Working with swimlanes

[alexey]

Hello,

I am fairly new to EA.  

I am trying to create an Activity Diagram with swimlanes.  I'd like to assign different activities to different swimlanes so that activities are automatically centered in the swimlane, stay in place if I change swimlane orientation, and so on.  Is that possible?

Thank You.

[Geert Bellekens]

Alexey,

I think you are then better of using Activity Partition iso Swimlanes.
They do not automatically center things, but if you move the partition the actions on the partition move with it.

Geert

[sbaldrick]

As swimlane modeling tools go - EA ain't bad.

But swimlanes are horrible diagrams - to draw; to maintain and they use up a lot of whitespace and restrict ones ability to layout the diagram. Not only that, but where do you put 'start', 'stop' and externally generated events and decisions? You don't put them in swimlanes, so they have to go above or below your diagram, meaning that every now and then a line goes shooting off the page.

[Did I mention that I think swimlane diagrams are a waste of time and energy?]

Instead; colour code your activities to represent the different resources. Alternatively, use stereotypes to assign activities. Or even draw the diagram however works best for maintenance of layout, print it, use scissors to cut out the activities and paste them onto cardboard in straight lines, then draw lines around them using a ruler and black marker pen.

I'm starting a movement to stop people encouraging the use of swimlanes - who's with me!!!

 

Les.