Topics

31

Bugs and Issues / SD weirdness

« on: October 17, 2021, 11:15:03 pm »

Two things: (zero is the weird "Unsaved changes"). First if I change the message to "New" the message ends in the middle of the object square. It needs to be moved to get the arrow attached to the right position. Second, if you change a message to a Return it ends still as procedure call one level up. You need to "fix" that by "Extend Source Activation Up". Pretty sure that had been better in 13.5 and before. (Third was the moving messages I already ranted about not too long ago.)

Nobody else to report that as bug or has everyone given up reporting bugs since Sparx won't fix them anyway?

q.

P.S. You can click the little arrow on the Return message for the activation level as well. Just repeat it if you are curious. Why is it that each day I get more confirmed that Sparxian are *really* from another planet?
P.P.S Now that activation level arrow has vanished. Must have gone back to it's origin planet.

32

Bugs and Issues / Drop as Lifeline

« on: October 17, 2021, 09:31:12 pm »

I'm still speechless that EA permits to drop elements As Link on sequence diagrams, thus leaving open a trap door for evil things. (Since this is known for decades and not being fixed I save my efforts for sending another bug report.) Now, there's that "Remember selection" checkmark. I did set "Lifeline" for my first drop. And what happened on the next drop? It rememberd "Remember selection". But nothing else. Still it selected "Link". WTF?

Aahhh, well. While writing this I turned on "Only show..." and that made it remember the selection. EAUI strikes again!

q.

33

Bugs and Issues / This weird "Unsaved Property Changes"

« on: October 16, 2021, 02:06:39 am »

I ranted about this weird dialogue elsewhere. However, it's even worse. Just changing the tab in the connector properties (say from the Connector to Source) it pops up that weird warning when "clicking elsewhere". I did not change anything! Who has designed this dialogue? Could you please sem him back to scrub the floor again?

q.

34

Bugs and Issues / Role name and alias

« on: October 15, 2021, 10:08:02 pm »

As you might know EA uses the same place (also physically in the DB) for Alias and Role. UML says that Object (as EA still calls it though per UML it's InstanceSpecification) is rendered as

Code: [Select]

{<name> [‘/’ <rolename>] | ‘/’ <rolename>} [‘:’ <classifiername> [‘,’ <classifiername>]*]
Now, EA has this Use Alias if available in the diagram properties. And guess what it does: yes it thinks that Object does have an Alias and uses the rolename for the name. Plain wrong.

Just another indication to use as few of EA's gimmicks as possible since they tend to just not work properly.

q.

35

Bugs and Issues / UseCaseLink ignores shape script

« on: October 15, 2021, 08:38:29 pm »

The title says it all. I was (well, not really) surprised to see that EA does ignore the shape script when I extended my stereotype to UseCaseLink. But no howling helped and a fix will not be seen "in a near future". So I just resorted to Connector as meta class instead. Just that you know...

q.

36

Bugs and Issues / Advanced/Convert toInstance not working for Actors

« on: October 01, 2021, 08:13:42 pm »

When using the above option for classes EA creates an Object - as desired. But when doing that with an actor it again creates an actor being classified with the chosen one. It needs to be an object as well.

q.

P.S. Not reported. Only here...

37

Bugs and Issues / Notes won't stay where I want them

« on: September 25, 2021, 08:30:38 am »

One more for the evening: I just wanted to place the notes where I wanted them (that's probably ANY place on the diagram I like). But EA is smarter than me and puts them "somewhere" (but not over the rainbow). Last annoyance for this night.

q.

38

Bugs and Issues / Attach note to a message

« on: September 25, 2021, 08:23:49 am »

I used the context menu to create a note attached to a message. Eagerly typing the description in the Notes properties - and wondering why the notes was still empty upon "clicking somewhere else" (oh, we did have that dialog type already, though never with confirmation upon "clicking elsewhere"). Hmm, knowing EA I quickly found that the focus was still on the message and has not gone to the newly created note element. Just EAUI but as expected before, it was another Sparx moment.

I'm really getting tired now.

q.

39

Bugs and Issues / Moving message start/end

« on: September 25, 2021, 08:03:04 am »

As of 13.5 it was possible to grab a message from one life line and rip it off to drag it to another. 15.2 won't let me do that. It only moves the whole life line. Sparx has a sure hand to break user interaction with each version.

I hope that's the last mock for today.

q.

40

Bugs and Issues / Operation parameters

« on: September 25, 2021, 07:44:17 am »

Every now and then I switch from talking about modeling with EA to really modeling with EA. Maybe to feel the pain again? Well, now I added a new operation and wanted to alter its parameters. So in the Features/Operations I opened the Parameters drop down and added a new parameter. However, the browser shows (int) though I had specified a null string. Now, when clicking the drop down it shows my changed parameter. After adding and deleting a dummy parameter it seemed to have cleaned itself. Well, the usual EA bugs...

Ok, so there's also the Parameters in the Properties/Operation. Some free text that just shows the name of my first parameter. Once somewhere in the old EAs you could specify parameter like you would in some C dialect. Can't recall where exactly that was. Dare to add a 2nd parameter here? Yes! Add ", bla" to the first name and press enter. The field closes and the Parameters is highlighted. But the browser is unchanged. So did it take the new parameter? Hmm. It's not that "new dialogue" like for the message properties. No warning when I click "somewhere else". But when I click the operation again, my changes in the Parameters are lost. It's a fake. Someone hired Donald for consulting here?

As I added the C-spec from V13 above I gave that a try. Since my first parameter was untyped it showed only the name. But once I entered "self:x, bla:y" EA miraculously accepted that (though I did not want to specify a type). Of course "self:, bla:" was only accepted as fake.

Code quality? What's that?

q.

P.S. The message in the SD is also not in synch. I have to choose the operation from the drop down and "click elsewhere".

41

Bugs and Issues / That "new" message properties

« on: September 25, 2021, 07:08:10 am »

Well, GUI is not what a Sparxian had learned at school, I know. The most crude is the message properties (and a few others which are alike). Here you have a window where you can alter data. And where is the Ok/Cancel? Nowhere! You save changes when you leave the dialog by clicking "somewhere else". That pops up some "You have unsaved changes". Sure, you did not offer me to save them! Which genius has invented that? I don't want to know, honestly. I wonder why no other EA user has complained about that thing. Probably because EA users are already half Sparxians? Who knows?

Okay, this complaint aside. The Message properties dialog has an Operations button. But that only works if the classifier DOES have operations. In V13.5 it opened the operations of the classifier and let me add a new operation. Not possible in V15. Would you be so kind to restore that to work as before?

q.

42

Bugs and Issues / Profile comment not saved

« on: September 22, 2021, 11:59:30 pm »

The comment on profiles is probably commonly ignored. However, I do have a use for it. So I was very surprised that my changes to the notes were not exported (I used the API to export the profile). When doing it manually it took me a while until noticing that the comment appears in Save dialog - but just with the old contents. Another few minutes (it wasn't the registry) I found the culprit. EA saves the filename AND the comment in t_xref in ProfileOptions. So it's burned and you can't change it (easily). Well, Sparxians, it was nice to remember the filename once after I while. But you actually found a way to bring in another hole. Would you please fill the Notes from the actual Notes and not from what had be placed there once upon a time?

I'm prepared to wait another 10 years for that to be fixed.

q.

43

Uml Process / Links between objects

« on: September 17, 2021, 05:29:17 pm »

The UML spec states that connections between instances are Links, being instances of Associations. However, EA offers Associations in the Object Diagram. Not that I'd really care here (there are more important things) but that would be wrong, wouldn't it? Besides, I have not seen Link as a connector being offered in a toolbox.

q.

44

Bugs and Issues / Export searches

« on: September 17, 2021, 03:59:57 am »

Has anyone ever used this dialog? Besides the fact that it falls under the category "Not sizeable like any other EA window" you can not even scroll the names. There are at some dozens "Last 90 Days/Month/Week" searches. The "Recently <something>" can only be guessed.

q.

45

Bugs and Issues / Diagram presentation as matrix

« on: August 09, 2021, 11:46:01 pm »

Showing a diagram as matrix is nice. However, typical EA, the text in the headers is simply truncated. And there's no option to change that. We do have  long profile names and more or less the profile name is 90% of the text and the relevant stereotype can only be guessed. If at all. Wouldn't it be possible simply to just wrap names in the header boxes? Shouldn't be that difficult since it has lots of space above and below the text.

q.