I have been trying to understand the different configurations of Capella, to figure out a way to make good looking intuitive models without spending hours on aligning and adjusting lines, ports and the positions of elements. It looks like Sirius has such functionality since they have integrated ELK, but I was unable to find out how and if Sirius can be used for that, in the vanilla Capella software. I tried to download Obeo Community Designer, but I was unable to run it (both on Mac and windows. The solution would ideally be within Capella, that is already more or less integrated at my company, and getting new software approved takes a lot of time.
The articles below seem to describe what I am looking for. Is it possible to get the ELK functionality or similar in Capella without Obeo Community Designer?
We (Obeo) have conducted significant experiments in this area.
TMALSS, it’s a complex subject that deserves a substantial effort/budget.
Having said that, it would indeed be something very interesting for the community. For the moment, we’re taking a break from the subject, but we might resume the study if necessary (especially if third parties are willing to support us). Let me know if you’re interested.
Obeo has solved this issue with their community designer, right? Does this mean that everyone that uses Capella and has not implemented ELK themself accepts that they spend the majority of their time when making models on beautifying them and not adding content?
Although this feature remains officially experimental, ELK is indeed relatively well integrated with Sirius.
However, Capella adds its own specific extensions/behaviours that need to be taken into account. It’s this part that makes things more complex and would require more in-depth work.
And so, unfortunately, Capella users cannot benefit from this development (for now)
Are there any other solutions for making the work of creating diagrams more efficient other than Sirius, to speed up the process of placing and ordering the positions ports and lines?
The point that you raise is very important and something I (we) find diagram layout very time consuming too. And it isnt the most value added of activities.
There are some hints and tricks to make things smoother. For example, if you look in the:
Capella Help → Capella Guide → User Manual → Tips and Tricks → Layout Management → Diagram Template section
There are guidelines as to how to copy and paste the layout. Coupled with contexutalizing diagrams, this is quite powerful. But still requires the manual layout at least once.
The technology to layout diagrams better is definitely out there. For example, we sometimes export into yED. yEd - Graph Editor in order to quickly layout some data very effectively.
I look forward to when this can be integrated with Capella. With Capella being an open source project, this will rely on work by the community or one of the bigger users stumping up the cash to improve for the benefit of all.
Thank you for your response! I appreciate your suggestions, which seem to be the best options at the moment. If it’s alright, I have a couple of additional questions that may be beyond the scope of the original discussion.
Firstly, I’m curious if there are any pre-made diagram templates available, or if I need to create them all from scratch.
Secondly, I was wondering about your process for using yED. Do you export the diagrams back and forth after making any necessary adjustments, or is yED your final step before publishing/distributing?
Lastly, I noticed in the Capella Guide that you referenced a missing “activation Layouting mode” button. Is this something that is expected, and what does the final part of the sentence in the user guide image mean - specifically, “but their allocation on their other elements could not be modified”?
I appreciate your help and expertise on these matters. Thank you!
Screenshot of my Capella 6.1.9 distribution that lacks the “activation Layouting mode” button: l2jr.png)
With respect to templates, across different models/projects the functions, components etc will all be different. So I cant see how a template is possible. However, within a project then my workflow is to set up a “template” SAB, LAB, PAB etc then use this for each contextualised (via functional chains) diagram for each Capability I wish to tell a story about. Each contextualised view will have a subset of the template model elements.
With respect to Y.ED. Some teams like the information to process further in this format. So using Python4Capella we can pull the elements and their relationships needed out into excel. Then they are imported. This is done at needed points in the design process. Its not diagrams that are exported back/forward but underlying data & relationships.
Thank you for bringing the layout mode to my attention. Within the Sirius User Manual there is more information. Capella Help → Sirius → Diagrams → Edit Modes. The option is available, but I think it has moved since the help was written (I am using Capella 1.4.2).
The Edit mode can be selected via the little tree diagram next to the paste layout button (when available). The options are:
Standard Mode
Visibility Mode
Layouting Mode
The layout mode can be used to only change how the diagrams look, without activating any change to the semantic model. E.g it wont allow drag and drop of a function from the system to an actor.
Visibility Mode is allow to visualise all diagram elements either visible or invisible because of a filter or a previous hiding action execution on the element. Invisible elements will be shown with transparency
l2jr.png)