Recent Posts

1

Bugs and Issues / Re: MACBOOK/Catalina EA install problem... MSI download file

« Last post by Stephan Amsbary on Today at 07:13:02 am »

Thanks for all the info.

I elected to purchase CrossOver, the install went well, except I unknowingly used the existing Enterprise Architect 15.x loader, it worked, but installed a trial copy of EA (I own a Professional. copy of 15.1). It successfully opened a Windows EAPx file I previously created (I used to have a Windows system).

I sent Sparx support an email asking how to re-target the EA used to mine and not a trial copy,. They sent instructions to uninstall, then re-install EA. I did that and when I re-opened EA, it was using my copy, but, ... JET4 wasn't enabled, I enabled it, restarted EA, and it blew-up with an error message: "Fatal Error Initializing DAO Library...".

I send SPARX support an email a few days ago, and haven't heard back from them. So, today, I removed all traces of CrossOver, and searched for any traces of SPARX files, or Crossover. I then re-downloaded CrossOver, used the Undefined Enterprise Archietcture 15.1 box, gave it my downloaded SPARX MSI file and ran it... the result failed (with another "Fatal Error Initializing DAO Library..." error message).

This afternoon I sent SPARX Support yet another email, I'm getting really frustrated, can anyone out there help me?

Thanks in advance,

Stephan Amsbary
Consulting Enterprise Architect
GridOptimize

e: stephan.amsbary@gmail.com, or stephan.amsbary@gridoptimize.com
p: +21-828-449-1110

2

General Board / Re: Firebird or SQL Server

« Last post by Sunshine on Today at 05:40:30 am »

SQL Server has been supported by Sparx EA for eons and I've found it to be fast and reliable. That would be my choice.

Firebird is relatively new in that its only been supported by Sparx EA the last couple of years. Its used for the cloud offering. Seems okay when I've used it for local file but I've experienced the odd issue with importing and exporting.

Stay away from Oracle though it performs really badly with Sparx EA.

3

General Board / Firebird or SQL Server

« Last post by donw on Today at 05:04:02 am »

My apologizes if this has been asked before, however couldn't find when searching.

In a multi-user environment is it better to use Firebird or SQL Server?

Thanks
Don

4

General Board / Re: Surpress Stereotype in view

« Last post by peto on Today at 12:45:14 am »

At the diagram properties you can suppress all stereotypes for elements. Have you tried that?

Geert

Once again Geert to the rescue :-) thanks. Did only look at the properties window that are displayed uppon selection and not the full property dialog (note to self - remember to do that).

5

Bugs and Issues / Link to Element Feature dialog content: what a mess

« Last post by Uffe on Today at 12:38:39 am »

Hi all,


Just had a quick look through what the Link to Element Feature dialog actually displays. It doesn't make a lot of sense.

There's a dropdown labelled "Feature Type" which allows you to select one of Attribute, Operation, Change, Defect, Issue, Task or Test (also None).
Then there's a table labelled "Feature" with two columns headed Feature and Description. This table is auto-populated with the available features of the selected type, so you can select one of them for the connector to be linked to (after you OK out of the dialog).

The Feature column of the Feature table shows the names of the respective features, but the Description doesn't show their descriptions. Instead, here's what is shown for each feature category.
Attribute    Attribute type
Operation    Operation return type
Change       "Change"
Defect       "Defect"
Issue        "Issue"
Task         "Task"
Test         Test class (eg "Unit"), except for Inspection tests where the name of the test is shown in both columns.

Change, Defect, Issue and Task are all types of maintenance item. No explanation why the other two, Feature (yes, again) and Document, didn't make the cut but that aside, the column obviously shows this property.

So clearly the Description column actually contains a type. Either it should be labelled as such, or (more helpful) it should show the corresponding attribute/operation/test/maintenance item description. They all have them. Furthermore, in the case of the maintenance items what's shown is completely redundant since the type of maintenance item is shown in the Feature Type dropdown just above.

But wait! There's more!

If you compare what's shown in the feature selection dialog with how the corresponding data is presented in a diagram, it makes more sense. Or even less.

Attributes and operations are shown with their types (by default). Maintenance items and tests, however, are shown with their status (default New and Not Run, respectively). If the logic is to show in the selection dialog what you can see in the diagram, then it should be type for attributes and operations, and status for maintenance items and tests. In this case, the column header should then be updated when the Feature Type selection is changed (which updates the table content).

So. Either the Description column should show descriptions, or the column should be changed to show the type or status, as appropriate, and the header should update to reflect this.

Yes?

Also, if you link a connector to a test or maintenance item A you can't then change the link to point to another test or maintenance item B, without first deleting A from the element. So in addition to not working very well, it's broken too.


/Uffe

6

General Board / Re: Looking for a right way to document data transformations

« Last post by Uffe on May 26, 2020, 11:35:53 pm »

Yes, the Link to Element Feature thing is a fringe function that isn't fully supported in things like document generation. So if generating documents is a prime concern, you do need to take that into account.

You will need to use template fragments to pull the data out, and the storage format isn't documented. Basically the connector holds references to the features it's connected to (1 or 2) in the StyleEx property / column, where the feature(s) are referenced using their GUIDs.

I'm sure the precise details are in some post somewhere. It's been discussed in this forum several times over the years.

/Uffe

7

General Board / Re: Surpress Stereotype in view

« Last post by Geert Bellekens on May 26, 2020, 10:57:48 pm »

At the diagram properties you can suppress all stereotypes for elements. Have you tried that?

Geert

8

General Board / Surpress Stereotype in view

« Last post by peto on May 26, 2020, 10:46:10 pm »

Working on a view where I would for the ease of non enlighted use the Appearance -> Enable Custom Draw Style to convert all visual into squared boxes. This works, it's just that the visual conversion resulted in adding the stereotype as a text to the visual. Is there a way that I can instruct the view to prevent this stereotype from being displayed?

I'm using ArchiMate visuals and the view have been defined as a Motivation viewtype.
Using EA 15.1.

9

General Board / Re: Looking for a right way to document data transformations

« Last post by Geert Bellekens on May 26, 2020, 10:33:04 pm »

Geert, Uffe - thank you very much for your responses.  I like Link to Element mentioned by Uffe, but it will mean upgrading to 15 which might take us a while.  But it is certainly appreciated, and I hope that it is not just visual, but also reflected in traceability.  Geert - I will check you add-in as well.

Many thanks to you both.

Marcin

The problem with the "link to element feature" thing is that this is represented as a link between elements. It's only in some obscure database fields that the actual features are referenced. This makes it difficult to see and use those links.
You can do them on a diagram since v12 I think. It's only in v15 that you can also do them in a matrix format, which is a major improvement.

But it will still be hard to use in document generation or searches.

Geert

10

General Board / Re: Looking for a right way to document data transformations

« Last post by MarcinG on May 26, 2020, 09:43:03 pm »

Geert, Uffe - thank you very much for your responses.  I like Link to Element mentioned by Uffe, but it will mean upgrading to 15 which might take us a while.  But it is certainly appreciated, and I hope that it is not just visual, but also reflected in traceability.  Geert - I will check you add-in as well.

Many thanks to you both.

Marcin