bug/annoyance: entities in the view expand when selected

mindplay · Post by **mindplay** » Thu 05 Jan 2012 17:12

In the model explorer, when you left-click on a property, the corresponding entity automatically expands, in all open views.

At first, I assumed the reason why collapsed entities would sporadically expand in my diagrams, was a bug - it took me a while to figure out why it was happening to begin with.

I understand that this is probably designed behavior - you intend for the property to be selected in the diagram, to give a visual indication of where the property you selected in the tree is represented in the diagram view.

It's highly inconvenient though.

I'm working on a large system with many diagram views. I use a diagram for every sub-domain of my business-model.

So, for example, I have a "Geography" diagram showing Country, State, etc. - in this diagram, those entities are expanded.

I have numerous other diagrams with entities that reference a Country or State - but on those diagrams I keep the Country and State entities collapsed, because they're not central to those domains; they happen to reference entities from the "Geography" domain, but they don't define entities in that domain.

As said, I understand this is designed behavior, but it's messing up my neatly arranged diagrams, which are important for documentation.

I don't think it's necessary?

I think, if I select a property in the model explorer, and the entity is collapsed in the current diagram, it's fine if that entity gets selected rather than expanded?

Similarly to how the entity is selected on the diagram when you select an entity in the model explorer.

Having seen which entity was selected in the diagram (if I'm using the model-explorer to try to locate an entity on the diagram), it's fine if I have to expanded the entity myself. Finding the specific property is typically going to be easy.

I think this behavior would at least be better than having to run behind and clean up all my diagrams every time I selected a property from the model explorer... (?)

Helen · Post by **Helen** » Tue 10 Jan 2012 10:42

Thank you for your comments.

We are planning to make some changes in the described behaviour.

Helen · Post by **Helen** » Thu 12 Jan 2012 15:36

In the latest 4.2.110 build of Entity Developer, when selecting a property in the Model Explorer, the corresponding entity on the diagram does not expand if it is collapsed.

The new build can be downloaded from http://www.devart.com/entitydeveloper/download.html (the trial and free versions) or from Registered Users' Area (provided that you have an active subscription).

For the detailed information about the improvements and fixes available in Entity Developer 4.2.110, please refer to
http://www.devart.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=23135 .

mindplay · Post by **mindplay** » Mon 16 Jan 2012 20:25

Works nicely, thank you!

mindplay · Post by **mindplay** » Wed 18 Jan 2012 13:18

The reverse problem sort of annoys me to - anytime you click on a class or relation in the diagram, the tree on the left expands and moves around.

I find myself having to collapse the classes and associations (or scroll and searfch) to get back down to my list of diagrams, every time I've made a change to the active diagram...

Helen · Post by **Helen** » Thu 19 Jan 2012 13:11

Thank you for your suggestion. At the moment, such behaviour is designed.

mindplay · Post by **mindplay** » Thu 19 Jan 2012 14:00

I realize that, and I'm sure it works well when you have only one diagram - I have 12 different diagrams in my model, so I navigate to my model primarily by opening the related diagram. Since my list of entities is so long, trying to find them on the alphabetic list of entities isn't practical...

Even when going through the alphabetical list of entities, I find that I'm spending a lot of time closing things that automatically open up when you select things in the diagram - it's the reverse of the problem with entities expanding in the diagrams, which you fixed. I don't understand why it's necessary - selecting the entity in the tree is enough, it doesn't need to automatically expand to properties every time you click in the diagram.

(Just my opinion. I did suggest you make this behavior optional in the first place, I'm sure some people actually like it this way - but it really doesn't work well for projects as large as mine...)