Create a New ERD
- From the home menu, select Data
→ ERD. From the ERD list,Select Create New from the left hand side.PhixFlow opens the properties for the ERD on the right. Enter the name for your ERD and click. In the popup window enter the name for your ERD, a useful description and click confirm.Insert excerpt _finish _finish nopanel true - PhixFlow opens a new ERD canvas on the left. The ERD has a toolbar at the top. Hover over toolbar icons to display a tooltip that explains their use.
Tip | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
When you make any changes to the ERD, remember to
|
Open an Existing ERD
To open an existing ERD you can:
- From the home menu, select Data
→ ERDand 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 adds
a box to representthe table to the ERD, and opens the properties tab for it. The table is created withonetwo attributes: UID and Name. The UID is set as the primary key and the Name is set as the display attribute for the table. We might want to make reference to how this is used? - Optionally, rename the primary key.
- Click on the UID line in the table. PhixFlow opens the attribute properties.
- In the Name field, change the name. We recommend that UID or ID is part of the name to indicate this attribute is the unique identifier. NB: ID is a reserved word and cannot be used on its own.
the attribute properties.Insert excerpt _dialog_finish _dialog_finish nopanel true
- 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
intoonto 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. This may be offset from the end of the relationship arrow. Not sure what the last sentence means? Sounds like a bug? This is a bug
- When the destination attribute is highlighted release the click.
- Enter the name for the relationship. I believe the name is provided automatically, but the user can change it. Please refer to the Adobe XD file. I understood that we were going to hide or drop the relationship names as they were redundant
- PhixFlow
- adds the relationship arrow
- opens its properties; see Relationships It does not
- 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?
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.
Insert excerpt | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Basic Settings
Field | Description |
---|---|
Name | Enter the name for the ERD. When you press Return or click Save a new properties tab, is there a word missing here? PhixFlow opens an empty diagram in the workspace on the left. |
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
Option | Description |
---|---|
| |
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. |
Refresh |
Refresh the ERD to display recent changes to the diagram. |
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 |
|
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 | |
Distribute vertically | For at least 3 items, adjust so they have equal space between them, from top to bottom. Distributes the selected items evenly between the top and bottom outer most items. Works for 3 items or more. |
Context Menu
In the ERD, right-click a table to show the context menu.
Option | Description |
---|---|
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 |