2019-08-15 Friday - Sparx EA v15, now available

Photo by Cesar Carlevarino Aragon on Unsplash
Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/NL_DF0Klepc

I noted that Sparx EA v15 was officially released on July 27th, 2019

• Release Overview
• https://www.sparxsystems.com/products/ea/15/index.html
• Release Notes:
• https://www.sparxsystems.com/products/ea/history.html
• v15 User Guide
• https://www.sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/15.0/index/index.html

Some particular improvements that I noted after doing a quick read of the Release Notes:

• Diagrams
• AWS Architecture and Google Cloud Platform technologies updated to improve behavior when dropping an image with the their toolboxes active
• Amazon/AWS and Google/GCP toolboxes now check for imported image library during use
• Amazon/AWS patterns updated
• Added support for web style back navigation when following a hyperlink on a diagram

• Source Directory and Visual Studio Solution Import Updated
• Improved usability for detecting and adding language macros
• Added a 'Dry Run' option to quickly scan for potential issues
• Added an option to compare timestamps of files being imported before performing the import (Currently C++ only)
• Added Package per File option to Solution import

• Code Engineering
• Source Code Directory Import 'Package per File' improved
• Visual Studio Project Import now supports importing as Package per File

• Other Changes
• Error handling for bulk updates over the cloud improved
• Modeled Add-Ins can now be loaded in eap files when JET 4 is disabled

• User Interface
• Element Browser now shows a context menu with Navigation Options for root item
• Traceability window handling for elements with very large numbers of relationships improved

• Dynamic Model Add-Ins
• All behavioral code is written in javascript
• Add-ins can access all Repository based behavior
• Add-ins can respond to repository events (signals)
• Add-ins can set up and use property lists
• Add-ins can call SBPI based API's
• All code is in Javascript
• Defined add-ins can be published to XMI or deployed to a RAS service to allow use across multiple models
• Add-ins can now return "Workflow" in EA_Connect to opt-in to workflow events
• Can model mail users when state changes

• Javascript engine updated
• Built-in javascript support updated to use the Mozilla Spidermonkey 63
• Provides new functions such as JSON parsing

• Simple Drawing Style
• Introducing a new diagram drawing style that will make it easy to draw flat and simplistic diagrams
• Similar to Visio style drawings

• Diagram Alternate Views
• Specification - A document style view of the elements on the current diagram. Focused on the name and the notes of elements\

• Diagram Matrix View
• This connector focused view provides a view of how elements on the current diagram are related
• Provides a relationship matrix view for the elements that appear on a diagram
• Drawn in a style similar to the state table view
• Uses existing quicklinker rules to determine which connectors can be created
• Includes the option to limit the display to those elements that have relationships defined

• Model Documents XML export
• Model documents can now be exported to XML that allows importing all linked packages into another model
• Allows you to easily define a model subset that can be included in a restricted WebEA view