Printing a summary of ‘Child’ packages

[Patrick Radomski]

Hi everyone.

Forgive me if this is put in the wrong place.

A bit of background;

My model has a package with child packages under it. Inside those child packages are use cases. It looks a little like this:

• Big package

[eadocX Support]

2 possibilities:
1 – give each of your Child packages a stereotype, then create an Element Report listing them, with a simple list of their children
2 – create a differernt kind of Word table-of-contents?

not tried either of these myself, but it might work

[Patrick Radomski]

For tip 1 – there are 30 or so ‘big packages’ in the model, but each document is per each big package, so using this method I would need a different stereotype for each big package. Then for each analyst that is generating for their ‘big package’ they would need to re-configure the element report so that it picks up their packages not someone else’s. I would prefer not to go down this route.

Tip 2 – I don’t understand how a table of contents will help me create a table of names and notes.

Is there any reason why it won’t list child packages like this? It has no problem listing other child elements (use cases, objects, requirements) in exactly the same way (a simple table with the name and the description).

[eadocX Support]

OK – I’m clear now that I’m not clear about what you need 🙂

Perhaps you could attach a fragment of you model (screenshot will be fine) and a little example of what you’d like eaDocX to generate for you. Then I’ll hve a look. Doesn’t sound too impossible.

[Patrick Radomski]

In the attached image, you’ll see the structure of the EA model.

Each document is generated at the ‘Big package’ Level.

Each document structure should be:

Big package heading / description etc
Big package Actors diagram
Table of actors in the diagram (they are from another package)
Big package survey diagram (which is just a diagram with all the child packages in it).

Table of all the packages in the survey diagram (or all the child packages under the ‘big package’. This table is just ‘Name’ and ‘Description’.

Then the rest of the document is a heading of each ‘child package’, the diagram under each one, and a table of all the use cases under each package.

I can get EA docX to do everything EXCEPT for a the table of all the packages in the survey diagram (child packages). It refuses to do this regardless of what I do.

• This reply was modified 12 years, 1 month ago by Patrick Radomski.

[eadocX Support]

Ok – I think I’ve got it.
Short answer is – you can’t.
The most fundamental idea of eaDocX is that you define how a ‘thing’ gets printed, then wherever that ‘thing’ appears, it gets printed in the same way.
What I think you’re asking for is for, in one part of the document, Package things to print in a table, then later in the same section, for them to print Inline, with ll their children & child diagrams.
The only exception to this rule is for Element Reports, where we allow the formatting of the results to be different. This could give yo a bit of what you want – a list of the Child packages – but in a separate section.

We’ve had a long discussion about this, and decided that what you’re asking for is so different from the way that eaDocX works, at the very lowest level, that we can’t fix this for you.

[Patrick Radomski]

I understand. Can’t go breaking the system for an edge case. I would recommend some sort of feedback when the user tries to get the system to do something like this (maybe an entry in the generation log – or a ‘completed but with errors’ message). It was very frustrating trying to figure out if it was against the principles of the system or if I just didn’t have the relationship and stereotype entered correctly.

Unfortunately my client doesn’t care if the software can’t do it (especially when standard EA templates can) – the table needs to be there. So, for those playing along at home, I have created another EADocX template and profile to just create the table and will then get the analysts to copy and paste this into the other generated document.

[Patrick Radomski]

Wait, no, I lied.

Even in a different template it appears to be impossible to get the software to give me a simple table of packages.

The analysts will manually write the tables.

[eadocX Support]

The Brains Trust have met again, as you used the magic words ‘manually write’, which always encourages us to think harder: we don’t like ‘manual’:-)

How about:
1 – create a H1 heading in your document
2 – Add an Element Report, H2, listing the Child packages and their descriptions
I’ve tried this, and in my version (eaDocX 2.2) it does work
3 – Add the main section describing the Parent package, children, use cases etc, also has a H2.

OR
When you print your package diagram which has the child packages, make it show the contents of the packages (which you probably already do) AND tell the diagram to print the Notes field of the Packages. Then you’ll have all the info you need, albeit on a diagram rather than on a table.

[Author]

Posts