How is the Add-In search feature in Sparx Enterprise Architect used and what is its purpose?

Question

There appears to be very little documentation regarding the Add-In search feature and how it can be used to better provide search results. How can it be used and what is its purpose?

Answer 1

The Add-In search, rather than searching the database itself, calls a function in an Add-In. The function must return the search results in the XML format described in the help file.

Since Add-Ins are written in a proper programming language (usually C#) and have access to the Object Model API, it is far easier to implement an arbitrarily complex search in an Add-In than in an SQL query.

The disadvantage is that writing an Add-In is a much bigger job than putting together a query.