Changes in the Release 6.0 of the Visible Analyst Workbench

The following is a list of new features, enhancements, changes and bug fixes incorporated in the new release of the Visible Analyst Workbench.

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New Features List	Bug Fix List


New Features List

Object Oriented Analysis and Design

Two New Diagram Types

New Repository Features

Supertype / Subtype Support

Logical / Physical Data Modeling

SQL DDL Generation Enhancements

New Analysis Option

Unify VISION Interface

User-Defined Attributes/Objects Enhancemnts

Help Bar Enhancements

Full Color Support

Btrieve Database In A Relational Format

Improved Loop Line Drawing on Structure Charts


Object Oriented Analysis and Design

Version 6.0 of the Visible Analyst Workbench supports Object-Oriented (OO) techniques for systems development embracing the Rumbaugh methodology. A Class can be defined in the Visible Repository with attributes, methods ( including parameter lists ), the type of visibility, and relationships showing inheritance, association, and aggregation. A Class Diagram will visually represent the class hierarchy structure and allow details of the classes to be displayed, similar to the entity-relationship View functionality. You can choose to display all information about a class, including methods and attributes (data members), and further you can specify that only members with certain visibility ( public, private, or protected) will be displayed. Methods that you define will appear as Modules in the repository and can be used on structure charts. State Transition diagrams define the states of classes and the events that effect the values of the class attributes and can be directly linked to a class using the Nest facility.

The user-interface to the Visible Repository has been extended to allow class members to have unique names which are defined in terms of other classes or data elements or structures.


Two New Diagram Types

A Class Diagram illustrates class structure, including the specification of individual classes and their relationships. A class hierarchy structure can be created showing inheritance, association, and aggregation relationships. You can choose to display all information about a class, including methods and attributes (data members), and further you can specify that only members with certain visibility ( public, private, or protected) will be displayed. New class diagrams can be created automatically from the repository, giving different views of the object model. Entities that have been defined as part of the data model can be used on a class diagram.

A State Transition diagram is used to perform dynamic modeling to show those aspects of a system that are concerned with time and changes. States and events can be diagrammed to show how an object operates over time. A State Transition diagram can be linked to a class definition using the Nest facility.


New Repository Features

The Visible Repository has been extended in several areas.  Four new object types have been added:  Class, Member, State, Event, and Tablespace.  A Class can be assigned attributes, methods ( including parameter lists ), friends, the type of visibility, and relationships showing inheritance, association, and aggregation.  A class can be assigned a subtype such as standard, elemental, structure or union.  An Attribute ( or Member ) can be assigned a name, class type, limit, type of visibility, reference method, and a qualification flag indicating whether it is static or volatile.  Methods that you define will appear as Modules in the repository and can be used on structure charts.  Any item that is owned by a class will have a long name indicating its owner, and in the case of methods, the argument list.  Multiple class methods can have the same name, but they must have different argument lists.  A State and an Event are used on state transition diagrams to perform dynamic modeling. A Tablespace is used to store physical characteristics about a schema generated by the SQL engine. Tables and indexes can be contained within a tablespace and have additional physical information defined.

Additional information is now maintained regarding relationships including denormalization options, discriminator name, cardinality phrase and inheritance characteristics.

Performance indexes can be maintained for entities.  In addition, column order can be maintained for primary and foreign keys, and performance indexes and overlapping keys can be maintained using different names on multi-column foreign keys.

Navigation through the repository has been enhanced using the Jump facility.  It is now possible to jump to any entry referenced by another (including alias references).

If you press the right mouse button over a repository field, an object menu will be displayed indicating the valid operations for that field, such as update, cut, paste, and jump. The Shift-F10 keyboard shortcut can also be used to activate the menu.


Supertype / Subtype Support

Entity-relationship diagrams now support supertype / subtype structures.  This allows the creation of specialized entities (subtype) which are based on a generalized entity (supertype) which share common attributes.  Only the unique attributes to the specialized entity need to be listed in the subtype object. Denormalization information is maintained concerning the relationships between the parent and child so that SQL DDL generation can produce unique tables for each entity, or a single table with a discriminator element used to differentiate between the subtypes.


Logical / Physical Data Modeling

When specifying information about relationships, you can indicate identifying relationships and whether a relationship should be denormalized when generating SQL DDL.  Denormalization options include collapse child table into parent, duplicate parent columns in the child , and duplicate parent columns in the child and retain the parent. Addtional information maintained for relationships include numerical cardinality, discriminator, role, and qualifier names.


SQL DDL Generation Enhancements

SQL generation has been enhanced to support different names on multi-column foreign keys, additional information on unique indexes, performance indexes, enhanced referential integrity information, and tablespace characteristics.


New Analysis Option

A Syntax Check option has been added to the Repository menu to allow analysis to be performed on a class of diagrams, without requiring any diagram of that type to be open.


Unify VISION Interface

Data model information can be transferred between the VAW and VISION from Unify.  This information includes entity and attribute definitions, validation rules, and extended attribute information, such as visual representation.


User-Defined Attributes/Objects Enhancments

User-defined attributes and objects can now be added to or removed from existing projects. Previously, the only way to add a user-defined item to an existing project was to create a new project, perform an export and then import into the original project. There was no way to remove user-defined items from a project in previous versions.


Help Bar Enhancements

The Help bar has been enhanced to display the current zoom level and the current object.  If you click the right mouse button on the zoom level text, a popup menu will allow you to change the setting.  If you click the right mouse button on the current project name, a menu of operations can be selected. In addition, Bubble Help is now displayed for all buttons on the Control Bar.


Full Color Support

Each object on a diagram may be assigned a different color allowing symbols to be highlighted for presentation purposes or grouped according to their importance.  Both foreground and background colors can now be specified for symbols.


Btrieve Database In A Relational Format

The Btrieve-based version of the VAW Repository is now stored in a relational format.  This means that third party products, such as Xtrieve and Microsoft Access, can more easily access data stored in the VAW Repository. The conversion process from version 5.4 projects can be performed by using the Rebuild utility.


Improved Loop Line Drawing on Structure Charts

When adding a loop line to a structure chart, it is no longer necessary to double-click to indicate the line is complete.  As soon as the left mouse button is released, the line will be drawn.


Bug Fixes
Bug fixes for v6.0 of the Visible Analyst Workbench

Foreign keys were not always generated properly when a component of the primary key was also a member of an alternate key.

When performing a Nest or Split Dataflow operation, the terminator type of the line was not preserved.

User type was not set properly for single-user versions that had Security enabled.

If changes were pending for a repository entry, and an item was selected from the History list, the changes would be lost.

When searching for projects that did not appear in the project list, double-clicking on the project DAT file would not work in deep directory structures.

When using the DOS Networks driver, sometimes the VAW would lock-up when performing an update.

When performing a Gupta TeamWindows export, generation of parent column names for foreign keys was problematic when the foreign key was migrated through more than one entity.

In the Process Modeling version of VAW, user-defined link object fields were not displayed properly.

The Split Dataflow operation would fail if the name of the parent diagram was changed AND the child diagram where the split was to be performed was already open.

Changing a process number on a Data Flow diagram could cause data corruption in the diagram parameter file.

Deleting a entity from an Entity Relationship diagram with attributes displayed could cause garbage to be displayed on the diagram.

When generating SQL for stored procedures, the procedures were sorted in descending order.

If a Data Flow diagram was deleted, the nest relationship was sometimes lost for children of the new parent diagram.

A GPF would occur if a change type operation was performed on an unnamed entity.

A process name change would fail if the underlying database engine was SQLServer.

Inverted elbow lines that were part of boilerplate were not ignored during analysis.

The Jump facility of the repository can now be used on the alias field of an alias entry.

When importing COBOL using the Application Browser interface, the picture clause would have an incorrect value.

Import can now only be performed by users with the Modify Items right.