What underlying difference makes Node Instances appear different?

Question

I have two similar (if not identical) node instances that are appearing differently in a deployment diagram (and anywhere else that I use them).

I may have done some odd things in the past while beating EA into submission.

But, now ... by pulling every lever I can imagine, I can't get them to appear the same (or behave the same). The one on the right is consistent with all the other nodes I have.

The colour is off and the "properties" (maybe they're tags?) showing in the body of the one on the left appear but I can't figure out where to edit / remove them.

I've tried:

• Element ... Advanced ... Change type (Node --> Device and back to Node just to try and get it to 'forget' anything it's holding onto)
• Remove & re-add stereotype to both the Node type (i.e. type from which instance was made) and the instance itself.
• Creating a new instance from the same type, just to see what happens. It creates a node instance more like the one on the right.

Early on in developing this model, I created my own MDG technology. My guess is that the node on the left was created from a type in that MDG, which had some attributes available. It's conceivable to me that Sparx is hanging onto those attributes and not providing a way to edit because of the type was changed.

Any guidance on how to manipulate the under lying data (without creating a new node instance and replacing on all diagrams and re-configuring all relationships)?

Answer 1

Those are different elements. You see that the name (FQN) is different on both. Click each and issue Ctrl-G to locate them in the browser.

The green dot on top makes me think that you use your own MDG which puts the dot on <<SUSE>> stereotyped elements. So the MDG is likely what also makes them appear different depending on tagged values.

Regarding the Version and OS shown in the lower compartment of the left class: those are run states. You can edit them via Context/Features../Run State

Answer 2

For the colour of the element, I think what happened is this ... at some point, I selected (Element Context Menu) --> Appearance --> "Default Appearance" and clicked Reset to defaults. Even with a stereotype applied, this reverts to the "unstereotyped" appearance. I grabbed the RGB values from one the element on the right in the image and set the element on the left's values to those numbers and it's all consistent now.

The main question was the Run State variables, which @(Thomas Killian) addresses in another answer.