Messages

706

Bugs and Issues / Project Constants Export   v7.5

« on: March 04, 2010, 12:57:20 am »

The help for exporting the Project Constants (found on the RTF document generation dialogue) says

"Export a selected set of fields to an external XML file."

However, when I try this function selecting specific constants makes
no difference,  ALL the constants seem to be exported all the time.
Also,  the XML output is not nicely formatted as it is for other exports, making editing output file more difficult than it should be.

Not sure if this is different/fixed in 8.

G.

707

Bugs and Issues / Re: EA Break Down during drag&drop-Action

« on: February 26, 2010, 02:47:20 am »

Any chance you could try this on more recent versions ?

The current version is 7.5 which has been out for a while and 8 is in beta so it won't be long before it's released.

708

Bugs and Issues / Re: Testing

« on: January 22, 2010, 03:43:42 am »

Dave - Geert may be right that you need a dedicated more heavyweight tool to support your testing.    However before you go down that route can you check the following as it shoudl be possible to get EA to support at least some of what you need:

1)  The testing panel only shows "internal" tests that have been set up for an element,  not test cases that are elements in their own right (usually called external).   You'll only get things displayed on this panel if you click on an element that has had some internal tests defined.  The panel changes dynamically as you click on different elements on a diagram

2)  The testing report shows these "internal" tests for a branch of the project browser.   You have to select the start package in the browser before  bringing up the testing report panel - if you've got the wrong package selected you'll get the wrong output.   If you haven't defined any internal tests then the report will always be empty

3)  It is likely to be worth abandoning the "testing report" anyway as it's not that flexible.   If you use the RTF generator for reporting you have specific control over what should be included.   It's quirky and not that easy to become familiar with,  but it can produce some nice results.    I have produced re-usable test plans this way.

4)  With internal tests it is definitely possible to import tests/scenarios etc.. from other elements - I have done that taking scenarios directly from use cases to create tests.   Not sure why you can't do this.

5)  Finally Dermot from Sparx usually points people towards the Testing White Paper which might help further

http://www.sparxsystems.com/downloads/whitepapers/test_management_enterprise_architect.pdf

Hope this helps

709

Bugs and Issues / Re: Cannot report attribute links

« on: January 22, 2010, 03:46:38 am »

Hey Dermot - that is great news, thanks in advance for that !

710

Bugs and Issues / Re: Relationship Matrix - Basic Issues

« on: November 05, 2009, 11:12:49 pm »

Hello cty,  your english is very good and "sellable" is definitely a word I would use, although "sellable to" rather than "sellable beside".  

Also probably worth pointing out that the reason you have a different delimiter for csv files in France is because of the special meaning given to the comma,  for example you use it where the English/American would use a decimal point.    

Of course as "csv" is short for "comma separated values",  you'll have to change the name of these files in France to ssv  (semi-colon separated values - or the french equivalent !).    

711

Bugs and Issues / Re: Relationship Matrix - Basic Issues

« on: November 03, 2009, 08:47:52 pm »

Yes agreed, that would work Paolo.

712

Bugs and Issues / Re: Relationship Matrix - Basic Issues

« on: November 02, 2009, 11:40:54 pm »

I agree this should be an action, otherwise I can see the effect of an incorreclty set option - a false sense of security that everything is covered when in fact it isn't because of those "hidden" items.

713

Bugs and Issues / Re: Relationship Matrix - Basic Issues

« on: October 27, 2009, 12:14:43 am »

Paolo - I can confirm I see the same behaviour as you on both axes of the matrix.

G.

714

Bugs and Issues / Re: Relationship Matrix - Basic Issues

« on: October 13, 2009, 12:30:54 am »

I agree

715

Bugs and Issues / Re: Element notes' bullets items & RTF generation

« on: November 05, 2009, 11:22:09 pm »

No it's not available as a nightly build - you have to watch the Latest News/Announcements for the release of a build.

716

Bugs and Issues / Re: Element notes' bullets items & RTF generation

« on: November 04, 2009, 08:53:59 pm »

or even 850

717

Bugs and Issues / Re: RTF Editor and page headers and footers

« on: October 27, 2009, 08:51:01 pm »

I agree Roy,  I just felt that your original message implied that document artifacts couldn't be used in virtual documents when in fact they can, even if it is in a longwinded way and with a template determining their format. In short with a bit of jiggery pokery a document artifact/linked document can :

- be included in a virtual document at any position desired
- can be formatted/styled in line with all other (model) documents in the virtual document - including headers/footers
- be properly shown in the table of contents

I'm still interested in knowing if there's a better way of doing this for the type of "generic" section I've described - we have quite a few of these.

718

Bugs and Issues / Re: RTF Editor and page headers and footers

« on: October 26, 2009, 11:06:30 pm »

Roy - your comments are very interesting.   While I'm sure your distinction between model documents and document artifacts/linked documents is accurate, we definitely blur it because we ARE using document artifacts/linked documents as part of our virtual documents - even if it is indirectly !

As a result I cannot wholly agree with your statement "the linked document is created in isolation from a report, is peculiar to the element it is attached to, and has no impact on the report template."

Let's take the example of "Project Background".  This is a document section that can appear in many different documents but has no need to pull in various parts (elements/diagrams etc..) of the model.   We want to write this section once and pull it in to each document that needs it.   So we create a document artifact with a linked document, name it appropriately and write it using the standard heading styles etc.. from normal.rtf.   It's then ready to be used.

Now all we need to do is pull it in to each virtual document.

We have a documentation view which contains a folder called "Generic Sections".  Within that we have a subfolder called "Generic Project Background" and within this folder there is only one element - the document artifact for our Project Background that we've just written.

Now I can create a master document/virtual document and pull in the project background.   I do this by creating a model document within the master document just for the project background, naming it appropriately and then dragging the "Generic Project Background" folder mentioned before, onto the model document to include the generic section.   The final piece of the jigsaw is that we have an RTF template that does nothing except pull in linked documents - this RTF template is assigned to the model document we've just created and as they say Bob's your uncle.

The document artifact/linked document is pulled in to the overall document at generation time and receives the master header/footers and section/heading numbering.   The table of contents is correct, and if we need to we can also move the section up and down the virtual document at will using the standard project browser functionality.

It took a long time to work all this out - if there's a better way of doing it, I'd certainly like to know, otherwise is this something that should go into the help as well ?

regards
G.

719

Bugs and Issues / Re: RTF Editor and page headers and footers

« on: October 22, 2009, 09:12:33 pm »

I agree it's not clear in the help.  However I have it confirmed from Sparx that the following is true for Headers/Footers :

1) If the Master Document (container for the model documents) has a template defined via the RTFTemplate tagged value and that template has headers/footers then these headers and footers will take precedence and override any defined in the model documents themselves.  This allows you to have consistent headers/footers throughout the virtual document and consistent page numbering.  I have got this to work.

2)  If the Master Document RTFTemplate tagged value is blank, then all subdoucments render their respective header/footer.

regards
G.

720

Bugs and Issues / Re: RTF Editor and fields

« on: October 22, 2009, 09:04:55 pm »

Just a couple of things :

1) You say "fix or improve the function of numbered styles across document artefacts and model documents (ie numbering does not continue)".

This actually does work - I persevered with it with some help from Sparx and got it to work.   For me the issue is that it's not intuitive how you do this and the standard help plus the rtf white paper, while not incorrect, do not spell out the procedure you need to follow to make it happen.

2) With regard to {FILENAME} and {MERGEFIELD FILENAME} sounds as though you did this in MS-Word.   If so, I believe it was Word that changed this to include the keyword MERGEFIELD not the import process.   EA just imported the rtf you created from Word as it stood - I've had the same situation.

3) Finally, you say "maximise the features of RTF supported" which I wouldn't disagree with but I think the capabilities of the RTF generator are much improved.  What isn't so much improved is its usability - setting up and using styles just isn't intuitive for anyone who comes from using MS-Word,  but with a bit of effort it can be done, controlled and made to produce some vey nice results.

regards
G.