Enterprise Architect: Setting run state from initial attribute values when creating instance

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I am on Enterprise Architect 13.5, creating a deployment diagram. I am defining our servers as nodes, and using attributes on them so that I can specify their details, such as Disk Controller = RAID 5 or Disks = 4 x 80 GB.

When dragging instances of these nodes onto a diagram, I can select "Set Run State" on them and set values for all attributes I have defined - just like it is done in the deployment diagram in the EAExample project:

Instance with attributes defined via Set Run State

Since our design will have several servers using the same configuration, my plan was to use the "initial value" column in the attribute definition on the node to specify the default configuration so that all instances I create automatically come up with reasonable values, and when the default changes, I would only change the Initial Values on the original node instead of having to go to all instances:

Defining Initial Values on the Node

My problem is that even though I define initial values, all instances I create do not show any values when I drag them onto the diagram. Only by setting the Run State on each instance, I can get them to show the values I want:

enter image description here

Is this expected behavior? Btw, I can reproduce the same using classes and instances of them, so this is not merely a deployment diagram issue.

Any ideas are greatly appreciated! I'm also thankful if you can describe a better way to achieve the same result with EA, in case I am doing it wrong.

enterprise-architect
1 Answers

What you could do is to either write a script to assist with it or even create an add-in to bring in more automation. Scripting is easier to implement but you need to run the script manually (which however can add the values in a batch for newly created diagram objects). Using an add-in could do this on element creation if you hook to EA_OnPostNewElement.

What you need to do is to first get the classifier of the object. Using 

Repository.GetElementByID(object.ClassifierID)

will return that. You then can check the attributes of that class and make a list of those with an initial value. Finally you add the run states of the object by assigning object.RunState with a crude string. E.g. for a != 33 it would be 

@VAR;Variable=a;Value=33;Op=!=;@ENDVAR;

Just join as many as you need for multiple run states.

user_33796530
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