QA Metrics dialog box

Go Up to GUI of Audits and Metrics

Project > QA Metrics

Open the QA Metrics dialog box by choosing the Project > QA Metrics menu command or the QA Metrics context menu command from the Diagram View or Model View.

The QA Metrics dialog box has the following panes:

• Scope -- In this list select the parts of the project that Metrics will be run against.
• Selection -- In this pane select metrics to estimate.
• Properties -- In this pane select properties to use with the metric selected in the Selection pane.
• Description -- This pane shows the short description of the metric selected in the Selection pane.

Scope pane

The Scope drop-down list box occupies the top of the dialog box. It shows the parts of the project that Metrics will be run against.

Use the drop-down arrow to set the Scope for either the current Selection (file in the code editor, diagram element in the Diagram View, or model element in the Model View) or for the entire Project (Model for implementation projects). When choosing Selection, Metrics are processed only for the file, namespace, or class that you have selected before invoking the QA Metrics dialog box. If you choose Project (Model), Metrics are processed for the entire project.

Tip: If you have not selected any items in the code editor, Diagram View, or Model View, Scope uses the entire project. If you want to run Metrics on a specific file, class, namespace, or diagram, make sure you have selected it before you open the QA Metrics dialog box.

Selection pane

The Selection pane occupies the left side of the dialog box. It provides a list of available metrics organized by categories.

Select the check boxes next to the metrics that you want to run. Check or clear the check box for a category to select or deselect all metrics in the category. When you click a metric in the "Selection" pane, its description is displayed in the "Description" pane of the dialog box.

Use the Selection pane toolbar to load and save sets of custom metrics and to specify which metrics to run on your projects.

The Selection pane toolbar has the following buttons:

Button	Description
Load metric set	Opens the Load Metric Set dialog box to browse for an MTS or XML file to load a custom set of metrics stored in this file.
Save metric set	Opens the Save Metric Set dialog box for specifying the file name and location to save the currently selected set of metrics in an MTS or XML file.
Select all metrics	Selects all metrics.
Unselect all metrics	Deselects all metrics.
Set default metric set	Resets the selected metrics to the default set.
Find metric by ID	Opens the Find Metric dialog box. In Metric ID, type a string to use as a pattern to filter for IDentifiers of metrics. The dialog box will show only the metrics whose IDentifiers start with the specified string. Select the desired metric and click Find. The selected metric becomes the currently selected in the Selection pane.
Context menu commands
Find metric by ID (CTRL+F)	The same as the Find metric by ID button.

Properties pane

The Properties pane occupies the right side of the dialog box. It shows the set of properties available for the metric currently selected in the Selection pane. Where necessary, properties are explained in the description for the particular metric.

Use the following toolbar buttons to display properties in the desired manner:

Button	Description
Categorized	Displays properties in expandable groups.
Alphabetic	Displays properties in alphabetical order.
Property pages	Displays Property pages, if any.

The set of properties vary depending on the selected metric.

Note: The Aggregation property is always present. Aggregation defines how Metrics results are handled. You can select the type of aggregation from the drop-down list (Sum, Average, Maximum, and so on). Note that results are aggregated on each level separately. For example, if you have nested namespaces, only the classes that belong to each namespace are aggregated.

Description pane

The Description pane occupies the bottom of the dialog box. When you click a metric in the Selection pane, its description displays in the Description pane. Descriptions include brief explanations of what the metric looks for, examples of violations, and advice on how to correct the code.

Command buttons

The dialog provides the following command buttons:

Button	Description
Start	Runs the selected set of metrics.
Cancel	Discards all changes and closes the dialog box.
Help	Opens this Help topic.

Warning: Metrics are not available for design projects.

Note: You can apply Metrics only to files registered in the current project.

See Also

• Running Metrics
• Viewing Metric Results
• Audits and Metrics Facilities
• QA Audits dialog box