Associations and name adornment

[EA_Nj]

I was trying to setup a name for an association. The closest thing that I found to "name" was Add Message. So I went ahead and added a message from source to target. But EA gave it a number. This is how it added a number

Person ----- 1:Works for ---- Company

Why doesn't EA support a simple name .. Why does it call it a "Message". Further if message is in fact the equivalent of Name then why does it add a number in front of it?

It was a bit confusing because UML uses the term "name" and I couldn't find it in any menu option or properties tab.

Thanks

[James]

If I understand you correctly, it's straightforward.  Just double-click on the association link, and you can give it a 'Link Name' which will show up on the diagram next to the line.  If you need to add more, then put it in the 'Notes' field - this will come out in the text documentation.

James

[EA_Nj]

All I really wanted to know was the reason that a number is placed in front of the association name. This is a bit confusing because all we want to do is associate a name. We don't want to specifiy an order to it.

Any thoughts?

[gsparks]

Hi,

I hope this will sort things out:

The name of an association is set by double clicking on the association itself and setting the Link Name field in the property dialog. However ... if you are using build 465, there is a bug which prevents the name being shown, this has been corrected for build 467 which will be out on Monday. Earlier builds of EA did not have this problem.

The Add Message menu item adds a Collaboration message to the basic link ... so you can add multiple messages flowing between collaboration instances - the numbering is then significant.

I hope this helps,
Geoff Sparks