Difference between Add-In Events, Broadcast Events and Workflow Add-In Events

[MatthiasVDE]

The Enterprise Architect Add-In Model knows three types of events, but what's the big difference between those three types?

[Geert Bellekens]

Nothing really.

They are grouped in a somewhat functional way.

Geert

[Uffe]

Hi Matthias,


You missed one type there: MDG Events.

In terms of responding to these events there's no difference betwen them, but you have to set up your Add-In a little differently for some of them and they are handled differently by EA.

• Add-In Events are received by all Add-Ins.
• Broadcast Events are received by the Add-Ins that implement them. EA queries the Add-In DLL to find out which events are relevant, you don't need to do anything in code.
• MDG Events are received by those Add-Ins which register themselves as "MDG" Add-Ins in their response to EA_Connect().
• Workflow Events, similarly, are received by those which register as "Workflow" Add-Ins in EA_Connect().

So you have to explicitly register to receive MDG and Workflow events, you get Broadcast events because you choose to implement certain interfaces, and the Add-In events you just get.

Don't know why Sparx has chosen to use two different ways of deciding which events to send to which Add-Ins (DLL inspection on the one hand and registration on the other), but hey -- koncistensy.

HTH,


/Uffe

PS I haven't actually investigated any of this, it's just what I've read in the API documentation which might be complete rubbish.
Wouldn't want to be accused of making blanket statements.

[Eve]

Don't know why Sparx has chosen to use two different ways of deciding which events to send to which Add-Ins (DLL inspection on the one hand and registration on the other), but hey -- koncistensy.

Not sure that there are two different ways of determining things. An add-in can request one of two sets of extra broadcasts, but EA checks that it exists before calling any add-in function.

[MatthiasVDE]

Thanks for the explanation!