Manage Visible Relations: help section
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 achieve the expected result.
eaUtils provides an enhanced version of EA built-in 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 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 aggregation.
Using EA menu (Layout > Appearance > Set Visible Relationships) or Ctrl + Shift + I keyboard shortcut opens the following popup:
Hiding all the "mapping" stereotyped dependencies is not straightforward as the stereotype information is not available. Also, 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 to hide the connector (see below). EA Set Visible Relations is useful to undo this action by reviewing the 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.
The red marker is visible after each connector visibility to be modified.
After the update, the modified connectors are identified with a green marker and the new visibility:
Result:
Opening the view again, selecting a connector shows its details at the top of the screen (GUID + ID + Direction).
Example with an ArchiMate view (Enterprise Architecture model)
Below is a view from my Prolaborate ArchiMate demonstration involving business, application and technical elements.
ArchiMate involves stereotyped connectors based on 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:
