Cradle-5.2.1 Features

The Cradle-5.2.1 update provides several important new features, some important bug fixes, and some general improvements. The changes in this update are listed below, grouped by the Cradle module to which they relate.

Communications Changes

• The timeout parameter that Cradle uses to identify duplicate broadcasts has been made a configurable parameter. This will help Linux users of the Cradle API, since Linux tends to use the same port number repeatedly, while other operating systems do not.

Cradle-PDM (Product Data Management) Changes

• Bulk import facilities now allow auto-numbering options in the current project schema, or the schema being imported, to be temporarily disabled. This allows information to be imported with Overwrite set to On or Merge, even if auto numbering has been enabled.
• Bulk import facilities now allow alert reporting options in the current schema, or in the schema being imported, to be temporarily suppressed. This prevents large numbers of alerts being generated when items are imported with Owner set to As in File.
• Bulk import facilities now allow link rules in the current schema, or in the schema being imported, to be temporarily suspended.
• The initial number of zoom levels to be shown in a Hierarchy Diagram (HID) can now be set to 7, the previous limit was 5. Additional warnings are raised for what might otherwise be extremely large HIDs if this option is used.
• The current options for HID item attribute properties are now shown in the lists of properties currently selected for each item type.
• Issues related to the definition of category codes, category code values and category recognition strings in languages requiring UTF-8 encoding, such as Cyrillic, Korean and Chinese, have been corrected.
• Reading system alerts generated in large blocks could cause alerts to become corrupted. This has been fixed.

Cradle-API Changes

• The Cradle API has been extended to allow diagrams to be created and stored in the database through the API using either C/C++ or VB/VBA. There is a new Cradle API Reference manual that provides full explanations of all types of items in the database, including diagrams.
• The Cradle API call to print a diagram now allows the page size and orientation of the diagram to be specified. The defaults are for portrait orientation on A4.

Cradle-SYS (System Modelling) Changes

• Nested symbols inside Software Architecture Diagrams (SADs) can now butt directly against the boundaries of their container symbols, such as processes and tasks, or objects and classes.
• The use of name synchronisation could incorrectly mark items also being edited by the same user as being changed. This has been fixed.
• When diagrams and specifications are updated to synchronise names, their last modification dates are now updated, and an entry is included in their edit history (if enabled).
• When diagrams and specifications are saved, provide warning messages to the user if any items could not be updated to maintain name synchronisation, either because the user does not have RW access to such items, or they are locked.
• The Diagram Editor’s Name Symbol and Rename Symbol dialogues now have a ‘Save diagram’ checkbox. If selected, the diagram is saved when operations occur to ensure immediate name synchronisation. The checkbox is selected if name synchronisation is enabled. It is enabled by default in the 3SL as-supplied Cradle start-up files.
• A new facility has been added whereby Cradle will display warnings if the user is about to perform an operation that could:

Cause a model to become disconnected

Not be completely performed

for example, because the user does not have RW access to all the items involved in the operation, or because one or more of these items is currently locked in the database. This facility can be enabled or disabled as a user preference. It is enabled by default in the 3SL-supplied Cradle start-up files. The new mechanism applies to a range of operations, including:

• Reorder diagram
• Renumber diagram
• Delete diagram
• Rename diagram specifications
• Copy diagram
• Delete symbols
• Renumber symbol
• Replace symbol

Cradle-WEBP (Web Publisher) Changes

• Database items containing text in some Western European languages were not correctly generated in WEBP’s UTF-8 encoded web pages. This is now fixed.