Posts

Navigate from and to Composite Diagrams with EA Navigator

With EA Navigator version 2.4.12.0 you can now navigate from and to composite diagrams of an element.

Recently I’ve been working a lot with BPMN models. BPMN models make extensive use of the composite diagram mechanism in EA to drill-down on the processes and sub-processes.

In a classical UML model we usually place the composite diagram under the element, in which case finding the composite diagram, or finding the element(s) that have a diagram as composite diagram, is trivial. They are at the same location in the project browser.… Read more

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How to use the Enterprise Architect Add-in Framework

Since I started writing the EA Navigator and other tools the code has been open source and available on Github. The code is split up in a tool-specific part for the EA Navigator and some other tools, and a framework that can be used to build your own tool.

 Downloading

The code for the framework and the tools is published on GitHub, a version control repository “in the cloud”, which is free for public repositories. The easiest way to download the code is to install GitHub for Windows.… Read more

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EA Navigator 2.4 released

The main new feature of the version 2.4 of the EA Navigator is the Quicksearch. The Quicksearch feature is undoubtedly the fastest way to find anything in a (large) EA model. It is the type of feature which makes you wonder how you could live without it all that time before.

Developing the Quicksearch function was far from easy. I wanted something that resembles what Google does when you start typing, and I started things with a standard Windows Forms ComboBox.… Read more

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EA Navigator 2.3 released

The focus of version 2.3 of the EA Navigator is usability.

As a user myself I’m in a good position to evaluate the user-experience of the tool, and I felt the EA Navigator was coming short on that aspect. So I decided to do something about that.

One of the most important improvements, and also the most difficult one, is the switch to background processing.

With all the new features in the latest version I (and other users too) noticed that the EA Navigator was seriously slowing down EA itself.… Read more

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EA Navigator 2.2 released

Since the release of version 2.1 the EA Navigator has been quite stable. Not much need for major improvements or bugfixes.

So version 2.2 has been about little changes and updates.

The most remarkable new feature is the new context menu with the ability to open the properties dialog of an element. Not remarkable because of the feature itself, but because of the loops and holes I had to jump through to get that part working. Opening the properties dialog is not really a supported API function of EA, so I had to resort to using an undocumented CustomCommand function to hack my way into it.… Read more

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EA Navigator is now an official Sparx Systems 3rd party add-in

I’m proud to announce that the EA Navigator has made the “official” Sparx Systems 3rd party add-in list.

Sparx Systems doesn’t just publish any add-in for Enterprise Architect. Each add-in on the list has been demonstrated to the the people of Sparx, and only if they approve it it will be added to the list.

So a couple of week ago I had an appointment to do a web conference with Sparx to do a little demo of my add-in.… Read more

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EA Navigator 2.1 released

With the current release 2.1 the EA Navigator has now matured into a real product that will make the life of any Enterprise Architect user a lot easier.
I can know, as it’s primary user I use it constantly during my daily modelling tasks, and I can assure you that it has already saved me heaps of time.

And because any real product should have a logo, so I proudly present to you: The EA navigator logo.

After the complete re-factoring  of version 2.0 version 2.1 has been more about polishing and refining.… Read more

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EA Navigator 2.0 released

Attention! A more recent version of the EA Navigator is currently available.
See EA Navigator Downloads

I’ve just released the first “major” upgrade to the EA Navigator add in.

In this release no additional features have been added, the only thing that was changed is that the EA Navigator will now use a docked window in EA to navigate between the different elements.

Now instead of having to right-click and choose an option from the Extensions|Navigate context menu, the Navigator window will immediately show the options for the currently selected element.… Read more

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Select a model element from its node path (FQN) with EA Navigator 1.3

Attention! A more recent version of the EA Navigator is currently available.
See EA Navigator Downloads

Enterprise Architect has the nice feature that you can copy the node path of almost everything in the model to your clipboard.

For this example that would copy the string Model.Package2.Class1.testAttribute to the clipboard.
I use this feature a lot in say analysis documents, emails to other EA users etc… and for a model as small is this, the other user can easily identify the element I’m referring too.… Read more

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New: Navigate to operations Implementation with EA Navigator 1.2

Attention! A more recent version of the EA Navigator is currently available.
See EA Navigator Downloads

A new feature has been added to the EA Navigator to navigate from an Operation to the Behavior set as its Method.
In my previous post UML Best Practice: One Operation = One Sequence diagram I explained how to set a behavior as the implementation of an operation in Enterprise Architect.

This feature is also available from Message context menu

Selecting the Implementation option will find the Behavior (Interaction, Activity or StateMachine) element that has been set as the Behavior of the operation

and select that element in the project browser.… Read more

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EA Mapping

EA Mapping is an add-in for Enterprise Architect that allows you to map data models of all kinds to each other.

You can either map regular data models, or message models. The main difference between the two is that message models always start from a root element, whereas regular data models start from a package.The mappings can be made between Classes, Attributes and Associations, and allows for many-to-many mappings. For each mapping you can add a description of the mapping logic to be applied.… Read more

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EA Message Composer

The EA Message Composer is a schema composer add-in for Enterprise Architect.

The add-in extends the new Schema Composer feature that was added in Enterprise Architect v12, but it needs v 12.1.1226 or higher to function correctly.

The Schema Composer feature allows to cherry pick elements, attributes and relations from a source model, often the common, or canonical model.

With the EA Message Composer you can then create a subset model that is a copy of all elements, attributes and associations selected in the Schema Composer.… Read more

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EA-Matic

EA-Matic is an add-in for Sparx Enterprise Architect that enables rapid EA add-in development. It uses the built-in scripting features of EA to relieve you of developing, building and deploying full-blown EA add-ins.

Aimed at corporate environments it greatly reduces the time to introduce new functionality.

With EA-Matic you can develop your EA add-in using nothing but EA, and deploy changes instantly to all model users.

The possibilities are endless. You can validate your own modelling rules, keep your model consistent by preventing the deletion of elements that are still used, add your own context menus, or make self-maintaining diagrams.… Read more

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