New User - unable to add New Element

[MichaelJ]

Hi @Eve,

...The point is that like many Windows applications, EA writes its settings into the registry under the current user. If a user can't do that then many things within EA won't work. Things like connecting to a keystore to get a shared key will need to be configured every load.

Agreed. Please see bug report 20075174.

...Reading the configuration from a file is not a better solution for anything that EA does. Apps generally do that so that their configuration loading is portable to different operating systems, not because users shouldn't be writing to the registry. It's just as likely that a user will not be able to write to their application data directory as not be able to write to their part of the registry.

Here's a response from Sparx regarding the Add New Element dialog not working

.. Thank you for your enquiry. Our developers have provided the following feedback, please see:
 
 Thank you for the video. Everything you do works on my system. However, it does give me one hint as to what is going wrong. The Toolset listbox is supposed to persist between usages of the dialog. It is persisted to a registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sparx Systems\EA400\EA\OPTIONS\LASTELEMPAGE. If you are unable to write to this key, it would suggest that you don't have the required registry permissions.
 
Would you be able to run EA as admin just to ensure you have read and write permissions for the registry?
 
 Another thought is could you enable all technologies please? Just to make sure that you aren't missing any of the required toolsets. (It's recommended that you use perspectives to limit the visible technologies, not disabling technologies as was the previous practice).
 
 Ribbon : Specialize > Technologies > Manage
 See : https://sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/15.2/modeling/manage_mdg_technologies.html

...

When I run EA as an administrator, suddenly the registry-based write issue disappears and Add New Element dialog works. Like you, I think to myself, "why must I run with admin privileges just to be able to Add New Element?".

I believe the original poster has a similar problem


 

[RoyC]

Could you try this? Select the Specialize > Technologies > Manage-Tech ribbon option and see if the Basic UML 2 Technology line (first in the list) has the Enabled box checked.

Are you using a brand new Use Case diagram or an existing one?

I don't know if this check would be of any relevance, but not having the basic UML technology selected is the only thing I have experienced that stops diagram-specific UML Toolbox pages displaying when you have the diagram open.

[Eve]

If you are unable to write to this key, it would suggest that you don't have the required registry permissions.

Would you be able to run EA as admin just to ensure you have read and write permissions for the registry?

If I may interpret the support team... This is a request for a test, not a suggested long term solution.

Enterprise Architect, like many applications, stores its options in HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Enterprise Architect does require read/write access to the current user registry, if your set-up is not allowing that (for non-admin users) then I would suggest that you bring that up with your admin team as unreasonably strict.

[JimHarts]

@MichaelJ - thank you, your post has unlocked my problem.  By selecting Specialise > Technologies > Manage and then enabling all technologies the toolbar now has the use case element for me to select and add to a diagram.  The New Element dialogue box also now behaves and the drop down fields have selectable values.

Thank you all for your contributions!