Diagram Tips and Techniques

While each diagram has specific tips and tricks, GENESYS's diagram framework shares many common tips and tricks to get you up and running quickly and make the overall GENESYS experience more enjoyable.

Interacting with Diagrams

• The tabbed views in the project explorer allow you to quickly move between views and entities without cluttering your screen with multiple windows. Opening views in separate windows allows you to maximize the screen space for a given representation or see multiple perspectives at once. Experienced users frequently leverage both approaches to maximize their effectiveness.

• Double-clicking on an entity is a shortcut for opening a property sheet on the entity.

• Ctrll+double-clicking on an entity is a shortcut for opening a diagram of the same type on the entity. For example, Ctrl+double-clicking on a function in an activity diagram will open an activity diagram on that function. Note that this shortcut is not used on hierarchy, spider, requirements, and block definition diagrams where Ctrl+double-click expands or collapses the selected nodes.

• Right-click in the diagram to use a context menu containing all diagram, layout, and view commands.

• The Select All command (Ctrl+A) is a convenient way to select all nodes and perform an image change (color, resize, etc.).

• Scroll the mouse wheel up and down to scroll vertically. Hold down the shift key while scrolling (or tilt your wheel left and right) to scroll horizontally. Hold down the control key while scrolling to zoom the diagram in and out to get the detail or context you need.

• When adjusting the layout of the diagram, it often makes sense to move multiple nodes at once. Use the shift-click or region select to highlight multiple nodes and move them all at once.

• Using a grid can greatly simplify the process of manually laying out diagrams. Toggle it on and off to simplify manipulation.

Leveraging Drag-Drop to Its Fullest

• When using the New ABC constructs on the constructs tab, sometimes you want the best of both worlds – quick entity creation for some drag-drop actions with the opportunity to fill out names for others. Holding down the control key when dropping a New ABC construct onto a diagram will prompt you for the entity name regardless of the user preference setting.

• While most users often think of dragging objects from the toolbox onto the diagram, you can also drag objects from the diagram onto toolbox entities to establish relationships. This is particularly useful when allocating functions on an activity diagram or connecting multiple nodes on an EFFBD, N2, or block diagram. Shift+click to select the entities of interest and then drop them onto the desired entity on the All Entities tab.

Working with Colors and Images

• When setting diagram and node color schemes, try to maintain a reasonable level of contrast between the background color and the text and line colors to ensure that the diagram is readable.

• Where stock images fit the need (technical and presentation) of the project team, selecting a stock image significantly simplifies model management. Rather than having to maintain a separate library of image files, everything is self-contained in the Image library installed with GENESYS. However, more often than not, we expect you will want your own images to convey either the richness of the domain or your specific branding.

• Setting an image to a file can be executed by dragging the file from a Windows Explorer and dropping it on top of the entity, either in an entity list or on the entity node on a diagram.

• Don’t overdo a good thing. Emphasize images for level 0 / level 1 and critical stakeholder communications.

• Use moderation in image size. A 128x128 image gives richness without increasing the diagram (pixel) size.

• When toggling between geometric frames and graphical images, the Auto-size command is your friend. You can quickly resize a specific node.

Order of Precedence on Diagram Effects

When working with all the different ways to manipulate the diagram, through preferences, rules, and manual manipulation, knowing the order that the options are used will allow you to successfully get to your target rendering.

This list is from the point of view of a diagram object. As soon as an option is set (not set to Automatic), GENESYS will stop evaluating.

• Object manual setting (using the properties when the object is selected)

• Rule Set for the object (using the actions of a rule in a Rule Set). Since there are three types of rules in a rule set, they are evaluated in this order:

• Line Rules

• Node Rules

• Diagram Rules

• Entity Color Setting (Fill, Line, Text)

• Diagram Preferences (using the properties tab of the toolbox when nothing is selected on the diagram)

• Project Preferences (using the diagram type preference)

Customizing GENESYS to Best Fit Your Needs

• Adjust the Project Explorer tabs and the individual diagram options in user preferences to tailor which diagrams are shown in the project explorer and on view ribbon. With such a rich library of integrated representations, you may find that you never use selected diagrams. Hide these to better focus on the representations you prefer.

• The frame drawn around diagrams has limited options. You can show toggle Show Header, Show SysML Header, and Show Footer.

• The project preferences model allows you to set specific diagrams options. When specific sizing is needed for a special diagram use the diagram properties to set that specific diagram's look. Using global settings will maximize consistency across your representations. GENESYS supports customizing individual diagram objects (changing size, color, and presentation) to meet the specific need.