I have been a Case Studio 2 user for over 7 years. Toad Data Modeler has added a few nice features but, overall productivity with the old Case Studio product is far superior. Two areas that are particularly noticable are the increased consumption of screen real estate with “nothingness” and the performance and navigation of dialogues. What is being used to “benchmark” development of Toad Data Modeler?
Hi Alan,
we have been working on significant modifications of the basic forms. Next version will contain new Entity, Attribute, Relationship forms, new Connections form with Reverse Engineering functionality and more. Main menu as well as toolbar items will be changed. Some of the changes are inspired by CASE Studio 2 
Our focus is now on the key items/forms in TDM and our aim is to make the forms more user-friendly and as fast as possible. One reason why the forms are slower in TDM is that customization of forms was introduced in version 3 and later. In next version the customization of forms will be available “on request” that’s why we will be able to improve performance and minimize delays that slows down opening the forms. You will see some of the improvements in next BETA version.
One key difference is that forms are not modal. You can edit many objects without the necessity to close other forms etc. In CASE Studio that functionality belonged to frequently asked requirements. We introduced this functionality in TDM 3. Of course, it was necessary to cover situations when one object is edited on one form and therefore cannot be accessible on another form etc etc. It works fine, the locking mechanism is there, but logically, it affects peformance.
I believe the next version will offer better user experience and as I already mentioned, the performance will be much better as well.
Thank you for your feedback.
Regards,
Vaclav
In all fairness this is an issue that could easily last the life of the product and probably should for a dynamic product undergoing active development. I greatly appreciate the response. I’ve been using Case Studio for large multi-year projects for many years as the individual primarily responsible for repository design and application workflow. What is the best way to participate in the direction of Data Modeler? Talking with another designer he described the product as “cumbersome” which might be the term which best describes my experience in trying to transition from Case Studio to Data Modeler. The primary incentive at this point for using Toad Data Modeler is that we are all Toad Studio for Oracle users with access to Data Modeler.
Thanks for the response,
Alan