EA Small Niggles

[kiwi]

Hi all, a couple of small niggles that I'd love to see changed:

- report generation: remember the last file generated so I don't have to reselect it every time
- 'confirm save' dialog every time a diagram is changed. This is a weird half-way thing between two save models I believe:
1) nothing's saved until you say 'save': this is bad, but it's how every app works these days
2) everything's saved all the time. This is what EA is endeavouring to do, because there's no SAVE menu! This is fine, but how can you revert to the last version? Ultimately what would be good is a 'action history' window as done in Photoshop or Dreamweaver 4. that's really cool. But I anticipate getting into BIG trouble soon because I can't revert some Big Horribly Irreversable Change I made across diagrams...

cheers,

Julian.

[gsparks]

Hi Julian,

No trouble remembering last file generated ... will add soon.
At the moment, if you save a template with the filename set, it will be automatically set every time you use that template. Have you tried that.

There is an option to automatically save (ie. bypass the confirmation dialog) ... its on the Local Settings / Diagram page dialog (Autosave)

Undo is to undergo some changes in the near future. The problem is trying to maintain consistency across a complete model, and not just the current diagram ... new, changed  and deleted objects and links have an impact well outside the current diagram - and for consistency's sake these have to be written to the repository in real time.

Things local to the diagram itself - object/link positions and sizes, owned objects (notes, text & etc), colors & etc. can be held back until the diagram is explicitly saved.

EA currently does keep an action list and can restore certain actions - but we are aware of a few places where changes are not being registered ... this is to be looked at soon. It would also be an interesting idea to externalize this action list as suggested - I will keep it in mind.

Note that objects come in two types - those owned by a diagram (notes, text, sequence objects ...) these will not appear in any other diagram, so if you delete them in one diagram , you cannot affect any other diagram.

Objects which may appear in many places - ie. are owned by the model, not a diagram, can only be fully deleted from the browser tree - if you delete them from a diagram they are still available for dragging back from the tree.

Links are different - if you delete a link from a diagram, it is deleted from the model ... you can suppress it within a diagram - but should be careful when it comes to deleting.

I hope this explains a little - as I said, this is up for some rework soon and I hope that will provide a little more 'security' against unwanted results.


Geoff Sparks

[kiwi]

Wow: prompt, helpful and detailed reply there Geoff thanks a bunch!

Perhaps I wasn't clear, this is what I was wanting to do:
- I create a use case
- independently, I create a requirement
- whaddaya know! The use case needs that requirement!
So I'd better add it...
so I go the use case properties...
hmm, I could 'move external' in this window..
how do it...
nup, drag and drop from requirements into this dialog doesn't work..
hmm...
how -do- I?
Perhaps... ok magically I found if you drag a requirement onto the same page, and then make a connection of type 'Realize' between Use Case and the Requirement, it will add that external requirement. And voilà! It's added as an external requirement. Cool.

So. Hmm, I don't want that requirement on the diagram so... about if I... YES it works I then remove the 'Requirements' object from the diagram and it keeps the relationship. Cool hack

But apart from this way, I see no way of adding requirements to Use Cases aside from 'move external' which just sometimes isn't possible. You know, like in the case when you wanted it to be external for the reason it's shared between two use cases... and so you want to connect that second baby to the already-external requirement.

What I suggest is an 'Add...' button which brings up that list of all the requirements, which you can then select. (be sure to check for duplicates!). That Would Be Cool.

(PS perhaps once in EA's lifetime 'Options' was called Local Settings but now it's called Options... could you please refer to it like that too it's kinda confusing looking for 'Local Settings' when there are things like 'Local Paths' etc.. cheers!)

(PPS while we're talking about Undo: how about Ctrl-Z for a shortcut, and, heck while you're at it, how about moving it to the top of the menu, then a separator, then the clipboard ops... like every other Winapp in the world

[gsparks]

Hi Julian,

As regards the linking of use cases and requirements, I replied to your other post on this topic: "Question: external requirements with use cases"

That detailed the use of Realisation links for requirements management.

The Help file with EA has a section on Requirements Management which cover some of this. Also check out the section on the Relationship Matrix.

I did forget to mention there is also a 'Create Link' option off an elements context menu in the Browser tree .. you can create links to anything here without using the diagram.

Ill check out the Ctrl-Z option and placement of menu item.

Geoff Sparks