Posts

Configure your own default line styles in Enterprise Architect with EA-Matic

With EA-Matic you can develop add-ins for Enterprise Architect using the built-in scripting feature of EA.

With this EA-Matic script you can configure your own default line-styles depending on the type of connector.

In Enterprise Architect you can choose from no less then 9 different line style for the connectors.

Line Styles

Unfortunately you can only choose from the first three to be the default line style for new connectors.

line style default options

Additionally you can also specify the default for Generalization to be Tree Style.… Read more

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Hierarchical usage search in Enterprise Architect with SQL

How can I find out where an element or one of its specialized elements is used on a diagram in Enteprise Architect?

With this SQL search you can answer that question immediately and in a useful way.

Hierarchical usage search regults

Free download

 The model

Suppose we have modeled an inheritance hierarchy of animals as such

Animals Hierarchy

And our animals are being used as the classifier of Activity partitions in various Activity diagrams

Activity2

Activity1

And on the occasional Sequence diagram

Interaction1

Even with a simple example like this one it is not trivial to find all diagrams that use a rodent, or a bird.… Read more

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Instant impact analyses in Enterprise Architect with SQL searches

One of the major benefits of using a tool such as Enterprise Architect is that you create traceability. You store the relations between different model elements in your model.

The tricky part is to effectively use that traceability for your impact analyses. Following these instructions you can create SQL Searches in EA that instantly show the impact a certain element has on the rest of the model and present them in a clear and useful way.

Traceability_results_final

The meta model

In order to do impact analysis you have to know, and preferable document, your meta model.… Read more

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Automatically synchronize overrides in Enterprise Architect with EA-Matic

With EA-Matic you can develop add-ins for Enterprise Architect using the built-in scripting feature of EA.

This example EA-Matic script keeps the signature of the overriding operations in sync with the signature of the overridden operation.

This is especially useful when you are modelling an interface and a number of classes that realize this interface. EA has this neat feature Overrides and Implementations accessed by Ctrl-Shift-O to copy operations from an interface or superclass to the realizing/specializing class.

EA-Matic Overides and Implmentations

This works great when you have created a new operation, or added a new realizing class, but once you change the signature of your interface operation you are on your own.… Read more

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Synchronize object and classifier name in Enterprise Architect with EA-Matic

With EA-Matic you can develop add-ins for Enterprise Architect using the built-in scripting feature of EA.

This example EA-Matic script keeps the names of objects synchronized with the name of their classifier.

When modelling with objects the name of the object is often left empty because it doesn’t have any significance at that point. One of the downsides of this practice is that in things like the traceability view, or in the links view the object shows up without a name, which of course doesn’t help much.… Read more

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Self-maintaining diagrams in Enterprise Architect with EA-Matic

With EA-Matic you can develop add-ins for Enterprise Architect using the built-in scripting feature of EA.

This example shows how to make diagrams that maintain themselves to make sure they are always up-to-date.

The idea is that we want a diagram that shows all the relations of the owning object. The diagram should always be up-to-date without manual intervention.

EA-Matic auto_diagram

To indicate that this diagram is an automatic diagram we nest it under the class and prefix it with AUTO_ and on the diagram we place the owning object and its related elements

EA-Matic self-maintaining diagram

Usage of Enterprise Architect Add-in Framework

This script also illustrates how you can use the Enterprise Architect Add-in Framework within your script.… Read more

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Prevent accidental deletes with EA-Matic

With EA-Matic you can develop add-ins for Enterprise Architect using the built-in scripting feature of EA.

This example shows how you can prevent deleting elements that are still being used as a type in either an attribute or parameter.

The script uses the EA_OnPreDeleteElement event to first check whether the element is not still used.

If an attribute using this element as type is found then the element is not deleted and the user is informed with a messagebox.

EA-Matic cannot delete attribute

If it isn’t used as attribute but is used as a type in a parameter or the return type of an operation you get the following messagebox:

EA-Matic cannot delete parameter

Usage of Enterprise Architect Add-in Framework

This script also illustrates how you can use the Enterprise Architect Add-in Framework within your script.… Read more

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Using the add-in menu with EA-Matic

With EA-Matic you can develop add-ins for Enterprise Architect using the built-in scripting feature of EA.

This example shows how to use the add-in menu to add your own menu and menu option, and react to the user clicking such a menu option.

With this script you can use menu options as a regular add-in would

EA-Matic Menu in Action

Download the complete script: EA-Matic MenuHandling

Step 1: defining the menu

Step 2: define the menu state

Step 3: React to user clicking a menu option

… Read more
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