ERD
- Anthony George
- Zoe Baldwin
- Fiona Sargeant (Unlicensed)
This page is for application designers who need to configure the relationships between data. It explains the properties for entity relationship diagram (ERD).
Overview
PhixFlow ERDs define the logical structure of the data in your application; see Entity Relationship Diagrams.
Property Pane Toolbar
For information about the toolbar options, see the Common Properties page, Toolbars and Controls section.
Properties Tab
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.
Tables
For complete details on tables and ERDs see Entity Relationship Diagrams. The following diagram illustrates how an ERD represents a table:
Name | Description |
---|---|
Primary key | PhixFlow expects every table to have a special attribute called a primary key, which uniquely identifies each record. |
Foreign Key | A foreign key attribute is an attribute in the table that refers to the primary key in another table. When you create a relationship from a primary key to an attribute, PhixFlow automatically sets the attribute to be a foreign key. |
Display Name | The display name is the attribute that will be displayed in place of the Primary Key. Typically a primary key is not user-friendly and you do not want to display it. Instead, you want to display something that makes more sense to a person. for example a Company Name rather than their ID. |
Basic Settings
Field | Description |
---|---|
Name | The name for the ERD. |
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.
Toolbars and Popup Menus
ERD Toolbar
The toolbar is at the top of the canvas. Hover your mouse pointer over the toolbar to see a tooltip.
Option | Description |
---|---|
Table | To create a new table, drag the icon from the toolbar onto the canvas. To add an existing table, click to list the tables available in the repository. Drag a table from the list into the ERD canvas. |
Screen | Create a new application screen using data from the selected table. In the Create Screen window:
|
Canvas options | |
Help | Open the help topic with details about working with ERDs. |
Arrange Selected Items | Options to arrange the selected components: Align Objects to Left: Align the left edges of all the selected components to the component that is furthest to the left. Align Objects to Right: Align the right edges of all the selected components to the component that is furthest to the right. Align Objects to Top: Align the top edges of the selected components to the component that is positioned highest. Align to base: Align the bottom edges of the selected components to the component that is positioned lowest. Distribute Objects Horizontally: Equally distribute the selected components horizontally in the available space. Distribute Objects Vertically: Equally distribute the selected components vertically in the available space. |
Properties | Open the properties tab for the ERD. |
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. |
Refresh | Update the ERD to the last saved diagram layout. This clears any unsaved layout changes. |
Table Popup Menu
To access more options in a popup menu, in the table header, click More Options
Option | Description |
---|---|
Edit | Open the properties for this table to make changes. |
Remove | Remove the selected item(s) from the diagram. |
Show many-to-one relations | Tables may have relationships to other tables not represented on the current ERD. Use these options to add all related tables to your ERD so that you can see the full relationship set; see Adding Content to an ERD, above. |
Show one-to-many relations | |
Delete | Delete the selected item(s) from the ERD and from everywhere it is used. |
Show or Hide Attributes | Toggle the tables between expanded to show all attributes or collapsed to show only the table name, primary key and any foreign keys. This is useful if your table contains many attributes. |
Screen | Create a new application screen using data from the selected table. |
Attribute Popup Menu
Option | Description |
---|---|
Make/Unset Primary Key | Make: set the current attribute to be a primary key. A table can have only one primary key. Unset: unset this attribute so it is no longer the primary key for the table. |
Make/Unset Foreign Key | Make: set an attribute to be a foreign key. Unset: unset this attribute so it is no longer a foreign key. |
Unset/Make Display Name | Make: set an attribute to be the display name for the primary key Unset: unset this attribute so it is no longer the display name for the primary key. |
Add Attribute | Create a new attribute for the table. PhixFlow opens the properties where you can add a name and set the data type. |
Delete Attribute | Delete the attribute from the table. PhixFlow prompts you to confirm. |
Learn More
- Entity Relationship Diagrams
- Adding Content to an ERD
- Types of Table and When to Use Them
- Table
- Attribute
For links to all pages in this topic, see Entity Relationship Diagrams.
Terminology changes in progress
As part of the redesign of PhixFlow, we are changing the following terms:
dashboard → screen
stream → table
stream attributes → attributes
stream item → record
stream set → recordset
stream view → view
stream item action → record-action
stream action → table-action
driver class → database driver