Hide all relations not linked to system in context (container view)

[Alterant-zz]

Feature proposal.

The same feature like described in #97 but applied to container view.

Having the model like this:

workspace {
    model {
        extSystem = softwareSystem "Bank's Payment System" "" "External System"

        enterprise "My Enterprise" {
            intSystem = softwareSystem "Notification System" "" "Internal System"

            group "My Services" {
                accountService = softwareSystem "accountService" "" {
                    accountServiceApp = container "accountServiceApp" "" "Spring Web MVC"
                    accountServiceDB = container "accountServiceDB" "" "PostgreSQL" "Database"
                }

                orderService = softwareSystem "orderService" "" {
                    orderServiceApp = container "orderServiceApp" "" "Spring Web MVC"
                    orderServiceDB = container "orderServiceDB" "" "PostgreSQL" "Database"
                }
            }
        }

        accountServiceApp -> accountServiceDB "Stores data in" "JDBC" "accountServiceRel"
        accountServiceApp -> orderServiceApp "Get account's orders from" "JSON/HTTP" "accountServiceRel,orderServiceRel"
        accountServiceApp -> intSystem "Send notifications to" "JSON/HTTP" "accountServiceRel"
        accountServiceApp -> extSystem "Process payments via" "JSON/HTTP" "accountServiceRel"

        orderServiceApp -> intSystem "Send notifications to" "JSON/HTTP" "orderServiceRel"
        orderServiceApp -> extSystem "Process payments via" "JSON/HTTP" "orderServiceRel"
    }

    views {
        systemLandscape "SystemLandscape" {
            include *
            autoLayout
        }

        ### accountService ###
        systemContext accountService "accountServiceContext" "accountServiceContext" {
            include *
            exclude *->*
            include *->accountService
            include accountService->*
            autoLayout
        }
        container accountService "accountServiceContainers" "accountServiceContainers" {
            include *
            autoLayout
        }

        #styling removed
    }
}

Gives us the following result.

Landscape view - awesome:

Context view with the help of

exclude *->*
include *->accountService
include accountService->*

is also awesome:

But container view of accountService also shows relations of orderService and looks overloaded:

Adding

exclude *->*
include *->accountService
include accountService->*

does not help and even makes things worse - it hides all relationships between containers inside the system context.

I achieved the desired result with the help of tags with the folowing rules:

• tag all internal system's relationships and relationships with external systems and other systems which my team is not in charge of with only "relation tag" of the system (accountServiceRel in the example above)
• each relationship between my team's systems should be marked with "relation tags" of both systems (accountServiceRel,orderServiceRel)

and the following block of inclusions for the system's container view:

include *
exclude *->*
include relationship.tag==accountServiceRel

Probably it makes sence to simplify things a bit:
Option 1.
Use the same syntax as in context view:

exclude *->*
include *->softwareSystemName
include softwareSystemName->*

but treat softwareSystem in context not as a system but as it's containers.

Option 2.
Add some new keyword like include containerRelationships

[simonbrowndotje]

You can resolve this in a number of ways, but here's a simple approach:

        container accountService "accountServiceContainers" "accountServiceContainers" {
            include *
            exclude "element.type==softwaresystem->element.type==softwaresystem"
            autoLayout
        }

[Alterant-zz]

Great. Simple and elegant solution!

C4 and Structurizr are the coolest stuff for modeling!