I'm using version 8.0.858 of Enterprise Architect and I am hoping someone knows how to make an external requirement internal again.
I have searched thru the EA user guide, and this tells me how to make an internal requirement external, but is silent on how to reverse the process.
I have hundreds of requirements linked to Use Cases where the requirement is marked as external, but they shouldn't be as they each only relate to one Use Case.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about
This makes it difficult to get an overview of what the Use Case requires because when you click on an external requirement, the description does not show up in the textbox, and you have to double-click it to open in a separate window.
My only thought is to hack the database in Access, but I'd rather not if there is any UI functionality. That said, if you have know how to edit the database directly to achieve my goal, then that would be a valid solution too.
To my knowledge this isn't possible, for the reason #observer notes. External requirements are model elements in their own right and thus have far more information associated with them than internal requirements do.
External requirements (and other model elements) are stored in the t_objects table, while internal requirements are in t_objectrequires. Connectors are in t_connector.
I'd advise against trying to hack the database directly. Use the automation interface instead (it can be accessed from an in-EA script); look at the Element and ElementRequirement classes.
Related
I'm developing an ecommerce based on Websphere Commerce 7 WCS7. I need to import products from an external supplier, which is exposing a webservice. I've already implemented a Controller Command performing all the operation needed to extract the products from the remote service, and I've them avalaible as custom Java classes.
I'm a little bit confused about the approach I should follow in this case. I've defined the attributes needed in my scenario and used the dataload utility to import them in the DB. What should I do next? I expect to be able to "create" WCS product programmatically from my Controller Command but I don't know how to use the attribute I've defined in a programmatic insert.
Can someone point me on the right track on how to perform this kind of operation? I went through the documentation, but, given the fact I'm quite new of the WCS environment, I don't know how to proceed according to the current best practices.
It is possible to create a new catalog entry programmatically if you copy what is being done in the LOBTools. I have not done this myself though. I have always added new products via the data loads and when we did need to add from an external service I just output the information to a file and loaded along with our other products. The reason was due to keeping the catalog in sync with the product management system.
Have a look at the various DataBean classes in WCS, like: CatalogEntryDataBean.
See here for WCS data beans:Link
And here for "activation" of a DataBean:Link
I'm new to MEF. In Managed Exensibility Framework, what do you mean by events exportschanging and exportschanged. How one can visualize it?
In the Managed Extensibility Framework, objects are wired together by matching imports with exports. I assume you already know about that. (If not, you should read through the MEF programming guide first and play with MEF a bit.)
In a typical scenario, exports are provided by a catalog of types. Some of these catalogs can be changed while the application is running, at which point the application might be recomposed.
Here are two examples of modifying a catalog:
DirectoryCatalog.Refresh() (this will rescan the directory and pick up new assemblies)
AggregateCatalog.Catalogs.Add
When this happens, the CatalogExportProvider based on the catalog will trigger the ExportsChanging event right before handling the change, and ExportsChanged right after.
Not all export providers have to be based on catalogs, but I hope you get the idea.
I m trying to find the best way to build my UI based on whos logged in.
The scenario is, there are (at the moment) 2 types of user normal and super-user the super-user will normally see more controls than a normal user
I was gonna do some heavy inheritance, ie create by default SomeDialog or if super-user is logged instanciate SomeDialogSuper instead, however I have some concerns:
I find that with gwt-ext when doing a lot of inheritance you need to create a lot of panel when you are going to inject things at a later stage.
The multiple SomeDialog and then SomeDialogSuper sound like a bad idea and a nighthmare to maintain
Then I though well I could use some convention so I don't have to worry too much about which control is instantiate but I m not terribly sure how to do this
Any pointers ?
We store GUI layouts in XML "page" files stored on the server which makes requirements like yours easy to handle (use "normal_user.xml" or "superuser.xml"). The page files are marshaled into a tree of serializable factory/DTO instances that are used to create the actual widgets on the client side.
We have built a large HR portal on a framework that uses this approach. That framework is now open source. Have a look at GWT Portlets.
Use deferred binding.
http://code.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=59657&topic=10211
I'm looking at embedding JasperReports into an existing web app for reporting. The webapp sits on top of an existing database which is ancient and complex, and really not suitable for report writers to use to write reports against directly.
What I want to look at is writing some kind of wrapper around our existing data access layer (written to make our life easier talking to aforementioned ancient and complex db). Does anyone have any experience of writing custom data sources for JasperResports, or of doing anything like this?
Updated
I guess I probably wasn't clear in my question - which is probably because my requirements aren't clear either. I want to provide some way that the end-users can use something like iReport to author reports against the database, and then to use JasperReportServer for scheduling/viewing of the reports. However, the database is really, really nasty and was never designed for use in this way. We've got a access layer around it that the webapp uses to talk to it. I want to keep my end users away from the DB altogether, and the idea of a custom data source that used the access layer seemed a good option. However, I've found very little documentation on how to do that. Maybe it's just a whole lot easier than I think it is, and I'm just trying to make a dead simple thing too complicated.
Updated
Thanks for the answers. I don't think my problem has been solved, but I think the answers have helped to inform the requirements phase.
Jasper reports allows you to use a "JavaBean" data source. You can load your data into any Java Bean structure and build the reports against that. Works well.
See the "Custom Data Source" section here.
Every JasperReports template can have two different data sources. One is hooking it directly to a database using some jdbc driver or, in your case, providing a collection of java beans (POJO's), usually list.
JasperReports template is similar to a method definition. It has a name, i.e. compiled JR object and parameters (data source and a list of input parameters of some of the most popular Java types).
My suggestion is to use iReport tool. Open some example that comes with the JasperReports bundle, analyze it and tweak it. It's not so complicated.
UPDATE
Letting customers authoring JasperReports templates, compiling and adding to the classpath means that you'll need to open your system too much. Usually clients provide description of a desired report and developer(s) create the data source and design the template. JasperReports can have parameters. If these parameters are exposed through UI users can change the behavior of reports in the runtime.
If you really need to allow more flexibility then use the API provided by JasperReports for authoring templates. I could imagine some simple DLS for advanced users to communicate with your system creating on-fly reports.
I need some opinions.
I'm going to develop a POS and inventory software for a friend. This is a one man small scale project so I want to make the architecture as simple as possible.
I'm using Winform to develop the GUI (web interface doesn't make sense for POS software). For the database, I am using Postgresql.
The program will control access based on user roles, so either I have to develop a middle tier, using a web server, to control user access or I can just set user priveleges directly in Postgresql.
Developing a middle tier will be time consuming, and the maintenance will be more complex. So I prefer to set access control directly in the database.
Now it appears that using database to control user access is troublesome. I have to set priveleges for each role. Not to mention that for some tables, the priveleges are at column level. This makes reasoning about the security very hard.
So what I'm doing now is to set all the tables to be inaccessible except by superusers. The program will connect to the database using public role. Because the tables are inaccessible by public, I'm going to make publicly accessible stored functions with SECURITY DEFINER (with superuser role). The only way to access the tables is by using these functions.
I'll put the user roles and passwords in a table. Because the user table itself is inaccessible by non-superuser, I'll make a login function, let's call it fn_login(username, password). fn_login will return a session key if login is successful.
To call other functions, we need to supply session key for the user, e.g.: fn_purchase_list(session_key), fn_purchase_new(session_key, purchase_id, ...).
That way, I'm treating the stored functions as APIs. Adding new user will be easier as I only need to add new rows in the user table rather than adding new Postgresql roles. I won't need to set priveleges at column level. All controls will be done programmatically.
So what do you think? Is this approach feasible and scalable? Is there a better way to do it?
Thanks!
I believe there is a better way to do it. But since you haven't discussed what type of security you need, I cannot elaborate on specifics.
Since you are developing the application code in .NET, that code needs to be trusted (unlike a web application). Therefore, why don't you simply implement your roles and permissions in the application code, rather than the database?
My concern with your stated approach is the human overhead of stored procedures. Would much rather see you write the stated functions in C#, rather than in PostgreSQL. Then, standard version control and software development techniques could apply.
If you wait until somebody has at your database to check security, I think you'll be too late. That's a client/server mentality that went out at the end of the 90s. It's part of the reason why n-tier architectures came into vogue. Client/server can't scale horizontally as well as an n-tier solution.
I'd advise that you take better advantage of the middle tier. Security should be a cross-cutting concern that's further up the stack than your persistence layer.
If the MANAGEMENT of the database security is the issue, then you should add the task of automating that management. That means that you can store higher level data with the database tables, and then your application can convert that data in to the appropriate details and artifacts that the database requires.
It sounds like the database has the detail that you need, you just need to facilitate the management of that detail, and roll that in to your app.
My honest advice: Do not invent POS and inventory software. Take one of existing projects and make it better.