Add Activation columns

[ghost]

A lot of other msc generator allow for the user to add activation columns, these are like vertical boxes over a line that describes that that action is not finished and that perhaps that entity (related to that vertical line) is still processing and waiting.

for more info, please see this http://msc-generator.sourceforge.net/help/5.4/Commands.html

there is a section on activate/deactivate.

btw, your tool totally rocks!!!!

[sverweij]

hi @mgarzelli - thanks for the suggestion. I gather you mean something like this?

msc {
  wordwraparcs=true;

  a, b, log;

  a =>> b  [activate=true, label="hello"]; // or maybe simply 'activate'
  b -> log [label="a says hello."];
  b -> log [label="I'm saying hello to b back"];
  b >> a   [deactivate=true, label="hello back"];
}

I've played with the idea to add auto-activation for some time. I chickened out, however because the effort-to-benefit ratio to do that was way out of whack (caused by a combination conceptual questions I couldn't resolve satisfactorily and the way mscgenjs is currently implemented).

Manual activation (your feature request) will be somewhat simpler to implement, but not trivial either (Find a friendly syntax. Decide how to handle unbalanced activates/ deactivates. Find a clean way to render it without causing regression). I'll consider it, but give me some nights to sleep on it...

=> What's the concrete use case you have for this feature?

[ghost]

Wow! that is so spot on! that is exactly it! thank you so much! as soon as you have it implemented, your msc will officially be my favourite :)

my use case is legibility: it really helps I find when checking out what happens when and when a process starts and stops

[sverweij]

• placed as a candidate on the backlog
• some scenarios to take into account

[stale[bot]]

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