Create a New ERD
- From the home menu, select Data.
- PhixFlow displays the list of ERDs. Select Create New from the left hand side.
- In the pop-up, enter a name for your ERD, and a description then click confirm ??icon.
- PhixFlow opens a new ERD canvas on the left with a toolbar at the top. Hover your mouse pointer over toolbar icons to display a tooltip.
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When you make any changes to the ERD, remember to
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Open an Existing ERD
To open an existing ERD you can:
- From the home menu, select Data and click on an ERD in the list.
- In the repository, open your application and find Data → ERD.
- either right-click on an ERD name and select Display.
- or double-click the ERD name to open the properties. In the properties toolbar, click the
icon.Insert excerpt _erd _erd nopanel true
Create a New Table
- From the canvas toolbar, drag the
icon from the toolbar into the diagram.Insert excerpt _streams_add _streams_add nopanel true - In the pop-up, enter its name, for example "Customer" and click
.Insert excerpt _dialog_finish _dialog_finish nopanel true - PhixFlow the table to the canvas, and opens the table's properties tab on the right. The table is created with two attributes: UID and Name. The UID is set as the primary key and the Name has the name you entered in the pop-up. is set as the display attribute for the table. We might want to make reference to how this is used?
- To add attributes to the table:
- In the table, click
. PhixFlow opens the attribute properties.Insert excerpt _add _add nopanel true - Enter the Name, Type and Length for the data; see Stream Attributes. Attributes are created with the default of a 50 character string. It's important to change this for other types of data, for example, numerical or date/time data. We make no reference to the current table relation button?
the attribute properties.Insert excerpt _dialog_finish _dialog_finish nopanel true
- In the table, click
- PhixFlow adds the attribute to the table in the ERD.
Add an Existing Table
- From the canvas toolbar, Click the
Stream List icon.Tables icon. Should this be an icon? - PhixFlow filters the repository to show the list of tables available in this application.
- Drag a table from the repository onto the ERD canvas.
Creating Relationships Between Attributes
The purpose of a relationship is to show that an attribute in one table contains the same data as the same as a primary key in another table. I dont understand this? My understanding is that it allows us to display data from a different table without having to duplicate the data in multiple places? You are aiming to: Not sure how this helps?
- relate a primary key with a non-primary attribute. do we want to make refence to a foreign key?
- ensure related attributes have the same data properties.
To create a relationship between attributes in different tables, click-drag from one attribute to another.
- Click on the source attribute.
- Drag to the destination attribute. PhixFlow highlights the attribute when your mouse pointer is over it.
- When the destination attribute is highlighted release the click.
- PhixFlow
- adds the relationship arrow
- sets the destination attribute to be a foreign key. Only if you have dragged a primary key, but we can drag a non-primary key onto a primary key. I think this is a bug - it should only be possible to connect primary to foreign key, and I'm not happy with converting non-key to foreign-key because it currently ignores type mismatches. Can drag a primary key onto a non-primary key (if the types match), can drag a non-primary key onto a primary key (if the type matches).
If you try to create a relationship between two non-primary attributes, PhixFlow assumes the source attribute is the primary key. We don't support this as it's considered a many-to-many.
- If the source table does not have a primary key, it sets the source attribute to be primary. This isn't true if you've defined a stream elsewhere, but I'm inclined to think that you shouldn't be allowed to add relationships until you have added/nominated a primary key.
- If the source table already has a primary key, it uses it as the source attribute.
Do we need to explain the many-to-one and the one-to-many and that m:n is not supported at this time?
Context menu
To see the context menu for a table:
- in the table header, click
Insert excerpt _more_options_erd _more_options_erd nopanel true - right-click anywhere in the table.
Configure → Table properties
Hide Attributes → Hide attributes
Remove this item from the Diagram → Remove from ERD
Permanently Delete → Delete everywhere
Properties
I cant add a direct comment but the section below relates to the properties toolbar? Should it say tab? it links later to the tabs section.
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Basic Settings
Field | Description |
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Name | Enter the name for the ERD. When you press Return or click Save PhixFlow opens an empty diagram in the workspace on the left. check?? |
ERD Context Menu and Toolbar
In an ERD, you can hover your mouse pointer over the toolbar or context menu options to see what they are for.
We have a more menu and make no reference to it? I am note sure we have a right click menu.
Toolbar
You can find the toolbar at the top of the canvas.
This should be to record what goes into tooltips
Option | Description |
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Create | |
Create | Drag this icon onto the canvas to create a table. |
Screen | Creates a new screen for the selected table. |
List | |
Tables | Click to see a list available tables. |
Screens | Click to see a list available screens. |
Canvas | |
Save | Save changes to the diagram. If there is no save icon, PhixFlow is saving changes automatically. |
Refresh | Redraw the ERD to display recent changes to the diagram. |
Help | Slide open the help panel on the right. there is no help button?? |
Properties | Open the properties for the current diagram. |
Zoom out | Zoom out to see more of the diagram, with smaller text. |
Zoom in | Zoom in to see a smaller area of the diagram, with larger text. |
Ungroup | Select a grouped set of items and then click to ungroup them. Select several items then click to group them together. |
Group | Select several items then click to group them together. |
Back | For screen layout, move a component back. |
Forward | For screen layout, bring a component forward. |
Align options | Click/hover to show all the options for aligning items on the canvas. |
Align Grid | Organise selected items into a grid pattern. |
Align left | Align selected items to the left. |
Align right | Align selected items to the right. |
Align top | Align selected objects to the top. |
Align bottom | Align selected objects to the bottom. |
Distribute horizontally | For 3 or more items, distributes the selected items evenly between the left and right items. |
Distribute vertically | For 3 or more items, distributes the selected items evenly between the top and bottom items. |
Context Menu
In the ERD, right-click a table to show the context menu.
Option | Description |
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Configure Table | Open the properties for this table. |
Remove from Diagram | Remove the selected item(s) from the diagram. |
Show all tables using this table | Lists the tables with a relationship into this one (many-to-one). |
Show all tables related tables Show all tables used by this table | List the tables this one relates out to (one-to-many). |
Delete everywhere | Delete the selected item(s) from the ERD and from everywhere it is used. |