The YT Explorer view can be used to navigate over traces and artifacts in a tree view. It also provides access to several traceability functions, like filtering and reporting over its menu. Expanding the tree shows the artifacts related to the traces. The tree is pruned in order to avoid cycles. A double-click on an artifact shows that artifact in its origin editor. By default, YT Explorer displays only linked artifacts, but it can be configured to also display unlinked ones.
In the YT Explorer tree, you can select one or more artifacts. Selecting multiple artifacts is useful to populate the YT Editor or YT Favorites views quickly, or to delete multiple links at the same time.
If an element in the YT Explorer tree has a lot of children, the latter are grouped into chunks with separate nodes that can be opened and closed individually. By default, „a lot of children” means „thousand or more”. You can configure that number in the preferences under Layout and Views, i.e., select Window → Preferences in the main menu, then open YAKINDU Traceability → Layout and Views.
Please note: For performances reasons, the Select All action (
[Ctrl]+A) will not select the entire tree if the number of expanded elements is too high. The exact behavior of this action is undetermined in this case. The only guarantee is that this action will select all items currently visible (on screen), plus a few more. The same goes for multi-selection via[Shift]+click or[Ctrl]+click, which might not select the entire range of elements if there are too many elements.
The menu provides access to several grouping modes.
By default, the YT Explorer shows only linked artifacts (i.e., artifacts with at least one incoming or outgoing link), regardless of the chosen grouping. By activating the toggle „Show Unlinked Artifacts” in the menu (or by pressing the corresponding tool bar icon), you can display also unlinked artifacts (i.e., artifacts without any incoming or outgoing link). Note that this can incur a significant performance penalty when there are many unlinked artifacts. Unlinked artifacts are marked with the same symbol that is used for the „Show Unlinked” toggle. For the grouping mode „Link type”, no unlinked artifacts are shown independent of the toggle state.
The YT Explorer provides two means to filter the content:
Textual filters
Textual filters can be defined in the text field at the top of the YT Explorer. If a textual filter is set, the Explorer shows only artifacts (and the belonging links) with a name that conforms to that filter. Note that you need to hit enter in order to confirm your filter. Entering a blank (empty) text or a click on the rubber icon clears the filter.
The Regexp checkbox controls whether the entered text works as a plain text filter or as a regular expression:
The YT Explorer can be put into synchronize selection mode. If the mode is activated, the YT Explorer will listen for selection events and if a artifact is selected that has trace links, only the related artifacts will be displayed. This mode can be activated by clicking
in the toolbar or by selecting
Synchronize Selections in the menu.
YT visualizes different states of artifacts via so-called label decorations. These decorations can be enabled or disabled under Window → Preferences → General → Appearance → Label Decorations. The label decorations specific to YAKINDU Traceability are on the bottom of the list. These are the following label decorations to enable or disable:
The image shows the default settings for the YAKINDU-Traceability-specific label decorations. The YT Artifact Type Decorator and the YT Children numbers decorator are disabled by default, all others are enabled. Some of the decoration labels are only visible in the YT Explorer, others only in the YT Overview and some are visible in both views.
The following sections will go into detail for each label decoration. Each section includes an image that shows example artifacts with the corresponding label decoration. All other label decorations are disabled in the preferences.
Artifacts can be labeled with three different issue types via the
YT Artifact Issue Decorator. An issue can be labeled as information, warning or error. The decoration icon will be in the top left corner of the artifact icon. This decoration is shown both in the
YT Explorer and in the
YT Overview. The example below shows the error issue decoration for artifacts.
If it is not possible or not permitted to edit a particular artifact, it will be labeled on the bottom right of the artifact icon with a lock icon as shown in the image.
The
YT Artifact Type Decorator writes the type of each Artifact as a suffix behind the name of the artifact, separated with a colon.
With the
YT Artifact Unlinked Decorator enabled, a small icon will appear on the top right of the icon for each artifact which has no link to another artifact. This icon is visible in the
YT Explorer and in the
YT Overview, as shown in the picture below.
The
YT Artifact Adapter Decorator decorates artifact types with the data access type as a suffix. Similar to the
YT Artifact Type Decorator.
The
YT Children numbers decorator is one of the two decorators which are not enabled per default. When it is enabled, it counts how many children a node has. It doesn’t count the children of the children, it counts just on the first level. For example, in the picture below, the
Requirements (Excel) Adapter has 12 children and the artifact
R Module A:3 has 5 children.
Similar to the
YT Artifact Issue Decorator, a link can be labeled with three different icons: information, warning and error. This label is shown on the link between two artifacts in the
YT Overview. In the example below, there is an error icon on the link.
This decorator is only visible in the
YT Overview and marks a link between two artifacts with a lock if this link is not editable.
This decorator is visible in the
YT Explorer if the
Group By setting is set to
Link Type. Then, the artifact types involved in each link type is shown behind the link type.
Similar to the
YT Link Relation Decorator, this decoration is visible in the
YT Explorer if the
Group By setting is set to
Link Type. It is labeled with an issue icon in the top left corner of the link type icon.
When an artifact is linked with itself, we call it a self-linked artifact. With the
YT Self-Linked Artifact Decorator enabled, you can see which artifacts have this property. When it is enabled, self-linked artifacts will be labeled with a symbol behind the name. This symbol is visible in the
YT Explorer and in the
YT Overview.
