The Property Explorer is a tab-based view on the bottom of the Diagram View. The Property Explorer shows most of the element properties that reside in the properties dialogs of different elements. The properties are shown for the element(s) selected on the diagram. If no element is selected, the properties for the currently open diagram are shown. It is also possible to edit the properties through the Property Explorer. To toggle the Property Explorer view, click the View Property Explorer button on the View tab of the ribbon. The visibility settings of the Property Explorer are saved in the user settings.

 

All properties tab of the Property Explorer

 

 

The Tabs of the Property Explorer

The Property Explorer has three tabs: All properties, Related elements, and Quick properties. Depending on the element type, the All properties and Related properties tabs show the following properties:

 

 

The Quick properties tab shows the properties that are added to Quick properties on the All properties tab. To add a property to the Quick properties, right click the property on the All properties tab and select Add to quick properties from the pop-up menu. The property fields can be arranged in the Quick properties tab by right-clicking a property and selecting either Move to the left frame or Move to the right frame from the pop-up menu. In addition, the fields can be moved inside a frame by dragging-and-dropping. To remove a property from the Quick properties, right-click a property and select Remove from quick properties.

 

In addition to the properties mentioned above, all custom attributes are shown in a hierarchical structure after the normal properties. On the Quick properties tab, you can select whether to show the full path of a custom attribute type hierarchy by right-clicking the name of the property and selecting or de-selecting Show full path from the pop-up menu. You can click the View button to open the element properties dialog of the selected element. The button is enabled only for relation type custom attributes that have the relation defined.

 

 

Editing Property Values

To edit the values with the Property Explorer, click the value field and enter a new value or click the Edit button to open a drop-down menu for modifying, viewing, adding, or removing the property.

 

On the Related elements tab, only information items and notes can be edited. Information items and Notes can also be added, viewed or removed by right-clicking an information item or a note or the Information Items or Notes folder on the Related elements tab. In addition, an information item can be made the default information item for the selected element.

 

 

Multiple Selections

When multiple elements are selected, the properties common to all of the elements shown in the All properties and Quick properties tabs of the Property Explorer. If the values of a property are identical in all of the elements, the value is shown, otherwise the Property Explorer shows the text [Multiple] to indicate that the values are not identical. The Related elements tab shows the union of all elements that relate to any of the selected elements. For example, if element A has information item X, and element B has information item Y, the multiple selection containing the elements A and B shows both information items X and Y as a separate entry on the related elements -tree. The tree shows where the element is related to on its second column. If an element is related to multiple elements, the relations are shown by using a comma-separated list.

 

Multiple selection has the following restrictions:

•The properties of different types of elements are not shown. For example, if a connector and a process step have been selected, the property explorer does not show anything. On the other hand, if e.g. the BPMN-model's different kinds of process steps have been selected, the common properties for them will be shown.

•Regarding custom attributes, only those common attributes that have cardinality 1 are shown in the multiple selection.