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User Preferences

Enterprise Architect has a wide range of default settings for controlling how the application acts on and presents model structures and elements on your workstation. You can customize these settings to define your preferred behavior of the system. Most of the settings are stored in your registry and they are set for your use only, on any model you open. For a networked workplace, registry settings can be copied down to any network workstation you log in to. Otherwise, the settings control operations under your login on the current machine only.

The settings are grouped according to their actions on specific functional areas, on a number of pages of the 'Preferences' dialog.

Access

Ribbon

Start > Appearance > Preferences > Preferences

Keyboard Shortcuts

Ctrl+F9

Option Groups

Group/Page

Action

See also

General Options

Control the behavior of the system as a whole.

You can also define model-specific options (such as the default directory name for the shared files you define for an element) using the 'Manage Model Options' dialog.

General Options Model-Specific Options

Window Behavior

Set local options that determine how dockable windows display in your system.

Window Behavior

Diagram (New Diagram Defaults)

Set the general properties of all diagrams you create.

Diagram Options

Diagram - Themes

Create and apply display themes for all diagrams that you open.

Diagram Theme Options

Diagram - Gradients and Backgrounds

Select the type of background to apply to all diagrams, either a single color or a tile image, and the fill color to apply to all elements on the diagrams. You can also set a color gradient to the diagram background, the element fill, or both.

Diagram Gradients and Background

Diagram - Standard Colors

Set the display colors and background colors of objects and properties in diagrams across the system.

Standard Colors

Diagram - Appearance

Control how elements are displayed on a diagram.

Diagram Appearance Options

Diagram - Behavior

Control how a diagram responds to actions taken on it.

Diagram Behavior Options

Diagram - Sequence (diagram display)

Control the appearance and behavior of Sequence diagrams specifically.

Sequence Diagram Options

Objects (display)

Configure the properties and behaviors of elements created on your diagrams.

Object Display Options

Links (Connector display)

Define the creation, behavior and notation of connectors on your diagrams.

Connector Display Options

Communication Colors (of Communication Messages)

Set the colors of Messages you create in Communication diagrams.

Communication Message Colors

XML Specifications

Configure the settings for working with XML.

XML Specifications

Source Code Engineering

Set general user-specific options that apply to all languages when you are generating code from models

You can also define model-specific options (such as the default language in which to generate code) using the 'Manage Model Options' dialog.

Source Code Options Code Generation Options

Code Editors

Configure options for the system internal editor, and for the default editor for DDL scripts.

Options - Code Editors

Attribute/Operations

Set the system actions on attributes and operations.

Options - Attribute/Operations

Code language specifications

Define how the system handles a particular language when generating code, setting user-specific variables such as the default source directory.

You can also define model-specific options (such as the default file extensions to apply when generating code in the selected language) using the 'Manage Model Options' dialog.

Language Options