Image Linker

What it is and why it exists

Requirements often show pictures: screen layouts, diagrams, photos, signal tables. In IBM DOORS Next a picture placed in the text of an artifact is an artifact of its own, but nothing links the requirement to it. When someone replaces or edits the picture, impact analysis and traceability views do not show which requirements depend on it.

Image Linker finds every picture embedded in the text of the artifacts of a module (or of the selected artifacts) and creates a link of the type you choose from each artifact to its pictures, in one controlled run. On request it also links other embedded artifacts, such as embedded tables or diagrams.

Problems it solves

• Pictures in requirement texts that are invisible to impact analysis.
• A changed diagram or screen layout whose affected requirements nobody can find.
• Hundreds of embedded pictures that would have to be linked by hand, artifact by artifact.
• No record of which picture links exist and which pictures come from outside DOORS Next.

Benefits

• Preview before any change: every embedded picture is shown as To link, Already linked or Not resolvable.
• Never guesses: pictures from other web sites or servers, or stored inside the text, are only listed, never linked.
• Your link type and direction: any link type of the project, outgoing or incoming; pictures only, or any embedded artifact.
• Safe defaults: links are created in the module context, as DOORS Next does inside a module; links on base artifacts only when you choose it.
• Long runs under control: whole modules of any size, existing links skipped, progress and Stop, Continue after a stop on very large modules, failures with Retry and an Excel change report.

How to use

1. Add the widget to the ELM Mini Dashboard next to the module.
2. In Settings, click Change and choose the Link type, the Direction (Outgoing or Incoming) and What counts (Pictures only or Any embedded artifact); tick Create the links on base artifacts only if the links belong on the base artifacts. Click Done.
3. Under Links, choose Whole module and click Find embedded pictures, or select artifacts and choose Selection: the selection is checked by itself. Look at the artifacts and their pictures under Embedded items.
4. Click Create links, read the confirmation and click Create N links. Without a search first, Create links on the whole module finds and links in one run.
5. Review the result block and download the change report with Log if needed.

Good to know

• Each artifact is read again just before its links are created, so pictures added or removed since the search are taken into account.
• The same picture shown twice in one text gets one link; a picture used in many artifacts gets one link from each of them.
• Only pictures stored in DOORS Next on the same server can be linked; others are listed as Not resolvable.
• The list shows names and IDs, not thumbnails, so even very large modules stay light on the browser.
• Always work in a change set: discarding it is the only way to take created links back.