What is MXAM?

What's new?

Highlights in MES Model Examiner^® (MXAM) v.5.1

Improved flexibility and reliability of annotations mapping:
Support of different mapping strategies based on the identification method of MATLAB elements. Configurable in the adapter preferences. Applies to present analysis and also to previous .mxmr reports in ‘continue work’ mode.

Enhanced user comfort via drag & drop support when loading MXAM projects and reports

Avoid potential issues before running an analysis thanks to automated pre-evaluation of project settings

Access to extended memory allocation by switching to 64-bit architecture

► Read about all new features in the Release Notes

System requirements

The following system requirements must be in place to use MXAM v.5.1:

• Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 (64-bit versions)
• Web service Port 10117 (default) must be accessible and can be changed in the tool preferences.
• System requirements when using MXAM with MATLAB^®/Simulink^®/Stateflow^®, and TargetLink^®:
  • MATLAB^® version see table below
  • TargetLink^® (base suite) version see table below
  • Port 5564 (default) must be accessible
• System requirements when using MXAM with ASCET: ASCET 6.1 to 6.4.3
• System requirements when using MXAM with EXCEL: Excel 2003 and higher

Compatibility of each MXAM release with MATLAB and TargetLink releases

Update to the latest version

• If you added MXAM folders permanently to the MATLAB path, please remove all of these folders from the path.
• If you installed the old version in a folder with a version postfix (e.g. x:\project\matlab\mxam_x_x), you can keep that directory as a backup.
• If you installed without a version postfix, you could rename the old installation directory to one with a version postfix as a backup.

Update from MXAM 1 to a current version of MXAM

A migration kit to migrate customer-specific checksets and checks is available upon request.
Please contact sales@model-engineers.com.

Installation

Manual installation

• Installer: Install MXAM by executing the setup file (.exe) and follow the setup instructions.
  • The startup of the installation process might take a while depending on the security settings of the client machine.
  • Installation to a write-protected directory: Right click the setup file and execute as administrator.
• Zip archive: Unzip the archive into any directory

Automatic headless installation

• Run the MXAM installation once on a machine and save your automatic installation data in the Finish Panel to auto-install.xml.
  With this data, you will be able to run the same installation on another similar machine.
• Configure the auto-install.xml
• Run the automatic installation: >>[installer-name].exe [ABSOLUTE-PATH/auto-install.xml]

Quick start

Starting MXAM

• For MATLAB platform: Open MATLAB, navigate to the MXAM installation directory, and execute >>mxam
• For other platforms: Start MXAM using the program shortcut or go to the MXAM installation directory and execute mxam.exe

Starting an analysis

For MATLAB platform:

• Open a model in MATLAB
• Press "Analyze" in MXAM
• Select the model in the artifact dialog
• Press "Finish"

For ASCET:

• Press "Analyze" in MXAM
• Press "Open ASCET 6" in the artifact dialog if it is not yet open
• Press "Refresh" to fetch models from the database
• Press "Finish"

For Others:

• In the Project perspective, press "Add..." in the Artifact Section to add an artifact
• Select the artifact and press "Finish"
• Press "Analyze"

Guidelines

• Go to the "Project Guidelines" perspective to see which guidelines will be checked during the analysis.
• To see the pool of all available guidelines, go to the "Library Browser" perspective and select the "Guidelines" view.

Suggestions

If you have any suggestions to help us improve the MES Model Examiner^®, please do not hesitate to contact us:
Email: mxam@model-engineers.com

Release Notes - V5.1.0 15-01-2019

Tool Framework

Comfortable loading of projects and reports via drag&drop

• Projects and reports can be loaded into MXAM by dragging and dropping the corresponding files into the tool.

Configurable mapping strategy for annotations

• The strategy to identify MATLAB elements is now configurable in the adapter preferences. This allows, for example, annotation re-mapping even if the path of the element has changed by using only the SID.
• MATLAB elements of the same artifact can be identified by either 'SID', 'Path', or 'SID and Path'.
• The configuration can also be changed for previous reports in continue work mode.
• The default strategy has been changed from 'SID and Path', used in previous tool versions, to 'SID'. (compatibility considerations)

Switching to 64bit architecture

• This allows the configuration of an extended amount of memory, e.g. to support bigger reports.

Get extended help in the validation view

• Added validation of project configuration before running the analysis so that the user is warned in case of potential problems.
• Improved and enhanced validation of library content to ensure usage of consistent data.
• Validation information gets persisted in the MXMR reports and is restored when reports are loaded. For reports loaded in 'continue work' mode, a re-validation is executed to update the validation results.
• Improved the details shown for validation problems in the validation view.

Improvements

• Enhanced matching of annotations for ASCET to use message ID and message parameters instead of message text. Now annotations are still re-mapped even if the message text was changed.
• Eliminated necessity for restarting the MATLAB adapter and connected MATLAB for some preference changes.
• Improved performance of annotation re-mapping by not searching for annotations files in child directories of search path anymore.
• Added global guideline compliance statistic for each artifact to MXMR report.
• Aligned fields for search/filters with corresponding names shown in the UI to ease the searchability. (#6235)
• Allow predefined selection states of checks in the Guideline Document editor which can be overridden and saved for MXAM projects as needed. Added the option to reset the selection state in the project guidelines perspective to the one defined in the guideline document.
• Added notifications for finished analysis and report import/export to the MXAM tray icon. Added menus to easily navigate to the working directory and the user directory.
• Added support to export reports with the API in a short JUnit format.
• Improved error handling for importing reports. (#6166)
• Excluded findings better or equal to INFO from heat map in the HTML/PDF reports. (#6393)

Bug fixes

• Fixed typo in message dialog shown in case of an unavailable license. (#6249)
• Fixed abort of report import in case user decided to cancel the project selection. (#6269)
• Prevent saving projects with an invalid title, otherwise resulting in a broken list of recent projects. (#6245)
• Fixed restart of MATLAB adapter, otherwise resulting in MATLAB connection problems and a missing tool artifact selection tab. (#6278)
• Fixed handling of missing artifact location in annotation wizard, in case the MATLAB artifact to annotate was not saved yet. (#6160)
• Fixed save of project in case user did not change the project settings but other changes have been made. (#5667)
• Fixed cancel behavior of 'Customize Check Parameters' wizard in case of user is canceling a focus change. (#6103)
• Fixed error handling in utility for command execution. (#6339)
• Fixed display of annotation message in finding details view. (#6026)
• Set UNKNOWN as default value for Ascet6Object's type attribute to fix metamodel migration for reports. (#6267)
• Fix duplicated UIDs of default guideline template and parameter definition. (#6405)
• Fixed parameter handling for changed default values. (#6375)
• Fixed initialization of Annotation Wizard. (#6396)
• Fixed list of predefined values for parameters to ensure no empty value can be selected. (#6407)