Release Notes for EA 7.5
- New: Editions of Enterprise Architect
- Version 7.5 introduces 3 new editions of Enterprise Architect
- Two editions target specific engineering domains
- A third edition wraps up everything for the ultimate Enterprise Architect experience
- Each edition bundles licenses for specific MDG products that target the needs of the domain engineer
- Each edition supports advanced Behavioral Modeling and Code Generation
- New custom dialogs for various behavioral elements to provide enhanced behavioral modeling capability.
- Ability to generate source code from behavioral models.
- Support for code generation from State Machines
- Support for code generation from Activity Graphs
- Support for code generation from Sequence Diagrams
- NEW: Enterprise Architect - Business & Software Engineering Edition
- Targets software engineering, BPEL generation, behavioral code from business rules, integration with Visual Studio and Eclipse, and various frameworks
- Includes all functionality in the Enterprise Architect Corporate Edition
- Examples included in the Example model
- Advanced Behavioral Modeling and Code Generation for standard coding languages
- Business Rules Modeling and Code Generation
- Support for Fact models
- Support for Rule Flow models
- New Rule Composer supports modeling and configuration of complex Business Rules from Fact and Rule Flow models
- Support for behavioral code generation from modeled Rule Sets
- Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) Support
- Support for generating BPEL 1.1 from BPMN 1.1 models.
- Introduced BPMN 1.1 Technology and BPEL diagram type
- New property dialogs for BPMN 1.1 elements when placed on BPEL diagrams.
- Support for additional advanced Math functions in the Enterprise Architect Scripting engine
- MDG Technologies and Add-in licenses included (bundled) with the Business Engineering Edition
- MDG Link/Integration for Microsoft Visual Studio
- MDG Link/Integration for Eclipse
- MDG Technology for Zachman Framework
- MDG Technology for TOGAF
- MDG Technology for DODAF/MODAF
- NEW: Enterprise Architect - Systems Engineering Edition
- Targets systems, real-time engineering, behavioral code generation, executable UML
- Includes all functionality in the Enterprise Architect Corporate Edition
- Examples included in the Example model
- Advanced Behavioral Modeling and Code Generation for HDL's, Ada and standard coding languages
- Ada 2005 Language Support
- Added Ada 2005 language support
- Support for OMG SysML 1.1
- Support for SysML Parametrics Simulation
- Hardware Descriptions Languages Support
- SystemC support added
- VHDL support added
- Verilog support added
- Support for additional advanced Math functions in the Enterprise Architect Scripting engine
- MDG Technologies and Add-in licenses included (bundled) with the Systems Engineering Edition
- MDG Technology for SysML
- MDG Link/Integration for Microsoft Visual Studio
- MDG Link/Integration for Eclipse
- MDG Technology for DDS
- MDG Technology for DODAF/MODAF
- NEW: Enterprise Architect - Ultimate Edition
- Combines all the features in the Business Engineering and Systems Engineering Editions
- New: 'built-in' MDG Technologies
- Introduced MDG Technology for Strategic Modeling - including
- Strategy Maps,
- Balanced Scorecards,
- Value Chains,
- Flow Charts,
- Decision Trees and
- Organization Charts.
- New MDG Technology for ArchiMate, which supports The Open Group's ArchiMate enterprise architecture standard.
- New MDG Technology for SPEM, which supports version 2.0 of the OMG's Software Process Engineering Metamodel standard.
- New MDG Technology for Business Rule Modeling. Supports modeling Business Rules in Enterprise Architect Business Engineering Edition
- Web Modeling UML Profile now incorporated as a built-in MDG technology.
- Introduced MDG Technology for Strategic Modeling - including
- New: Scripting support (Corporate Edition and above)
- Write scripts inside Enterprise Architect using either VBScript, JScript or Javascript.
- Full and immediate access to the Enterprise Architect automation object model
- Built in Repository object to facilitate instant scripting
- Built in Intellisense support for the Enterprise Architect Object Model
- Built in Intellisense support for the major scripting language constructs on a per language basis
- Advanced math functions are also supported in the Business and Systems Engineering versions of EA
- Save scripts directly into the current model.
- Save scripts to a local file, for use in all models.
- Support for a "Scripts" subdirectory in the Enterprise Architect installation directory.
- Support for Scripts embedded in MDG Technology files.
- Ability to export scripts as reference data.
- Default Session objects for printing out trace information
- Console window for executing script commands in "immediate" mode
- New: Diagram Layout Window
- Added new dockable window with 10 new layout styles.
- Can help with manual layout, or automatically layout diagrams.
- Each command includes configuration options, allowing you to customize the results.
- Added new lateral connector style.
- Added logic to automatically switch between horizontal and vertical tree style connectors.
- New and Improved WAN and Large Model Support (Corporate Edition and above)
- Lazy Loading
- Only implemented for DBMS connections (not for .EAP files)
- Can greatly minimize the time taken to load large models and/or models accessed over a network with low bandwidth (eg. WAN).
- Lazy Load capability defers loading of model packages until required by the client.
- Is configurable on a per-connection basis, so two connections to the same DBMS can be configured with and without Lazy Load
- Can be used in conjunction with the WAN Optimizer
- WAN Optimizer
- Lightweight server that can be installed on a LAN connection to the host DBMS
- Accessible by WAN based clients over socket connection (eg. when client is on a WAN based VPN connection)
- Acts as a local proxy to retrieve data and compress data for transmission to client
- Significantly improves performance by reducing the amount of data transmitted and the number of network calls made
- Lazy Loading
- New and improved Themes support
- Added new visual themes (UI appearance) to choose from.
- Modified all docked windows to support and use the current theme.
- Configurable status bar
- New status bar indicator "WAN" - active when the WAN Optimizer is enabled
- New diagram zoom control in status bar
- Allows for immediate configuration of a general "all diagram" zoom level.
- Independent of the per diagram "zoom level" set by the diagram toolbar.
- Ideal for viewing all diagrams at a higher zoom level on a per user basis.
- General Appearance, Performance and Reliability Improvements
- Added "slideshow" model view type, which shows all the contained diagrams in order in fullscreen mode.
- Added command from toolbox item context menu to synchronize the tagged values and constraints of a stereotype.
- Added Directory custom tagged value type.
- Added handling of C# 3.0 and VB 9.0 code constructs.
- Added handling of localized decimal symbol in Estimation factors.
- Added new functionality to validate the configuration settings for version controlled packages.
- Added 'Realization' to Create Metaclass dialog in place of 'Realisation'.
- Added specific warning about opening a read-only .eap file.
- Added Stereotype column to Element List.
- Added support for Code Modules in MDG technologies to specify the name of constructors etc.
- Added support for creating profiled items from 'Create New Element' dialog.
- Added support for moving required interfaces on sequence diagrams.
- Added support for search filters on element Defects.
- Added support for showing details of selected maintenance, project management and testing windows item in Notes Window.
- Added support for showing generated XMI, XSD and WSDL files in EA's internal editor if an external viewer is not available
- Added support for stripping GUIDs in tagged-values when importing an XMI 1.1 or XMI 2.1 file with Strip GUID option
- Added support for using Sparx Keystore (shared keys) when running under Wine or Cross Over Office (Linux/Mac).
- Added support to move or copy test cases between testing types of an element.
- Added toolbar to search view, including an option for how to display the notes.
- Corrected minor project transfer errors.
- Corrected searches on Oracle that return over 1000 results.
- Discontinued support for RealTime UML add-in (rolled into Systems Engineering Edition).
- Fix configuration of model validation whitelists and blacklists.
- Fix direction setting of quicklink connectors.
- Fixed issue of missing association notes during XSD Import.
- Fixed issue when remove Trigger from Transition.
- Fixed issue where the "aggregation" attribute was set incorrectly on the generated XMI 2.1 for Association connector
- Fixed transfer of connectors owned state in Package transformation.
- Improve project transfer to and from Access 2007.
- Improved auditing performance.
- Improved baseline comparison of element scenarios.
- Improved creation of operation returning arrays from transformation templates.
- Improved current context immediately after dropping an element from the project browser.
- Improved display of combo boxes listing available searches.
- Improved display of stereotyped Activity Partitions.
- Improved drawing and tracking of Ports and Parts with shapescripts when bound to their owning parent
- Improved drawing of connectors drawn with dashed lines in tree style.
- Improved drawing of formatted notes to diagram where the selected font contains unicode characters.
- Improved drawing of long element stereotypes on sequence diagrams.
- Improved GDI+ metafiles when generating RTF documents
- Improved general performance in models containing a large number of security locks.
- Improved highlight of features in diagram when selecting feature in dialog.
- Improved loading time of the Classifier Dialog in very large models.
- Improved performance of 'Insert Related Elements' command when a large numbers of elements will be inserted.
- Improved performance when applying a security lock to a package.
- Improved performance when moving large numbers of elements on a diagram (in a single step).
- Improved reliability when using case sensitive MSSQL model
- Improved resources usage while loading EA and displaying diagrams.
- Improved Set Element Classifier dialog loading time.
- Improved snapping of connector line points to perpendicular line segments.
- Improved synchronization of attributes and methods with tagged values.
- Improved synchronization of profiled attributes and operations when dropping from the resource tree.
- Improved version control performance when creating context menus.
- Improved XMI 2.1 export of types using predefined common types.
- Introduced an "All Scenarios" option as a target for notes linked to element features.
- Made type of bool/boolean tagged values in profiles case-insensitive.
- MDG Technology for ArchiMate: changed shape scripts for interface and collaboration elements.
- Modified CSV import routine to only allow EA style GUIDS for the GUID field.
- Modified handling of text elements so that they automatically resize to fit the text being displayed.
- Modified HTML export to only copy local files to generated location.
- Modified lists for docked maintenance, project management and testing windows to preserve absolute column widths instead of percentages.
- Modified state table to only show state elements.
- Observe element locking with the quicklinker.
- Prevent a crash that may occur when deleting an element and its children from the search view window
- Prevent access to "Lock Item" dialog, through Diagram toolbars and menus, for Diagram Objects locked by other users.
- Prevent an error when using recent MySQL ODBC drivers which do not correctly support alternate images (binary data)
- Prevent deletion of packages which contain child items checked out to any other user in a version controlled model
- Project management element resource allocation added to core auditing level.
- Redirected instant help for BPMN elements.
- Restored Expand Branch functionality in Project Browser.
- Updated diagrams after deleting link from Rules and Scenarios window.
- Updated drawing of artifacts to account for long names.
- Use transparent icons when generating HTML reports.Improved handling of transforming operations that return an array.
- Automation
- Added support for Collection.GetByName for the MethodTags collection.
- Support generating RTF Master Documents via IProject.RunReport.
- Baseline
- Added ability to compare requirement stability.
- Code Generation
- Added ability to list over the following properties of elements in code or transform templates.
- Constraint, Effort, LinkedFile, Metric, Problem, Requirement, Resource, Risk, Scenario, Test
- Added parsing of Actionscript 3 Vector type.
- Added parsing of VB.Net functions without parameter lists.
- Added transform of ExecutionEnvironment, StateMachine and Trigger element types.
- Added ability to list over the following properties of elements in code or transform templates.
- Code & Script Editor Changes
- All new, intelligent code and scripting editor.
- Added syntax highlighting to the Initial Code field of the operation behavior dialog.
- Allowed the appearance of Common Code Editor calltips to be specified in the corresponding configuration files.
- Autocomplete functionality based on elements and features within the currently open model
- Automatic indenting for supported languages.
- Faster loading with support for more languages and larger files
- Improved brace matching.
- Improved Javascript engine to better support use of the global Repository as the default scripting object
- Improved syntax highlighting for a much wider set of languages.
- Intellisense and autocomplete functionality built in.
- Intellisense support added for shape scripts, database view element sql and custom search query sql editors.
- Prevented Code Editor key combinations from opening EA dialogs bound to the same key combination.
- Data Modeling
- Added support for DDL generation of SQL Server index INCLUDE.
- Allow for inbuilt editor to view generated DDL.
- Corrected error importing schema from DB2 that includes table aliases.
- Corrected middle top label for foreign keys.
- Corrected reverse engineering of indexes from Oracle ensuring all indexes are imported.
- Ensured composite indexes imported from PostgreSQL contain all columns.
- Improved DBView dialog handling of objects not loaded on a diagram.
- Improved DDL Generation for Foreign Key Constarint Tags for Oracle Databases.
- Improved DDL Generation for ORACLE INDEX Properties.
- Improved DDL Generation for Oracle Storage Clauses.
- Improved DDL Generation for sp_addextendedproperty statement for SQL Server databases.
- Improved DDL Generation for Storage Clauses for UNIQUE and PRIMARY KEY Constraints in Oracle.
- Improved Drop Sequence Statement generation for PostgreSQL Database.
- Improved generation of DDL for MySQL data models having circular foreign key references.
- Improved import of Integer columns from MySQL to display correctly in the Foreign Key dialog.
- Improved Import of Oracle TIMESTAMP WITH TIMEZONE and TIMESTAMP WITH LOCAL TIME ZONE datatypes.
- Improved Import of SQL Server 2008 datatypes.
- Improved MDA Transformation to allow foreign keys to be NULL.
- Improved Order of DDL Generation.
- Improved OWNER Name generation in DDL for PostgreSQL repository.
- Improved support for table properties in Oracle.
- Improved Table property dialog box after importing from SQL Server 2008.
- Prevent editing of Foreign Key connector labels and foreign key direction.
- Prevent generation of Oracle foreign key names over 30 characters long.
- Stop error/warning messages about sysproperties tables when importing SQL Server 2008.
- Support for Geography and Geometry Datatypes for SQL Server 2008.
- Improved debugging/profiling capabilities
- Added debug control window to manage debugging sessions and windows
- Allow greater set of operands when constructing state transition constraints
- Breakpoints now show error messages when failing to bind
- Create data bound breakpoints which activate on changes to data variables
- Enable / Disable diagnostic logging function for debug sessions
- Evaluate global / static variables using the Autos window
- Modified all debugging windows to allow separate docking to create a detailed debugging environment
- More stringent matching of source code to binaries during debugging
- Package scripts for selected class or package can be accessed directly using the Debugger Control Window.
- Record/Create sequence diagrams for the current stack or history
- Diagram Rendering Engine - New and Improved
- Added display of compartments provided by SysML and DDS.
- Added support for setting background colors of non-transparent UI Controls in diagram.
- All new anti-aliased rendering of diagrams
- Configurable with 3 different modes
- Basic : no smoothing
- Enhanced 1 : inbuilt smoothing
- Enhanced 2 : smoothing via GDI+ (Not available under WINE)
- Improved gradient fills of all elements
- Metafile support for anti-aliased drawing (Not available under WINE and only supported by some client applications, such as MS Word)
- Numerous enhancements to metafiles and generalized drawing routines
- Smoothing of all lines and shapes, including shape scripted elements
- General Diagramming Behavior
- All new "Quick" buttons activated when element selected in diagram
- Quick access to formatting commands
- Quick access to common dialogs and commands
- Quick access to Help for the current element
- Quick access to Document generation for packages
- Added new "sweeper" method for moving all elements relative to the mouse position on a diagram.
- To activate press and hold the ALT key, then click the left mouse button and drag
- The initial movement will set the type and direction of the "sweeper" control
- Elements on the active side (or quadrant) of the sweeper will be moved only
- Added a small red italic "A" indicator to diagram elements which have a defined linked document
- Changed from single click to double click for timeline element quickbuttons.
- Ensure packages dropped on a diagram from the project browser are always selectable.
- Improved drawing of bezier curves with offscreen control points
- Modified horizontal swimlanes to have a minimum height.
- Separated a number of options relating to diagram appearance onto a new options page.
- All new "Quick" buttons activated when element selected in diagram
- Discussion Forum Improvements
- Added "Recent Discussion" node to the Model Views window for quick access to discussion topics
- Improved general usability of forum editor
- Modified discussion forum to edit posts inside window instead of new dialog.
- Documentation - HTML and RTF
- Added #CLASSIFIER# to "Object - Body" section of HTML reports.
- Added #STEREOTYPE# to "Link Line Item" section.
- Added a "Model Document" (insert element linked document) field to RTF templates under the "External Requirements" section
- Added Header Row menu item to RTF Document editor.
- Added menu "Update Styles" to Linked document and RTF Template editors - imports default styles from file "normal.rtf"
- Added menu item "Insert->Insert RTF File" to Linked document and RTF Template editors.
- Added new section "Linked Document".
- Common settings are saved when the generate dialog is closed.
- Corrected heading level when generating Model Documents.
- Ensure .rtf extension for all RTF reports.
- Improved documentation on section Tags in HTML reports.
- Improved filtering of elements from search in RTF generation.
- Improved generation of scenarios to legacy RTF generator.
- Improved inserting of OLE objects to allow for a wider range of objects in RTF.
- Improved user experience and general RTF bug fixes
- Internal Requirements are now sorted by name.
- New RTF fields for Author and Language in the Package section.
- Resource based Documents now restore options they're saved with when generating.
- Table headings are now displayed correctly when filtering is used.
- Viewing RTF documents has Header/Footer on by default.
- Improved Element List and Search Results windows
- Drag and drop columns to form instant groupings
- Easier navigation
- Improved performance and loading times
- Improved search view and element list to allow arbitrary grouping
- Improved WINE support
- Improved performance under WINE. Application no longer causes high CPU load while idle.
- Removed separate WINE build, WINE is now automatically detected by normal version.
- Model Views, Searches and Element List
- Added capability for model/search views automatic refreshing and notifying when new items are added.
- See model views folder properties dialog.
- With custom queries and integrated security supports implementation of flexible workflow procedures
- Added hot keys to launch model view as element list (report style list)
- Added option to set double click as "Open Search in Main Window" or "Refresh Folder Contents"
- Custom searches returning ad hoc columns now show a best-fit column width based on column content
- Column layout and grouping is now preserved for all search types between sessions
- Modified the drop list of Searches (eg. in the Manage Searches dialog) to categorize searches by type
- Printing the report view now takes landscape orientation into account
- Search entry on the "Start Page" changed to use Extended, rather than Simple search
- Added capability for model/search views automatic refreshing and notifying when new items are added.
- Modeling Changes
- Added new behavioral modeling property tabs for various behavioral elements.
- Added new type "Packaging Component". This allows for creation of components that can contain packages.
- Added support for activity partitions, and other elements selected by the user to dock to each other.
- Added support for composite interfaces.
- Added support for connectors between attributes and operations. (Link objects then specify the linked features.)
- Added support for Device elements owning ExecutionEnvironment elements.
- Changed display of derived attributes so that the '/' is drawn immediately before the name.
- Changed display of interface elements to not use italic font, in accordance with UML 2.1 specification.
- Extended list of element types for which status colors can be displayed.
- Improved attribute/association end comparison in model validation.
- Improved handling of language-specific visibilities in model validation.
- Improved syntax checking for interrupt flows.
- MDG Technology Enhancements
- Ability to define custom Project Browser icons for stereotypes in a technology.
- Ability to disable the "Basic UML 2 Technology" and to hide EA's built-in toolboxes, diagrams and quicklinks for a fully customizable experience.
- Added support for defining toolbox items for UML Patterns.
- Added support for including Scripts in Technologies
- Added support for specifying default swimlanes and diagram properties for custom diagram types.
- Allow tree-style connectors to be defined in UML Profiles.
- MDG Technology for BPMN upgraded to support BPMN 1.1.
- Printing
- Enable setting margins to diagram print/print preview.
- Improved "scale to 1 page" capability
- Improved handling of page size after changing printer.
- Improved printing of diagram frames.
- Project Security (Corporate Edition and above)
- Added ability to import user ids for security from Windows Active Directory.
- Added check for export permission for Batch XMI Export.
- Rich text based notes
- Notes editor now appears with an isolating grey border and small margin to increase readability
- Applies to all instances of the notes editor
- Docked notes, element properties, diagram properties & etc.
- Rich text notes have also been added to many more fields, including (but not limited to):
- Additional testing fields
- Maintenance fields
- Project management fields
- Shape Scripts
- Added diagram.connectornotation property for connector shape scripts.
- Added shape script attribute dockable.
- Added shape script attribute fixedAspectRatio.
- Added shape script property "diagram.mdgtype" for identifying custom diagrams.
- Slideshow Capability
- For presentations and demonstrations based on model diagrams
- Play a Model View "slideshow" either at a set pace, or manually - slide by slide
- Slideshows play in full-screen mode
- Support for defining a Model View as a "slideshow"
- User Interface
- Added a "Set Font" button on the format toolbar
- Added a menu option to find a CallOperationAction's operation in the project tree.
- Added a menu option to find a Port or Part's classifier in the project tree.
- Added a new button to the UML Elements toolbar - provides a menu driven drop list of all available elements and connectors
- Added Text, Hyperlink, Diagram Legend and Diagram Notes to the Common toolbox.
- Baseline comparison now only shows changed elements by default.
- Code page enumeration errors are no longer reported to the System Output bar.
- Enabled execution of user specified "Tools", when no model is loaded.
- Expand User Interface toolbox to include all UI control subtypes.
- Extended search term string entry capacity.
- Fixed display of tagged values in element compartments on diagrams under MySQL (applies to very long values only))
- Improved behavior of relationship matrix when using settings based on a profile.
- Improved handling of cursor when showing context menu for diagram.
- Improved handling of regional formatting in the Time Allocated field of the Docked Resources Window.
- Improved keyboard navigation around the CSV Specification dialog.
- Improved list of code languages available to import when languages in database are disabled.
- Improved Project Browser multiselect under Vista
- Modified hyperlink properties dialog to allow selection of the different types of hyperlinks that are available.
- Modified options dialog to show the help for the currently open page
- Modified Project Transfer dialog to allow reading full values of source and target project fields.
- Modified use case resize to provide visual feedback of the actual size.
- Option "No warning for spaces in class names" extended to attribute and operation names.
- Prevent "Drop as Port or Part" dialog from popping up when dropping a class onto a partition.
- Removed display of database version in connection name and type dialog.
- Version Control
- Fixed issue where importing operation tags whose value contained more than 255 characters caused database errors during an XMI 2.1 import.
- Improved listing of sub-folder content using Get Package function with Perforce.
- Improved 'undo check-out' of TFS controlled packages, following offline check-out.
- Improved version control functionality for packages with version control configurations that are undefined.
- Modified version control to honor last-known package statuses, when EA cannot communicate with version control provider.
- Visual Execution Analyzer
- Addressed infrequent issue of activation levels being drawn incorrectly in generated sequence diagrams
- Debugging of Microsoft .NET managed C++ projects had issue with losss of stack frames and missing class names which has been resolved.
- Failures attaching to processes under Windows Vista have been addressed.
- XSD & XMI import/export
- Added support for importing UseCase "include" and "extend" connectors from StarUML exported XMI.
- Added support for importing a top-level element, that does not have a "type" attribute or inline definition, as an XSDtopLevelElement.
- Corrected export of Interaction Fragment type to XMI 2.1.
- Corrected export of parent package GUIDs to XMI 1.1.
- Fixed issue where label co-ordinates may not be round-tripped correctly using XMI.
- Fixed issue where modelGroup was sometimes generated after XSDattributes in an XSDcomplexType class.
- Fixed issue where namespace-prefixes were incorrectly generated in XML Schema.
- Improved export of ActivityPartitions and its contents to XMI 2.1.
- Improved import of notes on elements when importing from Rose exported XMI 1.1 and EMX file.