When generating a document, it is critically important that the elements in a diagram be output in a sensible sequence. You can imagine an Activity Diagram, for example, that has gone through several iterations would output the elements in a seemingly random order. Anyone who wants to trace the flow of the diagram would end up jumping around the document to find the detailed description of every Action, Decision Node, etc.
To get around this, I have a special integer tag I call “DC Order” (DC = Doc Composer) that I put into every element. I have to manually set the value of this tag for each element, which can get very tedious in a diagram with 20-30 of them. My Doc Composer template then puts the elements in a sensible order like this:
<IterationBlock modelType="ObjectNode" ignoreLastSeparator="false">
<Sortings>
<Sorting by="property" property="DC Order"/>
</Sortings>
It would be much better if there were a dialog that would allow me to reorder the elements in the order I want them processed. Conceivably, I could achieve the same result with the options in the “Order” popup menu, but without knowing what the existing order is, I can’t tell what to move where.
I tried working with the Diagram Navigator but, while I can see all the elements in the diagram, the “Move Selected Diagram Element Up/Down” option doesn’t work, even with “Sorting” set to “Sort Diagram Element Customized”.
Am I missing something?
