Decision

[jod]

I have a simple question - when adding a decision box onto an activity diagram, how can I move or remove the placement of the name label. By default it tends to sit on the left hand side, in the way.

Ideally I would like to give the box a name but then not show this on the diagram - however this does not seem to be possible.

Can somebody tell me whether it is possible to do this?

Cheers,

[CJ]

G'day,

I hope someone has a better solution than mine...

How's about making the font of the decision name white or gray?  (Or some other colour that's very neutral.)

Yeah, pretty dinky solution, but what the heck, I figured I'd throw it out there anyway...

[jod]

Thanks - this does work, sort of.  

Was hoping there would be a proper way though...

[PhilR]

Hi,

My 2 cents.

I am pretty sure that it is wrong to refer to this element as a "decision" box.  The UML calls it a "branch" or "merge" rather than a decision.

Any condition associated with the branch or merge should appear as guard conditions on the lines entering or leaving the symbol.  These lines represent state transitions rather than flows of any description.  This is all to do with the meta model for activity diagrams which in the UML are in fact a special case of state diagrams.

Old-style flow chart notations use the same diamond symbol but label it with the condition such as "Account overdue?".  The lines leaving the symbol correspond to the possible outcomes of the decision (in this case "yes" or "no").  This is a totally different type of diagram and not part of the UML  

The upshot of this is that it is incorrect to label a "decision" box.  EA allows you to create a decision with no name which is correct UML.

Hope this helps - if it doesn't the trivia may be useful someday  

Regards,
Phil

[jod]

But the problem is exactly as you say Phil - I don't want to show the names on the diagram.

What I want is to label them so that I don't get dozens of decision boxes with no name attached in the project explorer. Currently I have lots of decision, start, end and other icons with no name in them in the explorer.

I'd rather they had a name so I can tell them apart but as soon as I give them a name it appears on the diagram as well. which I don't want.

Just out of interest, UML does refer to decisions, to quote:

"The icon provided for a decision is the traditional diamond shape, with one incoming arrow and with two or more outgoing arrows, each labeled by a distinct guard condition with no event trigger."

Had to look it up though to be sure - how sad is my life becoming...


Cheers,

[CJ]

G'day,

Semantics aside, it is a huge pain in the butt when not naming the decision/branch/merge object.

In particular, try "Set Source and Target" from the context menu of a State Flow.  A whole bunch of decision/branch/merge objects without names really makes things more difficult.

[PhilR]

You can always "right-click" on the diagram and select "Locate in project browser" if you need to find a specific decision in the project browser.

If they cause a problem with documentation, you can always put them in a separate folder. "Right-click" and select "RTF Documnet Options..." to exclude them from RTF documentation.

Thanks for the UML reference.  I think there are underlying problem with the activity diagram meta-model that the OMG plans to fix in a later release of UML.

Don't worry about you life becomming "sad".  I regularly use the UML spec as a cure for insomnia and never remember what I read in the morning

Phil