Display Connections
- Debesh Roy Chowdhury
The Connection Browser displays existing connections between the SysML model elements and repository elements. Five characteristics of each connection are shown:
- SysML Element
- Name of the connection
- Type of the connection
- Target artifact of the connection
- Target Repository - Repository owning the target artifact of the connection
The small table icon on the right of the last column can be used to show/hide columns. The Connection ID column is hidden by default.
The connections are presented per the SysML model element structure. When a SysML model element is expanded, such as the Aircraft_Platform block shown in figure below, the connections for that element can be seen, as shown below.
Right clicking on a single row (or multiple selected rows) in the table provides several options. If the row is a SysML element, the first three options allow the user to expand, collapse, or refresh the display of sub-elements or connections within that element. If the row contains a Syndeia connection (blue arrows icon under SysML element), the top three options are grayed out (as shown above). The Go to option allows users to switch to another package, different from the one whose contents are currently displayed. Selecting the Compare SysML & Target option will invoke Syndeia's compare function that will compare the source and target of the connection. If you right clicked on a SysML element, then Syndeia will first collect all the connections in the context of that element recursively before invoking the compare function. If you right clicked on connection(s), then Syndeia will only compare the selected connection(s). Similarly, the Sync SysML → Target menu compares the source and target of the connection, and then updates the target based on the source. The Sync Target → SysML menu results in the reverse. Selecting the Delete Connection(s) menu will delete the selected connections.
Each column may be filtered by clicking on the inverted black triangle next to that column name. The choices are
- (All) – All rows are shown
- (Empty) – Only rows where this column value is empty are shown
- (Custom…) – A custom filter dialog box is shown. Only rows whose contents obey the filtering criterion are shown.
- Specific selections that appear in that column
For example, to view only those SysML elements that have a connection to one or more repository element, apply the “is not empty” condition on the Connection column. Similarly, to view all connections to a specific repository (such as a MySQL repository) apply a filter to the Repository column.