Hi,
I started to use VP Standard Edition not that long time ago I found it a really great tool for a lot of things during software development lifecycle and support. It’s definitely worth it’s price. So great job, guys (no kidding on that)!
I use VP mainly to create and maintain entity models with instant Java code generation to use with JPA (about 100-150 entities at this time). However I would like to give my thoughts about some features I consider to be really useful or I missed in current version.
- Java Instant Generation.
I tried to use Instant generator as well as ORM based. Firstly I found it really strange why they have completely different set of options and different user interface. For my project I found that use of ORM generator is a bit too much from what I need. I am trying to keep entity classes as clean as possible so Instant Java Generator was my choice.
There is already topic on this forum about Java generator customisation and I believe some of pointed issues can be resolved using plugins but there are small things which would make supplied generator much more convenient.
- Allow user to specify custom type for Collections. Currently you are using ComboBox to select from predefined set of interfaces. Would be SO GREAT either to add there abstract interfaces List, Collection (which is really small fix) or allow user to type in this Combo. Thats almost a must have for generating decent JPA Entities classes.
- Allow user to specify per class required #imports. Otherwise I either have to change files to add java.persistence.* manually or change default template in VP installation which is not really good idea, although it’s doing the job.
- Associations and naming
This topic is more on a level of a question, may be I just didn’t found a proper way to do this. Because objects in system I develop have pretty complicated structure I am creating a new class diagram per object where describe all attributes and operations and separate class diagrams with objects relations (means associations etc). I hide all attributes and operators on those to have more clear picture. As soon I make for example one to many association with named endpoints I get perfectly proper Java code. My question - is there an automated way within VP to see those associations as an attributes on Object or represent them on an object in any way? That would be really convenient to have an overview on object level after you design all links on other class diagrams.
Regards,
Yuri
P.S. Sorry for my english, I’m not a native speaker.
