Tutorials

Tutorials (168)

Tutorials can be used to become more productive and efficient in the use of Enterprise Architect. Tutorials, getting started guides, videos and workbooks can all be used to explain concepts and assist others in realizing the power and flexibility of using Enterprise Architect. Use this link to submit tutorials, training material, example workbooks and quick start guides.

In this article I will show you how to estimate a software project using Sparx Enterprise Architect (EA)which is a famous CASEtool. (I used EA 7.5 in this article) Based on Rational Unified Process (RUP), In order to estimate software projects duration, you need to recognize the project features and requirements first. This leads you to Use Cases that are cores of a software project analysis model and you cannot estimate any software project without recognizing its Use Cases. Requirements, Features and Use Cases recognition are usually done in the first phase of RUP, Inception.
As an Enterprise Architect user, you may have had the need to apply several times more or less the same set of elements on a given diagram, leading to numerous uses of copy and paste as new. The "copy and paste" feature on a selection of elements, including their associations and layout works ok, but there could be a more suitable way to go about this. Given a context where we have our set of elements i.e. a pattern of modelling elements available from one or several diagrams within our model, we need to apply them several times onto a…
Run the Windows software Enterprise Architect 10 on Mac and Linux with CrossOver 12. CrossOver can get your Windows productivity applications and up and running on your Mac and Linux system quickly and easily. Run the Windows software that you need on Mac or Linux at home, in the office or at school without purchasing a Windows license, without rebooting your computer and without having to use a virtual machine. To learn more about running Enterprise Architect on Mac or Linux with CrossOver and to watch our short tutorial video on how to download CrossOver in order to run Enterprise…
Following on from my previous post on creating and simulating state machines in Enterprise Architect (EA), I will walk through the process of adding a UI to prototype and further interactivity to your model. If you recall the previous article, I walked through the process of setting up ‘Triggers’ to run scenarios through your state machine and set simulation variables at state or sub-state level to better represent your application. All of this information was available using the EA ‘variables’ or recording to the Console. We can go a step further and prototype a quick UI to represent our application…
Recently I have been reverse engineering a state transition (officially a state machine but I prefer the term state transition model) to understand the complex life-cycle of our application’s central object. I had seen a demo on model simulation but the focus was more on a generated model from source rather than a hand fashioned UML model. This post is a walk through on the process and hopefully some takeaways from what I’ve learned. Understanding complex systems I came into a project that is well down the road to completion but sorely lacking in any concrete documentation which was becoming…
I wanted to share a tip that I've been using for a while that seems to be a reason some people give for not liking Enterprise Architect (EA) – not being able to track document changes. EA works by generating RTF documents of its content which many users prefer of the more interactive HTML renderings of that same content – either due to habit or function. While EA has countless benefits for analysis (just read this blog for many examples!) it doesn't provide document versioning / differencing out of the box. This is no problem at all since MS Word…
Monday, 22 April 2013 08:02

Colour your Knowledge

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Colouring your EA models isn't just a matter of making your diagrams pretty. Colour can add clarity and accuracy to your models, and make it easier for the consumers of you knowledge to understand what you mean. This paper reviews some of the ways you can use colour, to show structure and status in your EA Models, and provide guidance and insight for specific groups of users.
Friday, 22 March 2013 22:15

Four Principles of Agile Triage

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There’s an epidemic of bad software floating around these days. Chances are you’ve encountered buggy and/or unnecessarily hard to use software recently. This epidemic isn’t really surprising, especially if you’ve read the books I’ve written with Matt Stephens: Design Driven Testing or Extreme Programming Refactored or Agile Development with ICONIX Process. There’s a bunch of agile development shops out there underspecifying their software and (as a result) testing it inadequately, so that you and I can have the privilege of debugging it for them and putting new user stories onto their backlog. Imagine for a moment that you’re working at…
Using an external source code editor Sparx Enterprise Architect can be configured to open source files in an external editor. This is good news for developers who already have a strong preference (and keyboard skills) for using a particular editor, such as Vim or EMACS. Working inside Sparx Enterprise Architect: Click Tools | Options...   The Options window is displayed. Click Source Code Engineering | Code Editors.   Clear the check-box alongside Use inbuilt editor if no external editor set, and then click Close.   Right-click an UML class element (in the Project Browser or on a diagram), and select View Source Code...   The source code will displayed in an external editor window,…
Morgan Kauffmann has published the second edition of “A Practical Guide to SysML” by Sanford Friedenthal, Alan Moore and Rick Steiner (ISBN 978-0-12-385206-9). The authors have made a very complete selection of supporting materials available for download from http://www.elsevierdirect.com/v2/companion.jsp?ISBN=9780123852069. These companion resources include the “Air Compressor”, “Automobile”, “Distiller”, and “Security System” example models, as described in the book. Unfortunately, the model files are only available in MagicDraw tool format (although the authors have also provided HTML reports for use by anyone who do not have access to MagicDraw). I decided to try importing the files into Sparx Enterprise Architect version…
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