I wish everybody a “model” 2018! I had a little break during the christmas and new year holidays. Traveling is cool, but even a modeling traveler needs some rest once and a while.
But now we started a whole new year, 2018, and we have lots of plans to improve modeling in embedded.
IBM is also cooperating, they released Rhapsody 8.3, a brand new version with lots of changes!

AUTOSAR: migration of models to older versions of AUTOSAR

In release 8.3, for migration of AUTOSAR projects to an older version of AUTOSAR, additional target AUTOSAR versions have been added.

Code-centric mode: roundtripping changes to operation signatures

Prior to release 8.3, in code-centric mode, if you renamed an operation or modified its parameters and then roundtripped the code, the old operation was automatically removed and a new one was created in its place.

Beginning in this release, when roundtripping such changes, you have the option of retaining the existing operation and having it marked with a stereotype called MergeCandidate. After roundtripping, you can then go through these operation and merge them with the new operation that was created. The new operation body and declaration will then be copied to the existing operation, which will retain any other existing information such as dependencies. The second operation will be discarded. To enable this option, set the value of the property MarkMergeCandidateOperations to True.

Code-centric mode: support in 64-bit version of Rhapsody

You can now use code-centric mode in the 64-bit version of Rhapsody. However, code cannot be generated while in code-centric mode.

Configuration Management integration: renaming/deletion of Rhapsody units

Prior to release 8.3, if you renamed a Rhapsody element that was saved as a separate unit, the name of the file representing the unit would always keep its original name. Beginning in this release, if you configured Rhapsody to use the integration with Rational Team Concert (using the CMTool property), then when you rename a model element that is a unit, you will be asked whether you want to also change the name of the underlying file. This behavior can be controlled by the property RenameActivation.

Similarly, if you delete a unit, you will be asked whether you want to also delete the underlying file. The deletion behavior is controlled by the property DeleteActivation.

Modeling: “satisfy” stereotype in non-SysML projects

The “satisfy” stereotype, previously available only in SysML projects, can now be applied to dependencies in all Rhapsody projects.

Modeling: ownership of dependency between two other elements

Beginning in release 8.3, an element can be the owner of a dependency between two other elements. Among other uses, this makes it possible to create a dependency between two read-only model elements.

Modeling: selection of type for flowport

Now, when you try selecting a type for a flowport, the dialog remembers the last location used, allowing you quicker access to the relevant elements.

 

Rhapsody repository files: move to XML format

Beginning in release 8.3, the files used to save Rhapsody models are in XML format. To help differentiate between the new repository files and the repository files used in previous releases, the letter x has been added to the file extensions. For example, the main file for the project now uses the extension .rpyx instead of .rpy. Existing projects that are saved in version 8.3 of Rhapsody will be saved in the new format.

Statecharts: multi-line display of code for entry action, exit action, and internal transitions

Prior to release 8.3, in the graphical compartment used to display the code for a state’s entry action, exit action, and internal transitions, each of these items was allocated a single line, regardless of how long the code was.

Beginning in this release, there is an option to have the compartment display multiple lines of code when required. For individual states, this can be set in the Display Options dialog. If you want to set this as the default behavior in all your projects, you can add the following property to your site.prp file with a value of True: General::Graphics::SupportMultiLineCompartment.

Support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2

Rational Rhapsody can now be run on version 7.2 of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

TestConductor/ATG: information about model elements not covered

In TestConductor and ATG, requirement coverage results now also include information about the model elements that are not covered.

TestConductor: testing of private/protected operations

Beginning in this release, TestConductor includes an option for testing private and protected operations by calling them directly. See the example and related documentation in the TestConductor Testing Cookbook.

TestConductor: user guide for assertion-based testing

The documentation for TestConductor now includes a new user guide (TestConductor_User_Guide.pdf) that deals only with C/C++ assertion-based testing mode. The existing user guide (RTC_User_Guide.pdf) now deals only with animation-based testing mode (Ada, Java, and C/C++).

User Interface: enhanced dialog for setting display options

Many element types now use a common tab-based dialog for setting display options.

User Interface: use of new combo box for filtering

A number of dialogs now use a new combo box that dynamically filters list elements as you type.

XMITookit: UML 2.4.1 namespace

XMIToolkit now recognizes the UML 2.4.1 namespace

XMIToolkit: activities with horizontal swimlanes

Now, when importing activities that contain horizontal swimlanes, the swimlanes are rotated so that they can be brought into Rhapsody.

In the next week we will test 8.3 ourselves and check compatibility with our RXF.

Happy modeling with Rhapsody in 2018!

Walter van der Heiden (wvdheiden@willert.de)