e. the text) of all notes that I had attached to misc. messages is not printed. In the trial version this had worked without problems.

It's really the same diagram, I only printed it out again to get rid of the "Unregistered trial version" backdrop.

I had re-installed the trial version before installing the newly downloaded full copy, in case this matters.

Michael

11

Suggestions and Requests / Missing: printing with different scales.

« on: September 06, 2007, 03:48:51 am »

I am missing the capability to print a diagram in different zoom factors. I drew a large diagram that would require me to glue together 18 pages :-(. I would like to be able to scale that down for printing so that it only requires, say, 6 pages (even if that means that I need a lense to read the text). But nowhere did I find such a scaling factor for printing. Am I missing something?

Oh - and I also don't quite understand, why all fields to adjust margins in page setup are grayed out and apparently fixed at 1 inch (which I find a bit too much...). Is this "not yet implemented" or what's causing this?

Michael

12

Suggestions and Requests / left/right scroll using a tilt-wheel mouse

« on: September 03, 2007, 12:43:11 pm »

Certainly not a top priority, but if would of course be nice if pressing the wheel of a tilt-wheel mouse left or right would scroll the canvas accordingly. Tilt-wheel mice are not THAT exotic and exist since at least >5 years. And they are extremely handy for diagramming if a program supports them in a clever way!

Another very common way to quickly and easily pan is by moving the mouse with the right mouse button pressed. Instead of bringing up a context dialog this grabs the paper or canvas, so-to-speak, and shifts it accordingly.

Either way is much quicker and less disruptive than having to move in the Pan & Zoom view (or the using the scrollbars)...

13

Suggestions and Requests / append [ ] if "Return Array" specified for op.

« on: September 03, 2007, 12:54:14 pm »

Would be nice to see an appended '[]' in the message properties and in the message labels of a sequnce diagrams if the return type of a message is defined as "Return Array".

14

Suggestions and Requests / Wanted: a graphical way to attach notes!

« on: September 03, 2007, 12:25:34 pm »

There should be a graphical way to attach notes to messages, by clicking "note link" in the toolbox (or "New note link" in the toolbar) and then simply connecting the note and the message. The current method by right clicking the message and then selecting "Attach Note or Constraint..."  may be very powerful in cases where notes have to be attached to multiple messages, but this is not exactly intuitive, to say the least.

BTW: IMHO it should also be possible to attach notes to activations!

15

Suggestions and Requests / Possibility to make fragment part of an activation

« on: September 03, 2007, 03:25:18 am »

When adding a fragment to a sequence diagram it should be attached to (i.e. become part of) one of the activations it covers and consequently it should move up and down with all the other elements (like messages and activations) if one deletes or adds anything above.

Currently, it appears as if fragments are completely independent of any lifeline or activation and remain on their former position if something changes higher up in a diagram.

This then every times produces complete nonsense. A loop, say, then suddenly contains items it never was supposed to contain, while other items fall out of the fragment, i.e. one always has to correct the position of ALL fragments below the location of the change. This is error-prone and extremely cumbersome! Since the sequence diagram editor is otherwise working so nicely I really can not believe, that fragments were implemented in such an absurd manner.

BTW: Notes attached to messages seem to behave similarly, i.e. they also remain on their former position, only the line between them and their anchor position changes. This is also next to unusable. The notes should of course also be shifted with their anchor postion!

This is using v7.0.816 on WinXP.

Regards,
Michael