SIG Update 202008

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Previously published on 02/08/2020 for the Model Based Engineering SIG Meetup group

Hi All,

Welcome to the monthly newsletter for August 2020.  In this update we'll cover the following.
  • Meetup Planning
  • Sparx Systems Updates
  • Cloudy Models Post Summary
  • Feature Highlight - Connectors To Connectors
Meetup Planning
Our next meetup will be on the 5th of August at 6:30pm.  We will look to have the meetup done over Jitsi - To join us you can click on the following link on the day.

struck from the record

Sparx Systems Updates
A reminder that the beta of Enterprise Architect 15.2 is out, and the beta of Pro Cloud Server 4.2 is out.  Users are encouraged to download and start testing.  There's a YouTube video from Tom O'Reilly providing an overview of what is in the release.

Upcoming Webinars:
New Videos:
Feature Highlight - Connectors To Connectors
Creating connectors (or relationships) between elements is probably the most common thing to do in EA.  There are however cases when we want to draw a connector from an element to a connector, or from one connector to another connector.

There is a standard UML construct called an "association class", which is supported by EA.  With an association class, a class is added to an association connector.  This fits the bill in some cases, however the semantics around the use of association classes are rigorous.  If you want to do something a bit different, for example use a different type of connector, then you can't use an association class.

Something that I often want to do, although not strictly speaking correct UML is to illustrate an information flow between components, and display the information item being conveyed associated with the information flow connector.  The EA standard way of doing this is to display the name of the information item conveyed by the information flow connector on a label for the connector.  To get a more explicit visual representation, you can however do the following.


As you can see the label "Class1" is shown on the connector to indicate that the information flow conveys the Class1 information item.  However, in the above diagram I have drawn an association connector between Class1 and the information flow connector between Component1 and Component2.

You don't do anything different for these types of connectors, they are created in exactly the same way as the element to element connectors.  Below is a diagram illustrating a complete set of variations.


I'm not entirely sure how practically useful all this is, but it's just something that I'm pretty sure I've looked for in the past and either wasn't available in earlier versions or maybe I just couldn't find it at the time.  Anyway, I thought it was pretty interesting and worth sharing.

Thanks
Vince

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