The rectangle indicates what portion of the diagram is currently being viewed.Ī more in-depth description of the ER Modeler's menus and panels follows. Overview: A bird’s eye view of the current sheet, allowing fast navigation with a draggable and resizeable zoom rectangle. Object Properties Pane: Displays, in non-editable form, the properties of the selected object or objects.
Left clicking on one converts the into a tool cursor for dragging out the entity in the sheet. Objects can display on more than one sheet at a time.Įntity Palette: Displays the entities which can be created. This is the drawing area of the ER Diagram.
Sheet: Shows the diagram contents in independent views for manual or automatic layout. The tree can be expanded or collapsed to display more detailed information such as Indexes and Constraints. Model Node Browser: Presents all of the objects within a diagram in a tree containing all relationships, tables, views and notes.
There are five major functional areas within the ER Modeler Workspace where most of the creation and editing of models takes place: Model Node Browser, Sheet, Entity Palette, Object Properties Pane, and Overview.
The generated report is created as a frameset in a zip file which can be expanded into a directory for use in a website.ĮR Modeler Workspace and Dockable Framework Overview Generating an HTML Report: The modeler can be used to generate an HTML report containing all of the views, indexes, tables and relationships in the model. Saving a Diagram As an Image: The diagram can also be saved as a JPG or PNG image for inclusion in word processing documents or presentation slides. Fit Width and Fit Height buttons allow printing diagrams to fit paper dimensions. The dimensions of the print out can easily be altered and enlarged. Printing Diagrams: Diagrams can be printed, enlarged and laminated for use as a poster for quick reference. All of the developers in an organization can then access the same model, modify it and track the modifications. When a diagram is added to the script mount for a database server, the mount can be included in a source control repository. Saving, Modifying and Sharing Diagrams: Diagrams can be saved, opened, documented, modified and shared with groups. See the " Converting ER Model DB to DB" section for how this process works. Entire databases can be designed then converted to scripts for importing.Ĭonverting a model for one database into a model for another database (Database Migration): If migration is required, the DDL of one database can be converted to the DDL of another database through the use of the "Convert to" tool in the Tools menu. Generating DDL: (commonly referred to as forward engineering) The diagram can be converted into DDL for use in SQL scripts. It is possible to create tables, indexes, constraints, relationships, add notes and regions and more.Įxtracting a Diagram From a Database: (commonly referred to as reverse engineering) A diagram can be extracted from an existing database, its schema objects quickly drawn for modification by the ER Diagram Generator. The Entity Relationship Modeler uses Aqua Data Studio's Docking Framework, allowing users to undock its various panes and panels into separate windows, using various docking options.Ĭreating a New Diagram: New diagrams can be created manually by drawing entities on a sheet and altering their attributes.
For more on how to convert a model from one database to another see the " Converting ER Model DB to DB" section. It is possible to migrate database schema from one database server, vendor or version into any other database server through the ER Modeler's "Convert To" tool. Any database connection within Aqua Data Studio can be used to generate an ER Model ( reverse engineering), and any model built within the Entity Relationship Modeler can be converted into a DDL script ( forward engineering) for importing into any database available to Aqua Data Studio. The models created in the ER Modeler immediately translate into queries and commands that databases can understand. Tables, views, relationships and constraints are converted to shapes, lines, nodes and vectors so that complex abstract interactions and processes can be viewed in a coherent diagram. The Entity Relationship Modeler (ER Modeler) helps in designing and editing database schemas and relationships through a graphical representation of abstract database concepts.