Managing actors with actors grid

Actors Grid is a table with actors listed in it. It lets you to access all actors in a project or diagram, check their related use cases, lookup and create actors.

Creating the actors grid

Click on UML on toolbar and select Actor Grid from the drop down menu.

Open Actor Grid

The overview of actors grid

The actors grid

Field Description Click this button to reveal Name and Model Element. To hide them, click this button again. Create a new actor. To find an actor by providing its name or documentation. To open the specification of actor selected in grid. To show the view(s) of actor selected in grid. To visualize an actor selected in grid.   Add/ remove property column(s) in Term list.   To update the display on the Term list. To select the scope for showing mdoel elements on Term list. To filter actors by name. The rubber on the right hand side is for clearing the filter content.

The fields in actors grid

Accessing use case from actor

Click on the name of use case in the Related use cases cell of the actor that we want to access its related use case.

Access use case from actor

Creating actor

1. Click on  above the grid.
   

   Create an actor in grid

2. Name the actor. You may optionally reset the ID by double-clicking on the ID cell and entering a new one.
   

   Name actor

   NOTE:

   The actors created in actors grid are automatically put under the Actors model. You may move to another model through dragging and dropping in Model Explorer.

Visualizing an actor

You can form a diagram with actor, or show it in an existing diagram by visualizing it in actors grid. To visualize an actor:

1. Select the actor to visualize.
   

   Select an actor to visualize

2. Click on above the grid.
   

   Click Visualize button

3. If you want to visualize actor in a new diagram, check Create new diagram, select the type of diagram to create and specify the diagram name.
   

   Name a new diagram

   If you want to visualize actor in an existing diagram, check Show in existing diagram and select a diagram in the diagram list.
   

   Select an existing use case diagram to visualize the actor

4. Click Create button at the bottom of the dialog box.

Filtering actors

By filtering actors, actors that do not match the required naming convention are filtered. To filter, enter the name of actor, or part of its name at the top right of grid. You can make use of the asterisk (*) character to represent any character(s).

Filter actor by name

Finding actor

To find out actors that match specific naming or documentation pattern:

1. Click above the grid.
   

   Find an actor

2. In the Search Text text box, enter the text to search. Specify whether to search the names and/or documentation of actors. Click Find button. As a result, the grid is updated to highlight the matched actor(s).

   The matched actors are highlighted