Rhapsody Tip #37 - Filter diagrams and the browser with CustomViews (Intermediate)

You can easily get the impression with IBM Rational Rhapsody's CustomViews that they're too powerful for their own good. The possibilities are endless though, hence they have a lot of pent-up power you can unleash. First introduced in 8.2.1, this video actually uses 8.3.1 to show them (hence you'll see me double-click the drawing toolbar to enable stamp mode!).

Rhapsody's CustomViews are a layer on top-up of existing layers, hence this video tries to build things up from the ground level. I first create a tag for ASIL A to D ratings and use a stereotype to convey the tag value to multiple elements. I can then easily create Query elements in the browser able to find elements with particular tag values, e.g., a query that finds all the elements with an ASIL tag value of D. Once I have the Queries built then I form some simple CustomViews that use the queries. Like Query elements, CustomViews appear in the browser, hence can be shared between projects in a profile. They can also be used to filter the browser. This is a bit like putting your reading glasses on (if you have them). Unlike filtering the browser with queries, you can multi-select the CustomViews to show in the browser or on diagrams (like putting on bifocal glasses?). Of course, this video just shows one example of usage. There are many other possibilities (modeling variants is one that springs to mind). Hope it helps!