Messages

16

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: SQL Query that reports 1..* related elements as comma separated list on one row

« on: March 16, 2022, 10:06:56 pm »

No time to read in detail, but is this not a job for STRING_AGG?  Your could STRING_AGG(this, ' | ') || STRING_AGG(that, ', ')

17

General Board / Re: Importing Attributes using Microsoft Excel

« on: March 11, 2022, 03:59:50 pm »

Use Belleken's importer - it's free and 100 times better

18

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: EA 16 DB Browser

« on: March 04, 2022, 01:11:35 pm »

SQLite Studio is free and very nice.  DBeaver is open source and has every feature you can think of!

19

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: SQL Query Using Firebird

« on: March 04, 2022, 01:10:16 pm »

I use square brackets to escape Firebird reserved words, works for me

20

Suggestions and Requests / Re: EA16RC: browser option to hide the new packages for diagram elements

« on: February 15, 2022, 03:18:06 am »

+1

21

Bugs and Issues / Re: How do I Export Class Attributes in a .csv file?

« on: February 03, 2022, 11:13:48 pm »

I just use CTRL-A to select everything directly in the search results window, then paste special into Excel with comma as separator and double quote as text marker.  Seems to work OK even for 3-400K rows * 15 columns of results

22

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Office MDG Beta

« on: January 25, 2022, 02:15:24 pm »

The biggest 3 issues I have with the Beta MDG are:

• The way it handles relationships. I do not understand why relationships cannot be exported to a different tab, like everything else. Thus allowing changing some of the properties of the relation.
• They have 2 profile manager, one for import profiles and another for export profiles.
• Only import profiles can be edited through the profile manager. The export profile manager does not allow editing export profiles.

My understanding is that the way it handles relationships is due to the fact that the MDG does not treat the relationship as a thing in itself, it really thinks about the objects (classes) and treats it as a property of the classes, therefore what the MDG can do about relationships is very limited.  This may be due to EA internal architecture, I don't know. (In software engineering object associations are not really important except generalization, while in data modeling they are hugely important - but EA is not natively a data modeling tool...)

23

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Office MDG Beta

« on: January 22, 2022, 01:42:57 pm »

That's fantastic news Geert!
Here's some unsolicited requirements for associations (connectors):
- Import association stereotype and roles (multiplicity / cardinality at both ends).  Multiplicity is not supported in Office MDG
- Import tagged values for individual associations (the Office MDG only has partial support: if 2 elements have 3 associations between them, you can only import the same tagged value for all 3)
- Define the connector start and end by the elements' tagged value (in addition to by name / alias as in the MDG).  This way we can put whatever we want in the tagged value (ObjectID, EAGUID, some counter etc.) and have more flexibility in defining start/end.

ps Sparxians please also consider for the new release of the MDG!  Thanks!

24

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Script for export to Excel get different SQL result?

« on: January 22, 2022, 01:10:53 am »

Hi Hurra
regarding my joke, search the forum for criticism of Access repository as just about the worst option in terms of reliability, lack of standardization (not ANSI compliant) and easy of query.  Access is itself regarded as a joke in database circles and I don't know if Microsoft is planning to continue support for it. 

Sparx is moving to SQLite as the default repository which is something I requested on this forum and emailed to them a few years back.  I've had a few bad experiences myself with Access and I use Firebird *.feap for all my projects until V16 is out.

25

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Script for export to Excel get different SQL result?

« on: January 20, 2022, 05:40:00 pm »

I see you are using *.eap Access repository.





I too like to live dangerously. 

26

General Board / Re: Can I show one object in different diagrams in different levels of abstraction.

« on: January 18, 2022, 01:08:52 pm »

methinks if it's an object, then it's an object - a class instantiation.  What other levels of abstractions could be possible?  Higher level = a class.  Lower level = an artifact (code fragment, bunch of bits on a had disk somewhere...).  Not a lot of wiggle room.

A class can be used to represent many levels of abstraction: conceptual (attribuless), logical (with attributes), physical (with attributes and physical data types as specified by the programming language or RDBMS).

A component can be used to represent many levels of abstraction, a physical database is not the same as it logical or conceptual representation.

A class, yes.  An object, not really.

27

General Board / Re: Can I show one object in different diagrams in different levels of abstraction.

« on: January 18, 2022, 01:04:52 am »

methinks if it's an object, then it's an object - a class instantiation.  What other levels of abstractions could be possible?  Higher level = a class.  Lower level = an artifact (code fragment, bunch of bits on a had disk somewhere...).  Not a lot of wiggle room.

28

Bugs and Issues / Strange bug in diagram legend EA v. 1310

« on: January 10, 2022, 09:18:53 pm »

I am using v13 (eagerly awaiting to update to v16) and I have strange behaviour on diagram legends.  I'd like to know if anyone knows a workaround?
In sequence diagrams I need to color code messages to highlight some business semantics.  I use legend-connectors-filter-tagged values with preset codes in a custom tagged value to determine the message color.
Every time I close the diagram and reopen it, the color coding disappears and I have to reopen the legend dialog to set again the tagged value that determines color.  The legend still shows 'apply auto color', 'apply line' etc. but the filter is not pointing to the custom tagged value any more.  Does anyone have a workaround?  Thanks!!

29

Suggestions and Requests / Re: v16β - Ellipsis for shortened Notes

« on: January 10, 2022, 09:11:05 pm »

hhhmmmm... why not use Notes for the short description and tagged values for the long semantic description?

30

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Office MDG Beta

« on: January 10, 2022, 02:04:55 am »

I use the Office MDG regularly only because I don't want to invest time to learn Sparx API and assorted VBA script or whatever devilry is needed to script.  I have about 1 year experience with it.  You can search my posts about it in this forum.

It is a nasty, complicated and poorly documented piece of software.  Never got all features working, even after extensive googling and very good response from Sparx support.

I use Geert's EA importer whenever possible.  It supports round tripping.

You may think about hiring Geert to extend the importer to do what you need.  Just sayin'.