Lattix Architect User Interface

The user interface allows you to load in multiple projects, each with multiple views. The Lattix Architect User Interface screen is divided into 6 areas:

• Menu Bar: Each item on the Menu Bar can be pulled down to reveal a sub-menu. The action performed by the sub-menu item can depend on the current selection in the View Pane.

• Tool Bar: Each icon on the tool bar can be clicked on to perform an action. Note that the action can be depend on the current selection in the View Pane.

• Left Pane: The left pane contains the Navigator and the Repository. Select the Navigator or the Repository tabs on the left to bring up or hide the Navigator or the Repository tree.

• Middle Pane (View Pane): Shows the Home or the Conceptual Architecture Diagram (CAD) or the Dependency Structure Matrix (DSM) view. Reports are also viewed in this pane.

• Right Pane: Shows the context sensitive properties associated with the selection in the Middle Pane. Select the tabs on the right to bring up the appropriate property pane, such as Usage, Rules, Violations, etc.

• Message Pane: The Message Pane is a text area where useful free form text information is generated. Users can copy text from this pane. You can bring up or hide the Message Pane using the Menu Item (Window-> Show Message Pane).

Tool Bar Icons

	Create a New Project
	Open Lattix Repository Dialog Box in order to create new tracks, upload new snapshots and otherwise manage the repository
	Open a Lattix Project File
	Save Lattix Project to File
	Refresh Display
	Undo Last Action
	Redo the Last Action that was Undone
	Find Subsystem(s) in Project
	Cut Selected Subsystem(s)
	Paste Cut Subsystem(s)
	Paste Cut Subsystem(s) into a Subsystem
	Create a New Subsystem
	Delete Selected Subsystem(s)
	Move Selected Subsystem Down
	Move Selected Subsystem Up
	Expand Selected Subsystem One Level of Hierarchy
	Collapse Selected Subsystem One Level of Hierarchy
	Display Project Home (in the Middle Pane)
	Go to Find Issues Home
	From the adjacent pull down menu, choose and apply a Partitioning algorithm to the Selected Subsystem
	Go to the Previous View and Selections
	Go the Next View and Selections
	Toggle Cell Comment Indicator Display
	Toggle Cell CanUse-Rule Indicator
	Toggle Cell CannotUse-Rule Indicator
	Toggle Cell Violation Indicator
	Toggle Hidden Dependency Indicator
	Toggle - Change Cursor to CrossHair
	Toggle - Lock Properties Tab from Updating with Selection in Display Pane
	Toggle - Turn off Display Updates during Edits

Home Pane

The Home Pane displayed in the middle pane. It is displayed when a project is created or by going on the Home Icon in the Toolbar.

Home is divided into three sections that provide short cuts to some commonly used actions:

• Project Section: Provides basic project actions and displays some basic information.

• View Section: Shows the current set of Views and provides links for creating a new DSM or a CAD.

• Reports Section: Provides links to run basic reports.

Navigator Pane

The Navigator Pane is on the left. The Navigator tree shows the projects that have been loaded. The Navigator tree also shows Data Source, Subsystems, Views, Tags, Reports and Worklist for each project. Context specific menu items for each type of node in the tree can be brought up by selecting the node and right clicking on it.

To select a Project home page, a View or a report in the Navigator, double-click on the item. A yellow arrow will indicate the item being displayed.

Repository Pane

The Repository Pane is on the left. Lattix Architect can connect to multiple Repositories. Each Repository can have multiple Project Tracks. Each Project Track can have any number of Project Snapshots. Double clicking on a snapshot loads the project.

Usage Property Pane

The Usage pane on the right is one of the most useful panels in Lattix Architect. It enables a very detailed analysis and drill-down of dependencies. The Usage tab contains two panes - a Used By pane at the top and a Uses pane at the bottom. These two tabs are organized as a tree hierarchy though you can switch the display to a tabular mode by clicking on the icon at the upper left corner of each pane. The leaf level of the tree in the Uses pane shows the kind of dependency.

When you select a cell in the DSM or a line in CAD: The Used By pane lists the (source/consumer) subsystems that make use of the (target/provider) subsystems listed in the Uses pane. To drill down further within the context of the cell: Select a subsystem in the Used By pane and the Uses pane then shows only the subsystems that the selected subsystem uses. You can also drill down from the Used By pane by selecting a subsystem on that pane and the Uses pane lists the subsystems that make use of the selected subsystem.

When you select a subsystem in the DSM or CAD: The Used By pane lists all the subsystems that use the selected subsystem in the row header. The Uses pane shows all the subsystems that the selected subsystem uses; this list also includes all the external dependencies. You can drill down further within the context of the cell: Select a subsystem in the Used By pane and the Uses pane then shows everything that the selected subsystem uses. You can also drill down from the Used By pane by selecting a subsystem on that pane and the Uses pane lists the subsystems that make use of the selected subsystem.

When you select $root: The Used By pane shows the decomposition hierarchy. The Uses pane shows all the external subsystems. You can drill down further by selecting an external subsystem in the Uses pane and the Used By pane will list all the users of the selected external dependency.

You can do a variety of operations by selecting a subsystem and right clicking to bring up the pop-up menu on either pane in the Usage tab.

Note that some of the options are greyed out if they aren’t applicable at that selected node. For instance, the View Source File… menu item is enabled if the selected node is a single source element (such as a file, class, method etc). The Clipboard sub-menus enable you to copy data into the clipboard so that it can be pasted into editor or spreadsheet applications.

Configuring Preferences

You can configure many of the default settings to tailor Lattix Architect to your environment. Bring up the Preferences Dialog through View –> Preferences.

Grid Appearance

Row Header Style: The default DSM display rotates the parent on its side when it is expanded. You can use this option to organize the display as a Tree.

Column Header Style: The default shows both the subsystem number and name in the column header. You can turn off the display of the column header name.

Dependency Mark Orientation: By default, the dependencies are read down columns (A –> uses –> B has A in the Column and B in the row). You can change this so that you read dependencies across rows (A –> uses –> B, will have A in the Row and B in the Column).

Subsystem Ordering: Configure Ordering.

• The default is “Depends over Provides”. This means that subsystems that provide to others are at the bottom. This corresponds to a stacked or layered view of the architecture.

• The alternative is “Provides over Depends”. This is useful for a task or process oriented view, where tasks are sequenced in time, and subsequent tasks depend on previous tasks.

DSM Cells: Configure Cells in the Matrix

• Show Subsystem Borders: When a subsystem is expanded hierarchically, a border is generated around the children to make it easier to discern.

• Show Dependency Strength: You can turn this option OFF to display the classic ‘X’ notation for dependency strength.

DSM Partitioning:

• Recursive Partitioning: When you choose to partition a DSM, you can do so recursively (i.e. partition every subsystem within the system you have selected) or non-recursively (i.e. only partition the top-level members of the system you have selected). If the Recursive Partitioning button is ticked, recursive partitioning will be the default option for all future projects created. Note that if you change your mind after having created a project, recursive partitioning can be turned off for a project either via the project properties (Project –> Project Properties –> Display –> Recursive Partitioning) or by choosing the drop-down arrow adjacent to the Partitioning toolbar icon, choosing “…” and deselecting “Recursive” in the dialog.

• Show Virtual Subsystem Borders: Toggle to turn off the display of virtual subsystem borders.

Header Expansion Warning Limit: When you click to display the children of a subsystem, a warning will be produced if the number of children exceeds the limit (default is 200). This is typically used to handle the case where a subsystem is flat and has thousands of children.

Grid Colors

Configure various color settings for cells when they are selected, disabled etc.

Line Colors

Configure the colors of line in the Conceptual Architecture Diagram (CAD) based on whether they are going up, down, right or left.

Cell Indicator Colors

Configure the color for the various indicators on a cell such as Rule Violation, Can-Use Rule, Cannot-Use Rule and Cell Comment.

Subsystem Appearance

Set the colors for various levels of the hierarchy.

External Viewer Configuration

External Source Viewer

Set the various external editors or viewers that you want to use in conjunction with Lattix Architect. These External Viewers must then be configured for the module that you are using.

The following atom or dependency properties can be passed to an external viewer:

• sourcefile

• linenumber

• link

For instance, Notepad++ can be configured as follows:

• Add Editor Id as Notepad++

• Add Command as C:notepad++ansinotepad++.exe

• Add Arguments as ${sourcefile} -n${linenumber}

With this configuration, Notepad++ will come up positioned on the linenumber of a dependency when user selects the View Source menu item.

You can also configure Microsoft Office to be invoked from the ‘link’ property in the Info pane as follows:

• Add Editor Id as Cmd

• Add Command as cmd

• Add Arguments as /c “start “” ${link}”

Additional examples for Eclipse, Visual Studio and others are provided in the FAQ.

Source Directory Map

The Lattix Project File will often contain the source file for an element. This is typically the value for the machine on which the project is created. Others may have copies of the source in a different directory on their machine. This map allows the directory to be mapped so that Lattix looks for the file in other directories based on the map. Mapping across Windows and Linux can be done.

Dependency Options

Dependency Strength Type:

• Knowledge-Based Subsystem Dependency Strength: If two subsystems have dependencies between each other, the strength is the count of the children of the subsystems that have dependencies.

• Knowledge-Based Dependency Strength: Dependency between two subsystems is the aggregation of dependencies between their children with the provision that the strength of dependency between two leaf subsystems is always taken to be one.

• Usage Based Dependency Strength: Dependency between two subsystems is the aggregation of dependencies between their children.

Identity Style:

• None: A ‘.’ is placed in the identity diagonal. This corresponds to the classic notation of DSMs.

• Percent: The cell in the diagonal denotes the percentage of atoms within that partition and its descendants. This helps users quickly identify and focus on large subsystems.

• Strength: The cell in the diagonal denotes the strength of the dependencies within the descendants of the subsystem.

Dependency Terminology:

• Source/Target: When A –> uses –> B, A is referred to as the Source and B is referred to as the Target

• Consumer/Provider: When A –> uses –> B, A is referred to as the Consumer and B is referred to as the Provider

Logging

You can set logging to Informational or Debug. Logging messages appear in the Message Pane at the bottom.

Scripting (directories)

Configure directories where you want to maintain scripts. By default, scripts are kept in the scripts directory where Lattix Architect is installed. If users want to write and maintain their own scripts, they can designate the directories where their scripts will be kept.

Checkers

Configure the issue limit for Checkers.

Metrics

Configure aspects of metrics calculations and display.

Statistics

Enable or disable Statistics collection.

Configuring Module Defaults

• Configure the default set of rules for each module.

• Configure the default for module specific options of each module.

• Configure the default External Editor. The default External Editor must already be specified as an External Viewer.