Promoting a Stereotype to Metaclass Status

You can create new types of objects that behave as standard PowerDesigner metaclasses by selecting Use as Metaclass in the stereotype property page.

You can use such stereotypes to:

Create new kinds of objects that share much of the behavior of an existing object type, such as business transactions and binary collaborations in a BPM for ebXML.
Have objects with identical names but different stereotypes in the same namespace (a metaclass stereotype creates a sub-namespace in the current metaclass).

Note: Stereotypes defined on sub-objects (such as table columns or entity attributes), cannot be promoted to metaclass status.

In the Stereotype property page, select Use as metaclass.
[optional] Specify an icon and tool to create instances of the metaclass stereotype.
Click Apply to save the changes and then add extended attributes and other appropriate extensions under the stereotype.
In your model, the stereotypes has:
- A separate list in the Model menu after the parent metaclass list (and the parent metaclass list will not display objects with the metaclass stereotype). Objects created in the new list bear the new metaclass stereotype by default. If you change the stereotype, the object will be removed from the list the next time it is opened.
- A separate Browser folder and command under New, when you right-click the model or a package.
- Property sheet titles based on the metaclass label.
- Its own tab in multi-pane selection boxes such as those used for generation.