Project Class Diagram

[Paul@DOC]

Hey all,
I am trying to figure EA out. One of the first tasks I have is to reverse-engineer a largish java application. I can not seem to get EA to create a unified Class Diagram for the project. I like the division by name-space, but would also like to be able to put all the classes in one large diagram.

I am using the Iconix project style... if this makes a difference.

Am I missing something?

Thanks,
Paul H.

[Eve]

You're not missing an EA feature.  It does not create a single diagram for an entire application.  In any real world example this will be too large to benefit anyone.

Instead I would recommend making use of your knowledge of the product, and some of EA's features to make more useful diagrams.

For example:

The hierarchy view shows you multiple levels of relationships for the currently selected class. The relationships window shows more information about each of the direct relationships to the current class, and also allows you to drop the objects onto the diagram. Finally, the Insert Related command (in the context menu of an object on a diagram) allows you to insert many related objects all at once.

So, with appropriate use of known significant objects you should be able to achieve some more useful diagrams.

[Paul@DOC]

We are looking at reverse-engineering a project for a major re-factoring. In such a case it is very useful to be able to place all the classes in a single electronic diagram for the purposes of rapid comparisons and groupings. I would encourage Sparx not to dismiss this capability out-of-hand.
I agree that when starting a major project from scratch this capability is less called for.

[Geert Bellekens]

Paul,

Just to be clear, you do know that you can create the diagram manually don't you?
If I needed something like that I would probably open each created (package) diagram, do a Ctrl-A + Ctrl-C and then on my giant diagram a Ctrl-V to copy all the elements of the individual diagrams into my big diagram.

If this would really be too much work you might want to consider writing a little script to automatically add all classes to a diagram.

Geert

[beginner]

I believe it's useful to have a wall paper of everything, but creation of such by a machine is NOT possible. It doesn't really work for diagrams with say 20 classes. To create a useful wall paper you need to do it like Geert suggested. And you won't really like it in the end. Better plaster your wall with the single diagrams that have meaningful regions.

b.