Saudações da temporada, Feliz Natal,节日祝福, Prettige Feestdagen, Joyeuses Fêtes, Frohe Festtage, 계절의 인사, С Новым годом и Рождеством, Cyfarchion y Tymor
However you celebrate the end of 2017, 3SL would like to wish all its customers, potential customers, distributors, partners and staff, Season’s Greetings, a Happy Christmas and peaceful family times over the festive season. We’ll see you again in the new year.
The UK offices will be closed from close of business on Friday 22nd December to 2nd January 2018. There will be no one manning the phones. You can send support enquiries to support@threesl.com and we’ll deal with them as soon as we can.
The cradle.ini file on Windows® or .cradlerc file on Linux® is a configuration file holding the settings for Cradle. The top half of the file contains all the default settings (commented out) so you can always see the values ‘as shipped’. It isn’t a file for the every day user, but is something the system administrator may delve into to control users’ experience.
The values are per installation so the file is located in the %CRADLEHOME%\bin\exe\windows or $CRADLEHOME/bin/exe/[linux-ia32|linux-x86_64] directory. The settings will apply to all the clients that connect. So if you set your date display preference to DD/MM/YY all users will see this.
Users can override most of these default settings through their preferences. These are stored on a per user basis. This means that a user located in, say the USA can choose to show their date as MM.DD.YY. This will be their preference regardless of their Cradle username or project. They don’t have to change their files manually. Users can alter their settings via the Preferences button on the Home ribbon. However should admin need to get at them, their files are located in %CRADLEHOME%/admin/definitions/personal/NETWORK_USERNAME. These files are either non existent (if a user has never overridden a preference), or are just a delta of the differences between theirs and the default file. Therefore, don’t worry when there is not much in them.
Trouble shooting
If a user can’t see a new setting that’s been applied by the system administrator, it may be that they already had an override in their personal settings and this will continue to apply until they either set their personal value to match the global, or their personal copy of the cradle.ini or .cradlerc file is deleted.
Preserve Your Settings
We would recommend backing up your system cradle.ini or .cradlerc file.
Ok we didn’t manage to get Stevie Wonder on board, but we’re all still singing away at our desks!
Happy 30th
Thank you to all our loyal customers and friends past and present. We’re proud to have been of assistance in your projects. Thank you too to all the staff who over the years have changed Cradle into the multi module full lifecycle suite it is today. Keep an eye on our Birthday page for events and offers through our Birthday year.
Opportunities
Opportunities with 3SL producers of Cradle
Over Christmas is the last chance to get your applications in as we’ll be sifting through the applications in January See here for more details.
Banking Changes
Updated ring fence information and dealing with 3SL’s banking details. With budgets run annually make sure you follow these changes into the new financial year to ensure continued maintenance is paid into the right accounts, posted here.
GDPR
GDPR
As most people are aware, those doing business with any European country will have to abide by some stricter data protection guidelines. There’s a lot of hype and scaremongering going on at the moment as people try to come to grips with the extent of the changes. 3SL are undertaking their data audits to ensure we only hold personal data necessary to run 3SL and to support our Customer’s contracts. 3SL hold very little personally identifiable information on our customers, but even your name/email address/company need to be protected. We don’t sell or trade or provide information we hold with third parties, unless it is either a legal requirement to do so, or necessary to complete a contract such as with our Bank or Credit Card processor. We’ll be publishing our policies either on our website or to be made available on request. We hope you agree that we don’t send unnecessary communications to you, for example these newsletters are the way we communicate important changes, release information and articles that may assist in your use of Cradle. However, if we decide to classify any communications or interactions as extras, we may ask you to specifically opt in to receive them. We hope you’ll agree to continue to receive them and you will of course have the option to opt out at any time. If you have any questions at present, please send them to support@threesl.com . A brief initial steps guide can be downloaded from the ico
Social Media
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Find out what DIAT is an acronym for!! (OK we invented that one!) Celebrating scientific discoveries on X-Ray dayWhen I’m Calling You... contacting 3SL and what’s blocked if you send us an email.
Hints of the Month
Last month’s blog articles included a lot about cross references: How to load Cross References en masse. did you know you can load a cross reference from a CSV file? Mapping cross references for input from Document Loader The power of cross references when working out aggregate values . Other topics included defining a report for later use, no need to remember the settings you can save them and run later. You can read Hints & Tips in the 3SL Blog
A context diagram aids visualisation of where a project sits in relation to its external interactions. We don’t want to model those external systems, but we do want to know how they interact with our system.
Automatic wipers for a car don’t need to know how the weather works, but they do need to sense the presence of water on the windscreen. The context would, therefore, include the weather as an external influence with ‘rain’ or ‘rain present’ being signalled to our system. If our company only produces the wiper element the actual car is outside our scope. However, this is where we get our power from and it’s where we will install them so the car is part of our context. The interactions with the car such as ’12v supply’ and ‘user control signal’ are likely to show a part of the holistic context.
Data Flow Diagram (DFD)
In terms of functional analysis and design the DFD shows the external elements with which our main system interacts on the context diagram. This usually has only one process on it, and that is our system of interest.
Context Diagram – DFD
Taken from the Cradle demonstration project this diagram shows our system of interest is operating the aircraft. The externals that we interact with form the context within which the project operates. This includes the booking system, the fuel suppliers, the control tower and so on.
When the design and analysis are broken down at lower levels, the passenger details or navigation information will have to be handled by parts of the target system. If there is anything that does not balance at the lower levels, then a function must be missing. It implies that we have an input stimulus or an expected output and have nothing to handle or provide it.
Block Definition Diagram (bdd)
Context diagram notations are not restricted to Yourdon, a SysML bdd is also used to describe the context. Information gathered from the use cases and operational scenarios can be used to build a holistic view.
Context Diagram – bdd
Visual
Whilst not necessary, adding images to your context can aid communication to your stakeholders and customers. They don’t really have to understand the notation to visualise the ‘Passenger’ as a person interacting with the flight. In Cradle, images can be added to the diagram as standalone images, or can actually replace the symbol on the diagram. (The image in the latter will follow all the rules and have the underlying specification of the real diagram element).
A user wants to output bottom level items in Document Publisher. As bottom level items do not have anything linked below them, this can be set in a hierarchy table.
How this works for Bottom Level Items
All it takes is 3 rows in a hierarchy. The first row works as any item above the bottom level items. The second row will actually be for items on the bottom level. The third level is used as a check that the items are bottom level. It makes sure that no items are linked in a Downward direction using that Link Type for the 2nd row to be output.
If there are items linked below the item, using the Link Type set, then it is not a bottom level item and will not be output. Although this can be used with many different hierarchy levels, as long as the last row is always set as below.
Creating the hierarchy Table
So open the Hierarchy Details dialog and set the top item type to the type you require (here we are using Requirements). Leave level this as it is already set. Click the Add Row button and set the Follow Links to Downwards. The arrow next to the second level item show point towards it. Set the Link Type for this level, in this case it is RELATED TO. Next is the Publish Subject Items option which sets what will be published based on your links. Set Publish Subject Items to Only if link exists.
Select the second level item type and click the Copy Row button.
Adding and Copying rows in Hierarchy Details in Document Publisher
Select the last row and click the Indent button. The Publish Subject Items now needs to be set to Only if link does not exist.
Removing options set from the top and bottom nodes.
The nodes without any options set should be grey, click OK and repeat for each Field required. All item attribute nodes in the Tags sidebar now show as on (Row 2).
Showing all the item nodes are set to Row 2
Generating the template
When the template is generated, only the second row item will be output containing the bottom level items. For a short example to be output, the Key is set to 1.1*.
Test_Login is a command line utility supplied with the Cradle Suite to help diagnose connection problems between the Cradle client and CDS (Cradle Database Server).
Steps
At a command prompt cd %CRADLEHOME%\bin\exe\windows\or cd $CRADLEHOME/bin/exe/linux-ia32 or linux-x86_64
Execute test_login.exe or ./test_login.exe
Agree to continue with 'y'
For a basic test select 3 to login to the DEMO project as MANAGER
Select 7 to start the test
This will then tell you the method being used to find the CDS for now press 'y'
Move through the stages pressing 'y' each time and observe the result
Test_Login
If all is well the process will complete without errors.
If there is a problem an error will be raised (for example if a connection can’t be established because the CDS is not accessible or running Stage 1 would fail. At this point a user could try different CDS connection methods to diagnose the issue.
The ability to try different users and projects allow elimination of problematic installations or bad users.
Watch this space for updates during our 30th Birthday Year……..
Happy Birthday!
Happy 30th
Thank you to all our loyal customers and friends past and present. We’re proud to have been of assistance in your projects.
Thank you too to all the staff who over the years have changed Cradle into the multi module full lifecycle suite it is today.
Mark Walker founder and Managing Director of 3SL said:
“I am delighted with the success of Cradle and the way 3SL has been able to develop a tool that has influenced and supported so many projects world wide”
Structured Software Systems Limited’s official start date was 1st December 1987 and trades under the catchier moniker 3SL.
