I suspect that this feature may be already
discussed somewhere but haven't found the right place, sorry for
that.
I see a lot of use cases where user may need to change the type
of the existing semantic element, e.g from DataType to Class, or
from OpaqueAction to <some-specific>Action, or from
InputPin to OutputPin, etc.
You always can create the new element and delete the old one,
but then you need to manually deal with the contents of the old
element and with the references from and to the old element.
Here is the set of challenges for user with this approach:
- the contents is the simplest case, inner elements may be
cut-pasted in model explorer
- (also some of the contained elements may be not applicable to
the new container type)
- the outgoing references may be fixed (with pain) by comparing
the property sheet for old and new element
- the incoming references are the hardest case for user and I
don't see at all how user can be ensured that all of them are
dealt with.
- worse, there may be diagrams that show the old element (so
some incoming references may be non-semantic). These diagrams
will not show the replaced element and user can't easily fix
this problem at all.
Should not Papyrus provide the set of "Turn Into XXX" actions
that will assist user in such conversions? And what is the right
place to discuss this?
Regards,
Michael
--
Michael "Borlander" Golubev
Eclipse Committer (GMFT)
at Montages Think Tank, Prague,
Czech Republic
1165/1
Dvorecka, 14700, Prague-4 Podoli