Archi 3.0 Early Access Preview

Started by Phil Beauvoir, August 18, 2014, 11:35:31 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Phil Beauvoir

Archi 3.0 Early Access Preview is now available here:

http://www.archimatetool.com/dev/beta

Archi 3.0 is built on Eclipse 4.4. This may bring some problems that need to be addressed, because Eclipse 4.4 tries to bridge the old compatibility code from Eclipse 3.x to Eclipse 4.

Please report any issues here.

Regards,

Phil
If you value and use Archi, please consider making a donation!
Ask your ArchiMate related questions to the ArchiMate Community's Discussion Board.

arnedh

Great work on the 3.0!

I missed the previous betas, but got my hands on this version.

The Eclipse port looks very good.

The CSV functionality, and the directionality of the connectors, are great new features.
Some feedback/feature requests:

Directionality:
The magic connector from object A to object B allows me to pick connections of any directionality.
The magic connector from object A onto the canvas allows me to create connections of only one directionality. (Is this intentional?)

Could we allow users to stretch any relation from object A onto the canvas, allowing the user to create/select an object that supports the relation (and the directionality)?
(If you create a DataObject called Person, then stretch a Specialization relationship onto the canvas, you might be able to create a specialized object called Employee, but also a generalized LegalEntity (reverse specialization))

CSV: export to CSV was successful. Import was successful - once I ensured that the export used commas and not semicolons. Should there be a selectable option in the import?

It was slightly non-intuitive that when I pick an elements.csv, it also imports the properties and relations, maybe the GUI should make this clearer? The full model was loaded with no issues.

I tested the export/import (and also file save/open) with some unicode content in names, documentation, property names and property content - no issues, good for us exotics.

The export/import feature is extremely useful. Gorgeous tool overall!

Best regards, Arne D Halvorsen

Phil Beauvoir

Hi Arne, thanks for the feedback and welcome to the new forums!


Quote
The magic connector from object A onto the canvas allows me to create connections of only one directionality. Is this intentional?

At this stage, yes. It proved harder to do that, but I shall take another look at it.  ;)

Quote
Could we allow users to stretch any relation from object A onto the canvas, allowing the user to create/select an object that supports the relation (and the directionality)?
(If you create a DataObject called Person, then stretch a Specialization relationship onto the canvas, you might be able to create a specialized object called Employee, but also a generalized LegalEntity (reverse specialization))

Perhaps we could open a new GitHub Request? https://github.com/Phillipus/archi/issues

Quote
CSV: export to CSV was successful. Import was successful - once I ensured that the export used commas and not semicolons. Should there be a selectable option in the import?

Good point, I'll take a look at this.

Quote
It was slightly non-intuitive that when I pick an elements.csv, it also imports the properties and relations, maybe the GUI should make this clearer? The full model was loaded with no issues.

The manual explains that if they exist, they will be imported also, it makes the job easier just to select one file. Selecting more than one file gets complicated.

Quote
The export/import feature is extremely useful. Gorgeous tool overall!

Thanks! Archi will get even better over time...  8)
If you value and use Archi, please consider making a donation!
Ask your ArchiMate related questions to the ArchiMate Community's Discussion Board.

arnedh

Another thing: I get an error message that says that the Archi32/64 executable launcher was unable to locate its companion shared library.

This happened once initially at home, and then sorted itself out.

When I tried to unzip and run at work, I get the same message at every attempt.

Both machines have java 1.7.

I suppose the final release of 3.0 should be able to unzip and run without errors.

Best regards
Arne D Halvorsen

Phil Beauvoir

Something strange must be happening in the unzip process. How is it being unzipped?
If you value and use Archi, please consider making a donation!
Ask your ArchiMate related questions to the ArchiMate Community's Discussion Board.

arnedh

Tried it again, Extract all to a new folder, resident on C: this time, not on my Desktop (which may actually part of a networked drive, the way our corporate setup works).

This time it worked fine, so I have 3.0 on my corporate computer.

Best regards, Arne D H

Phil Beauvoir

Archi 3.0 Early Access 4 is available:

http://www.archimatetool.com/dev/beta

Changes since EA3:

  • Relationship rules are in accordance with ArchiMate spec tables
  • Assignment connection looks better
  • Documentation fixes
If you value and use Archi, please consider making a donation!
Ask your ArchiMate related questions to the ArchiMate Community's Discussion Board.

prgee

We have been extensively testing the CSV Export/Import function as a way to manage distributed model updates. It is very convenient to be able to export the model to CSV, update descriptions and properties, then re-import. However, we have discovered a problem with the "Excel leading zero/space" option. It seems that ID's are getting currupted during export and subsequently create duplicate elements or cause an XML error when re-importing. I have attached before and after copies of a CSV file that illustrates the problem. The tests were done with Archi 3 (build 201408141604).

Phil Beauvoir

Thanks for the report. Can you tell me the steps to reproduce this problem? Did you import the first file, then export with the option on and the second file is the result?

Phil
If you value and use Archi, please consider making a donation!
Ask your ArchiMate related questions to the ArchiMate Community's Discussion Board.

prgee

Yes, that was the process. We imported the original information from elements.csv and then exported it with the option on.

Thanks,
Peter

Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie

Hi,

I suppose that you tested doing this:

  • import element.csv
  • export newly created model to something.csv with "use excel leading zero/spaces workaround" checked
  • import something.csv

The issue you faced is certainly due to the fact you didn't edit something.csv with Excel and thus didn't save it. You should do something like this:

  • import element.csv
  • export newly created model to something.csv with "use excel leading zero/spaces workaround" checked
  • open something.csv with Excel, edit it and save it keeping CSV file format, or
  • open something.csv with Excel, save in in XLS format, work on it and and the end, save it back to something.csv
  • import something.csv

The key point is that when you open the CSV file, Excel understand some formula to keep good id values (those which have leading zeros/spaces). Then, when you save the file using CSV format, you get rid of those formula and save only the value to the CSV file which will not create new entries but update existing ones.

Of course I may be wrong...

Regards

JB
If you value and use Archi, please consider making a donation!
Ask your ArchiMate related questions to the ArchiMate Community's Discussion Board.

prgee

That's correct JB. Normally the files are edited and saved in CSV format as you suggest. However, it certainly is possible that the original export file was re-imported.

Thanks for the explanation!

Regards,
Peter

Phil Beauvoir

What JB says is correct. Please regard the "leading zero" option as an option just to stop ids getting mangled when importing to Excel. Best practice is to use identifiers with characters, like "dfe456", but as Archi itself auto-generates identifiers this may not always be possible.

Phil
If you value and use Archi, please consider making a donation!
Ask your ArchiMate related questions to the ArchiMate Community's Discussion Board.

Phil Beauvoir

#13
Just a note regarding export to CSV.

As I was testing this just now, I thought that it didn't make sense to create an empty "properties.csv" or "relations.csv" file if the model did not contain any properties or relations. So I started to implement this...and then I realised that things could go wrong if one exports to the csv files with a model that has properties, then edits the model and removes all properties, and re-exports to CSV. The original "properties.csv" file would still exist, containing orphans. So it seems better to export all three to be on the safe side, even if one is empty. This way we can be sure that elements, relations, and properties are always a matched tuple.
If you value and use Archi, please consider making a donation!
Ask your ArchiMate related questions to the ArchiMate Community's Discussion Board.

kdwykleingeld

Hi, during 3.0 install i saw a message stating that the version/installation will expire sept 30.. exactly what does this mean ?

thx koen