Diagram frames in UML ?

[avi10000]

Hi all,
I am starting to learn and use UML in EA, after first having some experience with SysML, also in EA.

I notice that the UML diagrams I create do not show diagrams frames and headings.

Is that UML does not have frames and headings? Or they do have frames but EA hides them by default, and if so then how do I display them?

Thanks

[Eve]

Effectively, EA treats the diagram window as the frame. Then provides an option for you to include a frame on an exported image.

[PDC]

One minor but interesting difference is that this means that EA can render Relationships (Connectors) between Elements and diagram frames on composite diagrams, but does not do so on UML composite structure diagrams (I guess because the frame of a SysML diagram effectively represents a Classifier). This isn't mentioned in the SysML spec (Appendix A) although it also isn't explicitly forbidden.

[avi10000]

Thank you, Eve.
So going on from there ...

I am a bit surprised that the frame is not always visible. If it were always visible you are always viewing the "model element" name and type.

While learning SysML, I noted from the book SysML Distilled (p. 19):

"Requiring each diagram to represent a model element may seem
like a strict and unnecessary constraint, but in the words of Frederick
Brooks, Jr., in The Design of Design (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2010),
“Constraints are friends” (p. 127). The connection between a diagram
and a model element was a deliberate and brilliant decision on the part
of the SysML authors. "

So tell me, without an obligatory & always visible diagram frame for UML, is UML really MBSE?

The reason why I am asking is because it seems to me that if you can draw a diagram without being forced to decide what SYS/SW entity it is describing, i.e., its name, and what aspect of the entity -- i.e., where it is in the DB, then in a sense, UML has become just another drawing tool like Visio. In other words, can UML really do MBSE?

Thanks
Avi

[Geert Bellekens]

UML is a language, not a tool. You can use that language for different purposes, including but not exclusively MBSE.

Geert

[avi10000]

Thanks for the response, Geert.
Yes, I know.
So I will correct the way I phrased it ... I meant to say:

Since the EA tool does not seem to display a diagram frame

(where the frame should, imo, contain name + kind of the entity, an aspect of which the diagram is describing)

and thus leaves the modeler (and readers) with less than maximum awareness of the identity of the element,
 
and thus, imo, EA tends to reduce somewhat the expression & gen. support it provides for MBSE, and might therefore cause the modeler to relate to the diagram just as "a diagram" rather than what it is supposed to be -- a visual representation of an aspect of the entity in the model DB (e.g., the entity's structure, it's internal behavior, and more).

(By now, my question seems to have lost most of its importance...    ) 
 

[Geert Bellekens]

I don't think making the diagram frame visible all the time would make much of a difference.

If you use EA as a modelling tool (and not an overly complicated diagram tool) you'll need the discipline to follow the rules set by the organisation.

Unlike other tools EA will allow anything, no matter how wrong it is from a modelling perspective.

Geert