Just started running tdm3. Coming from tdm2. I’m trying to make as efficient use of screen space as possible. In tdm2, I had the entities displaying with all attributes, but only the name column and a column that had “(PK)” or “(FK)”. Allow-null attributes were displayed in gray, otherwise black.
The problems now are:
a) there is now a specific column for not-null attributes that shows “NN”
b) it appears that “unique” attributes are now considered alternate keys and thus I have lots of attributes with their own column "(AK1), (AK2) and so on.
As a result, my tdm2 diagrams when imported into tdm3 look pretty bad, tables overlapping tables etc.
My main question is: How can I set things so that the entity boxes show only the attribute name and (PK) or (FK) or blank?
Did some searching here and could find anything, but if I missed it a pointer to an existing thread would be fine.
a] NN is always shown in TDM3, no matter what view is selected. In TDM2, NN is shown only in logical view. However, we are open to your suggestions. Please let us know what best meet your needs - same as in TDM2, option to display/hide NN or other suggestions. Thanks in advance.
b] unique attributes with AK - If an attribute is unique, TDM3 creates a new alternate key for the unique attribute automatically. We think this is a correct behaviour.
My main question is: How can I set things so that the entity boxes show only >the attribute name and (PK) or (FK) or blank?
Unfortunately, this is not possible at the moment. NN will be always displayed (however, we can change it, see a]).
AKs don't have to be displayed, TDM3 allows you to display PK and FK attributes only - see e.g. option Display PK and FK Keys in the Display Level box. However other attributes will not be displayed, which is, I guess, what you do not want.
I'm sorry, we do not have an acceptable solution for you at the moment.
Let us know your suggestions, I'll create CRs for our dev team. Thanks.
Yes, I would definitely prefer to have clearer, finer-grained control over what is displayed. There seem to be sort of two dimensions to what is shown per entity. First, the up/down direction… whether or not to show keys, attributes, etc. Currently that is determined by the drop-down list of various “display levels”.
Second, there is the left/right direction, and that is what information to display about each item chosen in the first option.
I would much prefer a simple checkbox list for each of the two items, where we could check or uncheck each thing that we want displayed. The first checkbox list would have things like “primary keys”, “foreign keys”, “alternate keys”, “attributes”, and so on.
The second would have a checkbox item for each “column”: “non-null status”, “key type”, “data type” and so on.
That way we could tune the entity boxes to look like how we wanted.
Also, I really did like the color coding that was in tdm2. It allowed more information to be shown in less screen space, since I didn’t need columns for “unique (alt key)”, “non-null” etc.
Thanks for the detailed description. I’ve created a new CR for your request - CR # 48 759.
I’ve described it in detail, including the color coding. Our developers will consider what to implement, how to improve current options etc.
Just a note: Concerning the left/right direction, some of the options to display can be set in the Workspace Format dialog (right-click the workspace), tab Entity - e.g. graphical display of keys, data types, dictionary data types.
To set it up for new models/workspaces, see the Settings menu | Options | Physical Model/Logical Model.
@Vladka, it’s been about 3 years and I still see the same problem.
Did it get fixed?
Please point me to the current download URL and any User Manuals; maybe I’m just out-of-date and don’t know it: I’m at 3.4.16.7; does that mean my auto-update function is not working?
the current version is 3.6 and beta is available in version 4.0. Please upgrade to the latest version. And yes, there might be some problem with check for updates feature.
Re formatting of objects: version 3.6 doesn’t contain improvements in what you can show/hide in your entity. We worked or tasks with higher priority, like visual creation of views, displaying of view items in diagram (will appear in TDM version 4.0.5 BETA that will be released tomorrow), refactoring utility etc.
yes, there is no improvement in this area. (I mentioned in previous reply: version 3.6 doesn’t contain improvements in what you can show/hide in your entity. )
It is on our ToDo list, but I cannot say when it will appear in TDM. Many decisions depend on priorities and this has not been considered to be higher priority issue yet. But soon we will introduce new version of community site that will offer also “idea management” solution where users will vote for features. The more votes this requirement gets the higher priority it may receive and the sooner it may appear in TDM. So, the answer is: please wait for idea management solution and then vote for this requirement.