Suggestion for better nevigatable Html report

General Questions/Discussions
1

I used Sprax Systems’ Enterprise Architect. I like the Html report. Its diagrams are CLICKABLE, each item in the diagram , like a class, if you click it, it will bring you to the class’ doc, even if you click the filed or operation of the class, it immediatly bring you to the specific note for that field or operation.

It also divided class document into seperate html doc, not like VP’s html report, it put all classes of one diagram in one. I think it’s better.

Can VP improve to this direction?

2

Hi Anonymous,

Thank you for your kind suggestion regarding our HTML report facilities. Actually our HTML reports also support navigation between model elements. Besides, there is a diagram tree on the left hand side for you to browse for different diagrams within the project. But we do agree that our current HTML report facility can improve further. I will pass your suggestion along to our developers for further feasibility studies.

If there are any other suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us again. Thank’s a lot! :smiley:

Best Regards,
Jick

3

I must completely agree here. I am currently evaluating Enterprise Architect and Visual Paradigm for Reverse Engineering and Documentation. So far, VP is far and away more intuitive and visually appealing than EA. However, the HTML builtin and customization features are making this a very tough decision.

4

Dear Anonymous,

Thank you for your post. I will forward your comment to our developers. Actually we are now reviewing our documentation features. Do you have any other opinion regarding to our HTML report?

Best Regards,
Jick

5

First, my purposes for evaluating VP are as a C++ developer looking to reverse engineer our current libraries and give them some formal documentation, and for modeling/documenting all new projects. I am not looking to generate code. Also, keep in mind that I have been using both for only about a week, so if there are any features already in the product that I missed that would correct some of my gripes, please correct me.

I would imagine your engineers have played with EA’s eval and are already aware of the differences, but these are my gripes.

  1. EA allows the user to define what gets printed, where it is, and how it looks. To be brutally honest, the html that is spit out of VP is ugly and unusable compared to the unmodified output from EA. The look of the VP style is incredibly bland and draws my attention/focus to all the wrong details. For all intents and purposes, both EA and VP produce the same information on the screen, but looking at the VP page gives me a headache from having to visually sort out the clutter.

  2. The diagrams in EA are hyperlinks. All classes in their html diagrams are clickable and take you to the item details ( which are on a separate page - hint, hint ).

  3. The details page of each item not only has a link to its dependencies, associations, etc, but it also has a link to related items and diagrams.

Finally, please know that I am really looking for a reason to choose VP over EA. Working with your product is a breeze. I find myself constantly frustrated by the clunky and inconsistent interface presented by EA. But, one of my main purposes is documentation and this is a feature that is lacking substance and functionality in my opinion.

6

Hi Anonymous,

Thanks for your invaluable comment. I have already forwarded your suggestions to our engineers.

As I know we are now developing a new HTML report feature. I am very sure that the suggestion of including hyperlinks in diagrams (#2) will be supported. We will study point 1 and point 3 in further.

Will you be interested to have a try on our new HTML report feature? I could arrange the Early Access release for once it is available.

Best Regards,
Jick

7

Jick,

I would be more than happy to try your new HTML report feature. Just let me know what I need to do.

Thanks,

Nick

8

Dear Nick,

Thank you for your interest in our new feature! Could you please leave your E-mail address so that I could send you the instruction and the installer for early access? You can reach me at:
jick@visual-paradigm.com

Best Regards,
Jick

9

Hi user,

The new HTML report feature, Project Publisher, is now available. The following article describes this feature:
http://resource.visual-paradigm.com/vpsuite2.2/project_publisher.html

I hope you can give it a try. Please feel free to post here if there are any questions.

Best Regards,
Jick