MetaEdit+ Modeler questions

You can make this setting permanent thus:

1. Exit and restart MetaEdit+
2. Expand the Startup Launcher by pressing the down arrow button
3. Press the 'File in Patches' button
4. In the Patches Browser, open a pop-up menu, and choose 'swap mouse buttons'
5. Close the Patches Browser and Help window
6. In the Startup Launcher, press 'Save Image', and answer 'yes', 'no' and 'Save' to the dialogs to overwrite the existing image

Yes, but not out of the box. Since we can have any modelling language, and generation of any kind of code, there's no possibility for built-in reverse engineering. This is a metaCASE tool, not a fixed-method CASE tool, so we have lots of flexibility in general, but some things can't be hard-coded anymore.

MetaEdit+ has an API, XML import, and text file reading and parsing capabilities in the MERL generator language. Users can thus use any of these to write their own reverse engineering. The UML Examples project contains an example graph using a MERL generator for simple Java reverse engineering.

However, this is not something we envisage our customers doing much, especially not round-trip engineering. The benefit of MetaEdit+ is the ability to build your own modeling language and code / documentation generation, so generated code and documentation are never edited - all changes are made to the models, and the code or documentation is regenerated as needed.

See also the question on model-to-model transformations.

The example generators in the demo repository are intended to be generic for standard compilers of that language. Compiler versions we have tested with are generally documented in the manuals or generators.

1. After installation, exit MetaEdit+.
2. Copy the complete "MetaEdit+ 4.5" directory:

   From:	C:\Users\<administrator user name>\Documents
   To:	C:\Users\<normal user name>\Documents

   (you will need to provide the administrator's password to do this).
3. Create a shortcut on the desktop with:

   Target:	"C:\Program Files\MetaEdit+ 4.5 Evaluation\mep45eval.exe"
   Start in:	"C:\Users\<normal user name>\Documents\MetaEdit+ 4.5"

4. Optionally, copy the complete "MetaEdit+ 4.5 Evaluation" Start menu group

   From:	C:\Users\<administrator user name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\
   To:	C:\Users\<normal user name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\

   (you will need to provide the administrator's password to do this).

Note that to uninstall, you will need to log in as the administrator user: the evaluation version will not show up in the list of programs in Control Panel's "Uninstall a program". After uninstallation, you can remove the normal user's desktop shortcut and optional Start menu group by hand.

There are three possible situations, and you must choose one of them and follow its instructions:

1. You had nothing important in your demo database
   => Uninstall, delete the demo directory by hand, fill out the download form again to get a new evaluation code, download and install.
2. You had something you still want in your demo database, and the current MetaEdit+ version is the same as you installed before
   => ask for more evaluation time from info@metacase.com
3. You had something you still want in your demo database, and the current MetaEdit+ version is newer than the one you installed before
   => Uninstall, download again from here and install, ask for more evaluation time from info@metacase.com

Those types are defined in other projects which have been opened automatically in the background. You need to open and close those projects explicitly, which you can do from the main MetaEdit+ launcher.

1. If you have changes you want to save, first choose Repository | Commit.
2. In the Projects list pop-up menu, choose Open..., Ctrl-click to select all the projects there with an asterisk "*" before their name, and press OK.
3. In the Projects list pop-up menu, choose Close..., Select All projects except the one(s) you wish to remain open, and press OK.
4. Deselect all projects in the Projects list.
5. Choose Repository | Abandon....

Report 'Check XYZ instances'
foreach .XYZ
{
foreach .XYZ
   {if not oid = oid;1; then 
      prompt; 'Object type: '; type; ' found several times in this graph!'; ask; 
   endif;}
}
Endreport

Copy the report definition to MetaEdit+'s Report Browser. Replace 'XYZ' with your object type and save the report definition.

When running the report, a dialog will be shown if the graph contains more than one occurrence of XYZ. Answer 'Cancel/No' to that and the following dialogs. If no duplicates are found, the report results in an empty output window.

You can of course change the action from prompt; to simply output a string, but note that if there are N objects, each will be reported N-1 times.

You can make OS X use a simpler but more reliable "Low Resolution" algorithm on MetaEdit+ to get essentially the same display as on a non-Retina screen. Rather than setting that for the MetaEdit+ 5.1 Workbench application as normal, you need to set it on the sub-application within the main application package:

1. Quit MetaEdit+ if it is currently open.
2. In the Finder, choose Applications from the Go menu.
3. Ctrl-click the MetaEdit+ 5.1 Workbench icon and select "Open Package Contents" from the pop-up menu.
4. Open Contents then Resources and click the "MetaEdit+ 5.1" icon so it is highlighted.
5. Choose Get Info from the File menu.
6. Place a checkmark next to "Open in Low Resolution" to enable Low Resolution mode.
7. Close Get Info and use Back to return from the package contents to the main Applications list.
8. Double click MetaEdit+ 5.1 Workbench to reopen it.

OS X will then scale up the MetaEdit+ windows so they are physically big enough on the screen, but without the rendering problems. On the higher resolution Retina screen this looks slightly blurred, particularly in contrast to the higher resolution of the rest of the desktop, but overall is generally the better choice.

The reporting language is designed for a top-down approach, and as such cannot directly produce such a report. Such reports are however easy to implement using the reporting language together with an external tool, e.g. Excel.

Make a report which goes through each graph and reports each object one per line, with its graph. If an object is in several graphs, there will be a line for that object in each graph. Excel can then correlate these lines to make a single line, showing that object and the graphs it is in.

1. Create a new report for Graph:
2. In a Graph Browser, select a graph and choose Reports | Create from its popup menu. In the Report Browser: Graph | Change Graph Type... (choose 'Graph'). Report | New... (give name 'Object-Graph List'). Fill in the body of the report (please note, in line 4 there should be one tab inside each pair of single quotes, '    '):
   

   Report 'Object-Graph List'
   filename; 'tmp.txt'; append;
   foreach .()
   { oid; ' '; id; ' '; type; ' '; oid;1; ' '; id;1; ' '; type;1; newline;
   }
   close;
   endreport

3. Save the report: Report | Save
4. Run the report on all graphs in currently opened projects: Report | Run... (choose all graphs). You'll need to press Enter once for each graph during the report run.
5. Open the generated file (tmp.txt) with Excel. Each row of the file includes the object's oid, name, type and after that the graph's oid, name and type, all separated with tabs. A wizard opens for converting the tab-separated file to Excel format:

1. Press Next>
2. Choose Text Qualifier {none}
3. Press Finish
4. Select the first row label with the right mouse button, and choose Insert
5. Fill in the first row with labels for each column: oid, object, objectType, gid, graph, graphType
6. Ctrl-End (goes to the last cell)
7. Shift-Ctrl-Home (selects all the data)
8. Data | PivotTable report
9. Next>
10. Next>
11. Drag each field in turn to the ROW area, keeping them in the same order
12. Drag the gid field from the right to the DATA area.
13. Double click the oid field on the left
14. set its 'Subtotals' radio button to none
15. Press the Advanced... button
16. set the AutoSort options to Descending, Using field 'Count of gid'
    OK
    OK

In the same way, set the Subtotals radio button to none for each of the other fields on the left.

17. Next>
18. Press Options...
    

    turn off Grand totals for rows and columns
    turn off 'Enable drilldown'
    OK

19. Finish

At the top of the pivot table are those objects that are reused most frequently.

You can scale the oid, gid and Total columns to be thin, or hide them completely. You can now save the file as an Excel document; remember to delete the tmp.txt file after closing Excel, as the report would otherwise append to the tmp.txt file each time it is run (necessary to report on many graphs to a single file).

Try it! Example of Object usage report (size 62976 bytes, in Excel97 format)

Please read the Evaluation manual's section 'Choosing method' (Manuals\meplus\Mp-6_3.html) and proceed as described there, i.e. 1) Select ‘UML’ from the list of projects and press OK.

Please note that if you ignore or make other selections than those proposed in the tutorial, the situation in later steps will probably be different from what is described in the tutorial.

Word 2000, 2002

1. On Word's Tools menu, point to Macro, and then click Security
2. Change security level to "Medium" and click OK.
3. Close the open .RTF document
4. Run the required report again
5. When Word opens and the "Macro Warning" dialog appears, select "Enable macros"

Please note that the Security Level change will remain to the next Word sessions. More detailed instructions about changing the Security Levels can be found from Word's online help "Change the security level for macro virus protection".

Word 2007

1. Word Options | Trust Center | Trust Center Settings ...
• ... | Macro Settings | Disable all macros with notification (default)
• ... | Trusted Publishers | if MetaCase is there already, you can stop here
2. Open the metaedit.dot or a file that uses it
3. Under the ribbon you should see a Security Warning
4. Click the Options... button on the warning
5. Check that the signature is signed by MetaCase
6. Choose to "Enable all code published by the publisher"

The macros in the document will now work, and MetaCase will have been added to the Truster Publishers. Opening documents will no longer give a warning: "Trusted Publishers" is checked before "Disable all macros with notification".