Active URL on Archi Diagram?

[Stanley]

Hi

Is there a way to have an active URL in any kind of Archi Diagram, so that, whenever we click on it, opens up an URL?

Best regards,

[Phil Beauvoir]

Not on the diagram. In the Documentation field and User Properties table, yes.

Not sure if Herve's Specialization plug-in does this...

[Stanley]

Thanks for your usual prompt answer!

Haven´t seen the Specialization plug-in since is not listed on https://www.archimatetool.com/plugins/

Best regards,

[Phil Beauvoir]

Herve's plugin is here https://github.com/archi-contribs/specialization-plugin

I don't think it does what you want to do...just checking myself...

[Manj75]

I think it would be a great feature to have the ability to specify external links on the Views.  This could work similar to how Views can be dragged into another views such that double clicking the box would transition to that view.

I would suggest a new element called 'Link', or other suitable name, that sits in the Palette in the non-ArchiMate elements a long with Note, Visual Group, Connection to Notes.  This element creates a simple box that will comprise of text that can be associated to an external URL reference and similar to View transition boxes, double-clicking will transition to the given URL.

The text in the box could work similar to MS Office application when Ctrl-K insert link have a display text and associated URL where the default display name would be the URL text itself.

Would this be a feature that others would want - It is certainly beneficial in a HTML report that is published to wider community as external links could be used to direct to wiki pages, project management tools, Azure DevOps etc.

[Phil Beauvoir]

Don't you think that an ArchiMate diagram should be just that? Wouldn't this clutter it up? Isn't it better to have links and other stuff in User Properties and Documentation fields?

[Hervé]

Hi Stanley,

No, my specialization plugin does not allow to have active URLs on Archi diagrams, but I believe it would not be very difficult to implement it. I'll add it to my TO-DO list 

Here is the list of the plugins I developed and that you may be interested in. They are not referenced on Archi's web site for the reason that they're not developed by the Archi team and that they do not offer any support on them.

• Database plugin: Allows to version all Archimate components and centralize them into a central SQL database (MySQL, PostGreSQL, SQL Server, Oracle or SQLite), or export models to a graph database (Neo4J) for analysis purpose. Besides, it also allows to share components between models and merge models. (https://github.com/archi-contribs/database-plugin/tree/master/v2)

• Specialization plugin: Allows to replace labels and icons in diagrams. It also implement drill-down on diagrams (open-up a view when one clicks on an element). That is in this plugin that I will add the active URL support. (https://github.com/archi-contribs/specialization-plugin)

• Form plugin: Allows to create and display forms to facilitate the display or update of components' properties. (https://github.com/archi-contribs/form-plugin)

• ServiceNow plugin: Allows to import ServiceNow CIs to an Archi model. (https://github.com/archi-contribs/snow-import-plugin)

Hope this helps

Best regards
Hervé

[Manj75]

Hi Phil,

I don't believe it will clutter it as it would be the responsibility of the author Architect to produce a sound ArchiMate viewpoint design supplemented with none ArchiMate elements.  Archi already supports non-ArchiMate elements that can be added to the View so you could apply your same question there too but it is supported.  My suggestion is to further enrich it.

The benefit is that it is all on the diagram and can also be in the documentation and/or properties, but when exporting as a live HTML dashboard or in future if Markdown is supported it can be added to Wiki pages as a live read-only published model for the organisation to consume.

Also, it is great that a number of plugins support certain functionality but I think some of these need to be core to Archi tool.

Kind Regards,
Manjit

[rchevallier]

IMHO, having active (external) links can be very useful.

However instead of a specific element, just having the currently url text, already recognized in the content property,  also active in a Note object in a diagram shall be enough.

[Stanley]

Hi Hervé

Thanks for your kind answer which give me hope on the coming version and clarifies on plug-ins!

Best regards,

Hi Stanley,

No, my specialization plugin does not allow to have active URLs on Archi diagrams, but I believe it would not be very difficult to implement it. I'll add it to my TO-DO list 

Here is the list of the plugins I developed and that you may be interested in. They are not referenced on Archi's web site for the reason that they're not developed by the Archi team and that they do not offer any support on them.

• Database plugin: Allows to version all Archimate components and centralize them into a central SQL database (MySQL, PostGreSQL, SQL Server, Oracle or SQLite), or export models to a graph database (Neo4J) for analysis purpose. Besides, it also allows to share components between models and merge models. (https://github.com/archi-contribs/database-plugin/tree/master/v2)

• Specialization plugin: Allows to replace labels and icons in diagrams. It also implement drill-down on diagrams (open-up a view when one clicks on an element). That is in this plugin that I will add the active URL support. (https://github.com/archi-contribs/specialization-plugin)

• Form plugin: Allows to create and display forms to facilitate the display or update of components' properties. (https://github.com/archi-contribs/form-plugin)

• ServiceNow plugin: Allows to import ServiceNow CIs to an Archi model. (https://github.com/archi-contribs/snow-import-plugin)

Hope this helps

Best regards
Hervé

[Alberto]

I didn't get much sleep last night so I just had what I can best describe as a brain fart...   support for Enriched Text in the Archimate exchange file spec.  Can that be even a thing? 

Or how about parsing for http within the Notes elements?

[Phil Beauvoir]

> support for Enriched Text in the Archimate exchange file spec.  Can that be even a thing?

It can be a thing if that's what a tool wants to export in the file. For example, the <documentation> tag could contain anything - plain text, markup, even html (enclosed in CDATA), and even multiple multi-language strings. But whether the tool that imports the file can do anything with that text is another matter.

> Or how about parsing for http within the Notes elements?

Something like this may seem to be simple but it's not. The Documentation field uses an Eclipse component called StyledText that can show colors, underlines, bold, etc. The Eclipse (Draw2d) component in the Note element does not support this, so something else would have to be used and then the text parsed. So, not so simple (or, in some cases, possible)

[Stanley]

Just wondering if an active URL implementation will still fufill the Open Exchange Format spec?