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 them. PhixFlow autosaves any new tables, attributes and relationships Applycheck??
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. ERD
Create a New Table
- From the canvas toolbar, 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 its name, for example "Customer" and click .
- 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. Add New
- 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.
- 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?
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.
For information about the properties toolbar, and about the sections Parent Details, Analysis Models, Description and Audit Summary, see Common Properties. We recommend you always add a Description that explains the purpose of the item you are creating.
For a full list of all the PhixFlow property tabs and windows, see Properties, Windows, Menus and Toolbars.
Basic Settings
Field | Description |
---|---|
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 |
---|---|
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 |
---|---|
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. |