Where has my diagram type gone?

[GrahamL]

Hi
I developed an MDG in V14 of EA and when deployed (copied to the MDGTechnolgies folder) I could create a diagram of a type specified in the MDG.
Now if I use V15 of EA I cannot add such a diagram.
The MDG shows up under Specialise->Manage Tech and under the Options

So where has my diagram type gone?

THanks

[Geert Bellekens]

Check the selected perspective.
That is often the culprit.

Geert

[GrahamL]

Hi
Yes thats what I thought.
However, if I change perspective to User Technologies I done see it.
If I open the Manage Technologies dialog my MDG is listed.
Further if I manually import the MDG I get two copies of my MDG listed and there are 2 versions of my diagram type available.
Obviously I only want 1, any more ideas?

Thanks

[Geert Bellekens]

Having two copies of the MDG messes up a lot.

You'll have to choose which method of deploying an MDG you want to use.
I always use Import in Model, which works fine if you use a centralized model, but not so much if you use many different .eap files.

Geert

[GrahamL]

Well as placing the MDG in the MDG Technologies file does not seem to work in V15 I guess I will have to use the import method
Its a bit weird though

[Uffe]

You'll have to choose which method of deploying an MDG you want to use.
I always use Import in Model, which works fine if you use a centralized model, but not so much if you use many different .eap files.

... And I always use a file share. Both work, but I find the file share solution preferable if

• you're doing lots of small updates to your technologies rather than one or two a year, and/or
• you have a larger number of projects, and/or
• your project administrators don't understand how MDG Technologies work.

This turns out to be always.

/Uffe

[GrahamL]

Thanks for the hint, but it doesn't explain why it worked in V14 and not V15

[Uffe]

Hi again,


I'm pretty sure it's the perspective, or more insidiously the perspective category, that trips you up.

Perspectives don't work properly, and they confuse people. It's another misguided attempt to simplify the GUI, but Sparx didn't actually work out exactly how this new way of controlling aspects of functionality would interact with all other ways of controlling aspects of functionality before they released it, and they've been floundering around ever since. There were several changes in 15, major changes in 15.1, and I'd expect more of them going forward.

Here's what I think happened.

The User Technologies perspective falls under the Specialized category (introduced in 15.0), which refers specifically to technologies imported into the project -- not to user-defined ones in general.
The perspective acts as a filter in certain EA functions, primarily in dialogs such as New Diagram. However, the underlying technology is still loaded into the client and all its contents are still available for various uses. (One of the recent changes was to allow document and code templates from a technology to be used even though the technology is not in perspective, another was to allow the creation of composite diagrams from a not-in-perspective technology.)

The Manage MDG Technologies dialog shows which technologies are available, whether from a file or the project, and/or loaded (= selected). It isn't affected by perspectives.

So if you have deployed your technology to a file, and loaded it, the User Technologies perspective will hide its diagram types in New Diagram.

If you then import the same technology into the project, the perspective will allow you to see the diagram type since the technology is now a "user" (ie imported) technology. But the client in fact has two identical diagram type definitions available to it from two identical technologies, one loaded from the file and one from the project.

So internally in EA, the dialog presumably retrieves the list of diagram types from the technology manager, then for each diagram type asks the perspective manager whether the type is in perspective. Since there are two copies of the technology loaded, the technology manager will supply two copies of the diagram type to the dialog, the dialog will ask the perspective manager about the "same" diagram type twice, and the perspective manager will say Yes both times. There's nothing else it can do, really.

What needs to be changed is that EA should baulk when asked to load a technology (when opening a project or changing the technology configuration) that is already loaded, regardless of where the technology is located. In your case, that would have prevented you from loading the technology into the project without first unloading the file version.

HTH,


/Uffe

[GrahamL]

Thanks for a good explanation

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Thanks for a good explanation

Wot 'e said!

Thanks, Uffe!

Also, wot Uffe sed!  (about the functionality fix)

Paolo