Welcome to Telelogic Product Support
  Home Downloads Knowledgebase Case Tracking Licensing Help Telelogic Passport
Telelogic DOORS (steve huntington)
Decrease font size
Increase font size
Topic Title: I'm confused???
Topic Summary:
Created On: 6-Sep-2007 18:13
Status: Post and Reply
Linear : Threading : Single : Branch
Search Topic Search Topic
Topic Tools Topic Tools
Quick Reply Quick Reply
Subscribe to this topic Subscribe to this topic
E-mail this topic to someone. E-mail this topic
Bookmark this topic Bookmark this topic
View similar topics View similar topics
View topic in raw text format. Print this topic.
 6-Sep-2007 18:13
User is offline View Users Profile Print this message


Scott Boisvert

Posts: 348
Joined: 14-Apr-2006

I've been having e-mail traffic with one of our users today about tables and he made the following comment:

"....when I went to DOORS training in Baltimore the DOORS guy told us never to use the DOORS tables but paste the information in instead ...."

Why would someone from Telelogic tell him that?  It doesn't make sense that they would not want you to use the tool.


-------------------------
Scott Boisvert
Engineering Tools Administrator
L-3 Communications - Avionics Systems
scott.boisvert@l-3com.com
Report this to a Moderator Report this to a Moderator
 6-Sep-2007 22:31
User is offline View Users Profile Print this message


Louie Landale

Posts: 2070
Joined: 12-Sep-2002

DOORS tables are pretty weak all-in-all. There is a general opinion to avoid using them. Huge tables should be broken up into individually tables about the size of 3/4 of a page (that is, each sub-table comfortably prints from MS-Word). In Word, Cut the table, then Insert >Object >MS-Word Document and paste the table into the new window. Format and adjust page width and lengths. Close the document and you can see it in MS-Word. Select it once, copy, and paste it into a DOORS object text.

Small tables are reasonable pasted directly into DOORS: copy the table in MS-Word, paste into Object Text. I call these 'RTF Tables'. You can change the text of the tables in DOORS but cannot change the boundries or size; but you can always copy the table in DOORS, paste back into Word, make adjustments (like adding rows or columns), then copy it back to DOORS. These tables are superior in that the text of the tables is searchable in DOORS, whereas the OLE pasted tables in the first paragraph above are not searchable in DOORS.

- Louie
Report this to a Moderator Report this to a Moderator
 7-Sep-2007 01:01
User is offline View Users Profile Print this message


Paul Miller

Posts: 376
Joined: 2-Oct-2002

Regardless of whether you use an RM tool like DOORS or not, tables have always been a problem for requirements management.

Whether you use DOORS tables or embed MSWord or MSEXcel tables as OLE objects, they need to be kept as small as possible. Large tables are just plain trouble and if they can't be split up into smaller individual table segments, then you can bet that other stakeholders like testers and HW\SW engineers are going to experience interpretation and decomposition problems.

Always ask the question, does having the information in a tablular format provide any distinct advantage to the reader over presenting the requirements as individual statements or as bullet lists which are far easier to manage? If so, then use a table - but keep it small. A good use of tables is when they act as an aid to help clarify what has already been written as individual statements - in this case they are categorised as "Information Only" but offer an alternative clarifying view.

-------------------------
Paul Miller
Specification Practices Specialist,
EuroCyber,
Melbourne, Australia.
Mobile: +61 (0)418 135 103
Web Site: http://www.eurocyber.biz
E-mail: miller@eurocyber.biz">pmiller@eurocyber.biz
Report this to a Moderator Report this to a Moderator
 7-Sep-2007 15:11
User is offline View Users Profile Print this message


Kevin Murphy

Posts: 206
Joined: 15-Jul-2005

Scott,

If you ever tried working with DOORS tables for an extended period of time, I don't think you'd be asking the question.

DOORS tables--I'm going to say it--suck. The implementation is just terrible, and DOORS' object-oriented nature really works against it with tables. I can't link to a row, instead, I must link to the object in the row. And try modifying the table later. Horrible. The only good thing about them is that they export to Word wonderfully.

I don't like RTF tables, as they may work to be searchable, but have their own formatting limitations (and having to go into word and cut and paste means more work for the end user). Lou is right though, using this method, the table is searchable.

I use a macro when I import Word documents. Before the import, I run the macro and it converts all tables to OLE objects. That way when I import the document, I don't have to copy and paste tables.

The reason DOORS tables exist is marketing only--"We support tables in our modules, and they export to Word." This isn't a case of using the tool.

If you have a hammer and a saw and you need to chop down the tree...if you've paid for both, why not use the saw, even if you can eventually take the tree down with the hammer?

-------------------------
Kevin Murphy
http://www.baselinesinc.com
The Requirements Management Experts

Edited: 10-Sep-2007 at 14:05 by Kevin Murphy
Report this to a Moderator Report this to a Moderator
 10-Sep-2007 00:18
User is offline View Users Profile Print this message


Paul Miller

Posts: 376
Joined: 2-Oct-2002

quote:

Originally posted by: Kevin Murphy

.....The only good thing about them is that they export to Word wonderfully.....



Have you ever tried exporting DOORS tables to MSWord using the Table format option? Yuk! MSWord has supported the nesting of a table inside of a table cell since Word 2000, I've never understood why Telelogic has not been able to incorporate this feature into DOORS given that we have had 3 major versions of DOORS released since 2000.

-------------------------
Paul Miller
Specification Practices Specialist,
EuroCyber,
Melbourne, Australia.
Mobile: +61 (0)418 135 103
Web Site: http://www.eurocyber.biz
E-mail: miller@eurocyber.biz">pmiller@eurocyber.biz
Report this to a Moderator Report this to a Moderator
 10-Sep-2007 14:06
User is offline View Users Profile Print this message


Kevin Murphy

Posts: 206
Joined: 15-Jul-2005

Paul,

I have never tried to export tables in export table format. I was talking about book format.

Have you asked Telelogic for this feature? My guess is maybe there isn't a huge demand. I would have never thought to even try exporting tables in export table format.

-------------------------
Kevin Murphy
http://www.baselinesinc.com
The Requirements Management Experts
Report this to a Moderator Report this to a Moderator
 17-Sep-2007 11:55
User is offline View Users Profile Print this message


Graham Stradling

Posts: 67
Joined: 19-Sep-2002

We've moaned a fair amount about the DOORS Tables,

adjusting column size is poor,
no merging of cells,
no ability to associate to a column outside of main, so I can't create a view with no main column that displays tables,
displaying data other then Object Text is awkward,

BUT!!

as said they do export to word book format well, especially if you've gone the docexpress 4 route.

The ole method has some pitfalls too, the notable one for us is that if you do a diff mark the whole OLE woll be shown as changed so you can't narrow down to a single change....

-------------------------
Graham Stradling,

Alcatel-Lucent.
Report this to a Moderator Report this to a Moderator
Statistics
20925 users are registered to the Telelogic DOORS forum.
There are currently 0 users logged in.
The most users ever online was 15 on 15-Jan-2009 at 16:36.
There are currently 0 guests browsing this forum, which makes a total of 0 users using this forum.
You have posted 0 messages to this forum. 0 overall.

FuseTalk Standard Edition v3.2 - © 1999-2009 FuseTalk Inc. All rights reserved.