Hi.
I've been using the Enterprise version of EA for a couple of years. I'm very happy with it. However, there is one aspect that perpetually drives me nuts, which is how to apply the same property change to multiple elements at once.
For example, let's say I have branch of hierarchical packages, each containing many (for example) classes. The "status" of all the contained classes is initially "Mandatory". Now say I've just finished running a set of unit tests against my package branch and want to set all of the covered classes as "validated".
As it currently stands, I have to go to each element in turn, open its properties and change its status field. This is OK when applying the change to a small number of elements, but is terribly tedious once hundreds or thousands of elements are involved. Frankly, I end up just not making the changes, which kind of defeats the point of maintaining a status field.
What I'd like to be able to do is select a bunch of elements in a diagram, and apply the same status change to all of them. Even better would be to apply such property changes recursively to all elements in an hierarchy of packages.
Of course, the status field is just an example. Another property field that is similarly drives me nuts is "phase"... occasionally I move an entire package branch into a different phase. Hiring a new person just to reset the phase attribute on all affected elements just isn't practical, so the Phase doesn't get updated, which introduces inconsistency and effectively renders the phase attribute as useless.
If the Sparx guys could see their way clear to adding this feature, then I'll buy the whole team a Mars bar each!
Thanks,
Russell