Manage Visible Relations: help section (eaUtils v1)
Set Visible Relations is a useful diagram feature in Enterprise Architect to set/unset visible links. When a diagram contains many relations of different type and/or stereotype, it can take some time to obtain the expected result.
eaUtils provides an enhanced version of this feature by organizing the relations by type and stereotype, e.g. to hide all dependencies.
Manage visible relations on a diagram in Enterprise Architect with eaUtils v1 addin
This article illustrates this feature with a UML class diagram and an Archimate view.
Example with a Data Model (UML class diagram)
The class diagram below is a data model with different types of relations: stereotyped dependencies, associations, a composition, and an agregation.
Using EA menu (Layout > Appearance > Set Visible Relationships with EA 15.2) or Ctrl + Shift + I keyboard shortcut opens the following popup:
Hiding all the "mapping" stereotyped dependencies is not straightforward as the stereotype is not shown. Furthermore there isn't any easy way to hide all dependencies in a single or few clicks.
Note: relations can also be hidden from the diagram by using the Delete (Suppr in French) key from a connector and select hide the connector (see below). As regards, EA Set Visible Relations is useful to undo this action by reviewing hidden connectors.
To use eaUtils, right click in the diagram and select [Diagram] Manage Visible Relations from eaUtils menu. Alternatively use the Alt + V keyboard shortcut (eaUtils keyboard shortcuts help section).
Tree structure content:
- Root node: type and name of the diagram.
- Level 1: each connector type e.g. association, aggregation, dependency, etc.
- Level 2: each connector stereotype.
- Level 3: each source element name.
- Level 4: each connector with the current visibility (enabled: visible, disabled: hidden).
- The type and name are given for the source and target element. When the Link to Element Feature is enabled on the connector, the attribute name is also available.
Options:
- Show Package: when enabled, the package name is displayed against the source and target elements e.g. [pkg1]::Class::Class1
- Show Alias: when enabled, the alias name is displayed after the source and target element name e.g. Class::Class1 (alias)
In the example below, the "Test" stereotyped associations and all dependencies have been disabled to hide them from the diagram.
Confirming with OK leads to the following result:
Opening the view again, selecting a connector shows its details at the bottom of the screen (GUID + ID + Direction).
When the connector is visible in the active diagram, a button makes it possible to select this connector in the diagram. Note: EA API doesn't let eaUtils change the focus to the selected connector so whilst it is selected, it may not be visible on the screen.
Example with an Archimate view (Enterprise Architecture model)
Below is a view from my Prolaborate Archimate demonstration involving business, application and technical elements.
Archimate uses stereotyped connectors as per Enterprise Architect built-in profile, hence running eaUtils Manage Visible Relations (Alt + V or via a right click on the diagram to show eaUtils menu) leads to the following.
Below is a selection of links to hide i.e. all assignment, serving, association connectors and one triggering link.
Result:
Manage visible relations is available from eaUtils version 1.19 (and above).