This page is for application designers who want define the data that will back the application. It explains how to draw an ERD and setup its properties.
Overview
Use an ERD to define the structure of the data that backs your application.
As you draw the diagram, PhixFlow creates table, attribute and relationship items. You can find:
- tables in the repository Data → Tables category.
- attributes listed in the table's properties.
PhixFlow sets the properties for a relationship item automatically. If you want to check them, in the ERD, click the relationship arrow to open its properties.
When you make changes to an ERD, remember to 
Apply.
For ERD concepts, see Understanding ERDs.
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.
When you make any changes to the ERD, remember to Apply them. PhixFlow autosaves any new tables, attributes and relationships check??
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
ERD icon.
Create a New Table
- Drag the Error rendering macro 'excerpt-include' : No link could be created for '_streams_add'.icon from the toolbar into the diagram.
- In the pop-up, enter a name, for example "Customer" and click
. - PhixFlow adds the table to the canvas and opens its properties tab on the right.
- Name - displays the name entered in step 2. is set as the display attribute for the table. We might want to make reference to how this is used?
- UID - the unique identifier and primary key.
- To add attributes to the table:
- In the table, click
Add New. PhixFlow opens the attribute properties. - 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.
- In the table, click
- PhixFlow adds the attribute to the table in the ERD.
Add an Existing Table
- In the toolbar, click the Tables button. ??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
For information about relationships see Understanding ERDs.
To connect a primary key in one table with an attribute in another table, click-drag from one attribute to another.
Drag from primary onto attr - PhixFlow sets it to attr AND CHANGES ITS TYPE
Drag from table onto attr, PhixFlow automatically connects the UID
Drag from attr to attr... PhixFlow assumes the source attribute is the primary key.
Comments from Anthony and Gray: 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).
PhixFlow
- adds the relationship line
- sets the destination attribute to be a foreign key.
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?
If you want to highlight the relationships that affect a table, click the table to select it. The following screenshot shows the Teacher table is selected.
- Blue lines indicate relationships to a foreign key in the selected table
- Green lines indicate relationships from the primary key in the selected table.
Properties
Parent Details
If this item is within or belongs to another, its parent name is shown here. See the Parent Details section on the Common Properties page for more details.
Basic Settings
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | The name for the ERD. When you press Return or click Save PhixFlow opens an empty diagram in the workspace on the left. check?? |
Description
We recommend that you always enter a description to explain the purpose of this item.
Audit Tab
Audit Summary
See the Common Properties page, Audit Summary section.
ERD Toolbar
The toolbar is at the top of the canvas. Hover your mouse pointer over the toolbar to see a tooltip.
Tooltips for Dev?? or add the icons??
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
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. |
Table Pop-up Menu
You can access more options in a pop-up menu:
- in the table header, click
More Options - right-click anywhere in the table.
| Option | Rename to | Description |
|---|---|---|
Configure Table | Table properties | Open the properties for this table. |
Remove this item from the Diagram | Remove from ERD | Remove the selected item(s) from the diagram. |
| Hide Attributes | Hide attributes | Collapse the table so that it only shows the table name, primary key and any foreign keys. Other attributes are hidden. |
| Show Attributes | Show attributes | Expand the table to show all the attributes |
| Parmanently Delete | Delete everywhere | DDelete the selected item(s) from the ERD and from everywhere it is used. |
Show all tables using this table | ||
Show all tables related tables Show all tables used by this table |
??Jira needed for Hide attributes. - It tries but doesnt work on first attempt