Topics

1

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Back reference to creating/merging Pattern

« on: October 15, 2018, 04:01:33 pm »

It would appear there is no mechanism for recording which pattern (if any) an item was created or merged from.  We need to record (almost like the «trace» in Time Aware Modelling) so we can correctly manage the evolution of patterns.

I guess we'd have to "roll our own".  However, even this presents a problem.  There is no GUID available to uniquely identify the pattern - even though the name might change.

Any suggestions as to what "best practice" might be?

TIA,
Paolo

2

Bugs and Issues / How to "Publish Diagram as Pattern"?

« on: October 15, 2018, 03:50:20 pm »

Publish > Technology > Publish > Publish Diagram as Pattern

Isn't an available path under b1427.  In order to publish the "Publish Diagram as Pattern", I have to enter the term Publish in the "Find Command..." widget to be able to access the functionality.

Is this functionality available via the Ribbon in v14.1?  If so where?

Paolo

3

Bugs and Issues / Diagram Notes added to Pattern

« on: October 15, 2018, 03:44:49 pm »

When you create a pattern using Publish Diagram as Pattern, if you have a Diagram Notes Text element, even though it is unselected, it is included in the pattern.
There is NO mechanism to selectively exclude these kinds of "administrative" elements from the pattern.

Reported,
Paolo

4

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Auto Names in Patterns - what does it do?

« on: October 15, 2018, 03:06:22 pm »

We're starting to experiment (yet again) with EA Patterns (I know, we're masochists...).  I was hoping that the Patterns functionality would allow us to automatically replace dependent names as the pattern was created.  For example, for a simple intersector pattern, if we have the two endpoints Left & Right, we'd like the intersector to default to Left-Right.  We can change Left and Right, but we have to manually change Left-Right.

Can anyone confirm that this can't be done?  (without additional automation)

If so, then what does the [  ] Use Auto Names checkbox do?  Using Help with Use Auto Names as the search parameter, reveals only one hit to say that the option will be disabled.  There's nothing that says what it actually does.  Can a kind soul please enlighten me?

TIA,
Paolo

5

General Board / How to enable the "Find Command..." widget

« on: October 15, 2018, 02:40:41 pm »

On one of our machines, we've lost the "Find Command..." widget at the top right of the Ribbon.  How can we get it back, please?

Paolo

6

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / How to get Metatype into Type field on Model Search output?

« on: October 09, 2018, 03:08:57 pm »

When we create searches, the output sometimes shows the Metatype in the Type field and other times the base type.  We have examined the items that differ and we can find NO difference in them.  Both the t_object and t_xref entries have the same information.

What is the secret sauce to get the metatype to show consistently in the Type field?

Reported,
Paolo

7

General Board / Diagram filters across Groups

« on: October 09, 2018, 02:05:24 pm »

We have some Diagram Filter Groups defined.  We have one group for the specific value of a tag, in this case, the Lifecycle status of the item.  The Group is defined as an OR group.  So the user can select both "Released" and "Deprecated"  to select those items "In Production".
We have a separate group for aggregate status where one selection "In Production" will select the same two values.

We were hoping to be able to select from both the aggregate and specific groups, for example, to show those items "In Production" (aggregate) and "Retired" (specific), but this doesn't seem possible.

Is there any "secret sauce" that we're not applying to be able to do this?

TIA,
Paolo

8

Bugs and Issues / Ribbon Sets - NO Help

« on: October 08, 2018, 04:08:37 pm »

I'm interested in managing the sets of Ribbons available for my users.  There's a menu item called "My Ribbon Sets" under the "Perspectives" drop-down (top right).

([Thinks]) Oh, that might be what I'm after...  So I search Help for "Ribbon Set" - no matches!   
(as does "Manage Ribbon")

What SHOULD I have searched for?

Searching for "Ribbon" yields:
Search Complete! 1314 matches in 1029 files, total files searched 3102 in 0m 17s

I might as well attempt to read the entire Help file.  The output is in the order of the files, so every entry needs to be examined in case it might be pertinent.

Paolo

9

General Board / Local User Guide v14?

« on: September 26, 2018, 02:26:01 pm »

I previously (to v14) used the Local (to my machine) copy of the User Guide.  This allowed me to look up Help while travelling on the bus (1 hour each way).  I can't seem to find the v14 version.  Is there one?  How do I download and install it?

Paolo

10

General Board / How can we surface the scenarios (for an element) onto a diagram?

« on: September 21, 2018, 10:47:53 am »

How can we surface the scenarios (for an element) onto a diagram?  I was expecting a compartment (similar to Requirements and Constraints) but no such luck.

We can use a Linked Note, but this is quite cumbersome and is not directly attached to the element.

TIA,
Paolo

11

Bugs and Issues / Do Package entries work in QuickLinker?

« on: September 13, 2018, 02:14:41 pm »

We wish to create QuickLinker entries for Packages (similar to the
Class,,@Element,,,@Element,,Nesting,Nstng,to,nesting¯,nesting¯,True,True,True,True,Nesting,0,,,,,

e.g.
Package,,@Element,,,@Element,,Nesting,Nstng,to,nesting¯,nesting¯,True,True,True,True,Nesting,0,,,,,

), but they don't seem to work. 

If we stereotype the packages and create the appropriate QuickLinker entry e.g.
Package,Fldr,@Element,,,@Element,,Nesting,Nstng,to,nesting¯,nesting¯,True,True,True,True,Nesting,0,,,,,


The entries work.  Smells like a defect to me...

Reported,
Paolo

12

Bugs and Issues / Bizarre bug in QuickLinker!

« on: September 13, 2018, 01:52:22 pm »

In investigating the use of @Element in the QuickLinker, we accidentally discovered (after many hours tracking) a bizarre bug!

You can comment out a line in the QuickLinker by the use of a leading //

So far so good!  We generate the VAST bulk of our QuickLinker file via an automated process and we sprinkle some comments to help break the extremely large file up into sections - such as:
//,//,·,//,·,·,·,·,·,·,·,·,·,·,·,·,·,·,,,,,

//,//XSD Simple Type,·,//XSD Simple Type,·,·,·,·,·,·,·,·,·,·,·,·,·,·,,,,,


Notice the use of multiple // in the same line!  We've had NO problems with these since we started automating.

We had an entry in the manually managed section of the QuickLinker file concerning @Element:
//@Element,,@Element,,,Class,,Nesting,Nstng,to,nesting¯,nesting¯,True,True,True,True,(Nesting),0,,,,,
 //Doesn't Work!   Source Element type needs to be concrete!
We placed this at the start of the section where we were manually managing the concrete source types such as Activity,,@Element,,,@Element,,Nesting,Nstng,to,nesting¯,nesting¯,True,True,True,True,Nesting,0,,,,,

Class,,@Element,,,@Element,,Nesting,Nstng,to,nesting¯,nesting¯,True,True,True,True,Nesting,0,,,,,

To remind us of the issue.

We had the concrete sources working, and then added the comment.  Sometime later, we found the sources weren't working anymore - although AS USUAL there was NO indication that there was a problem.
After many hours of debugging we tracked it down to:
//@Element,,@Element,,,Class,,Nesting,Nstng,to,nesting¯,nesting¯,True,True,True,True,(Nesting),0,,,,,
 //Doesn't Work!   Source Element type needs to be concrete!
(on the same line)
Will KILL any following lines in the QuickLinker file, whereas
//@Element,,@Element,,,Class,,Nesting,Nstng,to,nesting¯,nesting¯,True,True,True,True,(Nesting),0,,,,,

//Doesn't Work!   Source Element type needs to be concrete!
(on separate lines)

Doesn't!  How Bizarre!!!

Reported,
Paolo

13

Bugs and Issues / Use of @Element in QuickLinker

« on: September 10, 2018, 05:06:54 pm »

We can use the @Element (for example) in a QuickLinker entry to allow more generic relationships specification.  Here's one entry that works...
Class,,@Element,,,Class,,Nesting,Nstng,to,nesting¯,nesting¯,True,True,,True,(Nesting),0,,,,,

Any Class can be nested within any Element.
Since any element can be nested within another element (or package - which in this context appears to be an element) we thought we'd generalize it to:
@Element,,@Element,,,Class,,Nesting,Nstng,to,nesting¯,nesting¯,True,True,,True,(Nesting),0,,,,,


However, this doesn't work.  Should it?  If not, why not?

Reported,
Paolo

14

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Forcing additional Fields in Query Builder searches

« on: September 06, 2018, 03:44:27 pm »

Is there any way to force the inclusion/exclusion of specific fields in the query result of the Model Search?
For example, a lot of our searches benefit from including the Version field in the output.  However, it's not there by default and we have to add it via the Field Chooser.

Must I throw away the Query Builder and do everything via direct SQL queries to get the specific fields and sort orders I need?

TIA,
Paolo

15

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Attached diagrams vs Composite Diagrams

« on: September 06, 2018, 12:57:04 pm »

Our diagrammer Add-In was created a LONG time ago when it wasn't possible to create attached diagrams through the API.  We've left it alone, until now, when we've discovered that when it creates the attached diagram for an InteractionFragment our existing process will set the type of the fragment to "strict", regardless of what it started as.  This is because the NType field is incorrectly overloaded by the architecture.

Notice I said "attached diagram" above.  In our repository for every modelling vertex, we create a Neighborhood diagram.  We store it as a child of the vertex.  It's not strictly a Composite Diagram, but we want the UI effect of double-clicking on the vertex in a diagram opening up the attached Neighborhood diagram.  It's our understanding that the only way to attach such a diagram to the vertex is to make the vertex composite and the set the composite diagram.  Can anyone confirm that this is the correct understanding of how to attach such a diagram to a vertex?

As I read the current Help System, I have to make the element composite by setting the IsComposite property and then attaching the diagram via the SetCompositeDiagram method.  I can use the CompositeDiagram property to determine if the Composite vertex already has an attached diagram.

Do I understand it correctly?

TIA,
Paolo