Description Johan Van Noten 2016-11-29 03:31:03 EST

Environment: Today's Neon Papyrus & SysML nightly

Scenario:
Often multiple diagrams are made for a single model element. In that case, diagrams are not "in sync" with the model, but instead contain only a part of the elements. The user can re-add the desired elements at any time, e.g. by dragging them to the diagram.

Also connectors can be missing. It is very difficult though to find the Connector that you want to add to your diagram.

Consider the attached model, in particular ibdBlock4. (This is a SysML IBD diagram, but the same reasoning goes for any other diagram.)
The diagram does not contain any connectors.
The modeled block Block4 contains three connectors.
Suppose I want to restore the connector that binds the two FullPorts.
How should I find back which one that is?

User has to fully inspect the Connectors one by one, opening its individual ConnectorEnds, switching to the Advanced properties tab (and potentially to the SysML 1.4 tab in case of NestedConnectorEnds).

Several possible implementations for this could be possible:

1) Today, if a user selects a visible Connector, the Connector gets selected in the diagram. One could do the same for "invisible" Connectors: temporarily show the hidden connector anyway in a highlighted fashion that clearly shows what the Connector is connecting, but that it is hidden. Unfortunately, this still requires the user to walk over all Connectors till the right one appears on the diagram.

2) Alternatively, the user could right-click a ConnectableElement and request "show hidden Connectors". The list of Connectors that have this Element as start/end point could then be visualized. The user can walk over them as described in 1).