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Home » Modeling » Graphiti » Removing remove
Removing remove [message #719984] Mon, 29 August 2011 15:50 Go to next message
Hernan Gonzalez is currently offline Hernan GonzalezFriend
Messages: 188
Registered: October 2010
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Senior Member
In Graphiti Remove only gets rid of the graphical element, while Delete also removes the business object.
I don't know if this distinction is more or less standard, but I know that it's a little puzzling to me - I wonder if also for the user ("toolsmith" or "practitioner") :

1. I can never remember which one is which. To me (perhaps because I'm not a native english speaker) "delete" and "remove", as verbs, are synonyms. Rather, "delete" evokes to me some graphical context.

2. It seems strange to me that, in normal use, one would like to "remove" (alter only the graphical element ; I believe that almost always we want the graph to be in synch with the model). Given that, it seems unfortunate to me that this action is prominently exposed to the user, in the default configuration (both in the standard menus and in the contextual menu).

3. Further, this "feature" is not very straigforward to disable. Because, as Graphiti features, one depends on the other. Indeed this question (see the last post) has still no satisfactory answer. (And I'm interested in it)

In the standard/default configuration a user cannot perform an "Add" without performing also a "Create". Similarly, it would appear more logic that the "remove" feature should not be exposed in the menus.
Re: Removing remove [message #720078 is a reply to message #719984] Mon, 29 August 2011 20:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Andreas Graf is currently offline Andreas GrafFriend
Messages: 211
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Hi Hernan,

the remove/delete dichotomy is something that applies to all graphical modelling tools. It is just something that users have to learn for each tool. The graph is only always in sync with the model if you do not have multiple views on the model. Consider an UML tool where you have multiple diagrams for the same model. It is not easy to decide wether to remove the element from the model or just from the view. IMHO it is essential to have that menu entry for anything other than the simplest tools.

Obviously there is no add, because add is for e.g. drag and drop from a tree view of the model.

Andreas
Re: Removing remove [message #720083 is a reply to message #720078] Mon, 29 August 2011 20:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Hernan Gonzalez is currently offline Hernan GonzalezFriend
Messages: 188
Registered: October 2010
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Senior Member
Andreas Graf wrote on Mon, 29 August 2011 17:20
Hi Hernan,

the remove/delete dichotomy is something that applies to all graphical modelling tools. It is just something that users have to learn for each tool. The graph is only always in sync with the model if you do not have multiple views on the model. Consider an UML tool where you have multiple diagrams for the same model. It is not easy to decide wether to remove the element from the model or just from the view. IMHO it is essential to have that menu entry for anything other than the simplest tools.


Thanks, Andreas. I agree that some graphical editors need to work with a "partial view" of the model; but it's also common (I'd say more, but I won't dispute that) to have a one-to-one correspondence (what the user see in the diagram is all that he has). This has little to do with the editor being simple or sophisticated, it's another scenario.

And (see from the other thread I linked) it's not only me who needs to remove the "remove feature" from the gui (menu, contextual menu, key binding), and it's currently very difficult to do so because internally the remove feature is called by the delete feature.
And in Eclipse-RCP it's easy to add GUI contributions as extension points but it's difficult to remove contributions added by another plugin.


[Updated on: Mon, 29 August 2011 20:50]

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Re: Removing remove [message #720240 is a reply to message #720083] Tue, 30 August 2011 07:54 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Michael Wenz is currently offline Michael WenzFriend
Messages: 1931
Registered: July 2009
Location: Walldorf, Germany
Senior Member
Hernan,

I just posted an answer to to the thread you mentioned. Thanks for bringing
this back onto my radar...

Michael


"Hernan" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:j3gt9i$qis$1@news.eclipse.org...

Andreas Graf wrote on Mon, 29 August 2011 17:20
> Hi Hernan,
>
> the remove/delete dichotomy is something that applies to all graphical
> modelling tools. It is just something that users have to learn for each
> tool. The graph is only always in sync with the model if you do not have
> multiple views on the model. Consider an UML tool where you have multiple
> diagrams for the same model. It is not easy to decide wether to remove the
> element from the model or just from the view. IMHO it is essential to have
> that menu entry for anything other than the simplest tools.


Thanks, Andreas. I agree that some graphical editors need to work with a
"partial view" of the model; but it's also common (I'd say more, but I won't
dispute that) to have a one-to-one correspondence (what the user see in the
diagram is all that he has). This has little to do with the editor being
simple or sophisticated, it's another scenario.

And (see from the other thread I linked) it's not only me who needs to
remove the "remove feature" from the gui (menu, contextual menu, key
binding), and it's currently very difficult to do so because internally the
remove feature is called by the delete feature.
Re: Removing remove [message #743628 is a reply to message #720240] Fri, 21 October 2011 16:16 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Adrian Mouat is currently offline Adrian MouatFriend
Messages: 16
Registered: September 2011
Junior Member
I'd just like to agree with Hernan; I also have a use case where I never want to only delete/remove from the model (I also can never remember which is which - perhaps "erase" would be a better word due to its connotation with drawing?).

Surely it can't be hard to make this an optional feature?
Re: Removing remove [message #743789 is a reply to message #743628] Fri, 21 October 2011 18:37 Go to previous message
Hernan Gonzalez is currently offline Hernan GonzalezFriend
Messages: 188
Registered: October 2010
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Senior Member
Hi Adrian. I hope you saw the solution I posted in the other thread, just in case here goes the link:

http://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php/mv/msg/234410/720417/#msg_720417

We agree that a more straightwforward approach is needed, working on that.

[Updated on: Fri, 21 October 2011 18:38]

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