When right clicking on a workspace and selecting Complete from model…, the slider for the object column doesn’t work. If you make the dialog wider, then you can read the entire object name, however there isn’t a horizontal slider at the bottom so that you can see the full name of the Object 2 WS name. Since you can’t use the sliders to increase the name of the object column, if you make the dialog smaller you can’t see the object name at all. Grabbing the slider to the left of the object 2 column header and moving it to the right pushes the column to the right until the object 2 column header is hidden. Then it starts pushing the object 1 column to the left until the object column is hidden. Once the object header and object is hidden, it starts pushing the object 1 WS and object 2 WS columns to the right and creates a veritcal scroll bar at the bottom of the screen. With the vertical scroll bar at the bottom of the screen, I can continue to push the hidden object 2 column to the right until the object 2 WS column is complete out of the width of the dialog and it’s invisible, as in the only indication that there is even a column out there anywhere is the object 2 WS column slider. If I grab that and start sliding it to the left, it starts collapsing the object 2 and object 1 WS columns headers until I wind up with a very wide display where the only thing visible is the object 1 column. I can’t grab the slider to the left of object 1 to move it to the right so I can see the object column.
I do not know with 100% certainty how the column sliders on this dialog should work but I do know with 100% certainty that this is not how it should work. See model_complete_dialog.doc attachment.
Scrolling down through the list, the entities are displayed first in alphabetical order followed by the views. There doesn’t appear to be any order for the view names. They are just random. Then you get to an alphabetical list of relationship names. That makes it very difficult to find an object for display since my view and relationship names are based on the entity name. If you sort on the object header, does sort the entire column by the name.
The objects that are already displayed on the workspace aren’t in the list so you can’t use this dialog to remove objects from the workspace. IMHO, relationships shouldn’t be in this list. You should get those automatically when you display the entities on the workspace.
AD2 - Entire columns are sorted by name - no matter if it's an entity, relationship or view. Please see the screenshot.
If I've misunderstood, please write me back. Thanks.
AD3 - The Model Complete dialog (Complete from Model function) is used for adding shortcuts of objects to workspaces, not for their removal. To remove a shortcut, please use CTRL + Del in WS or Delete Item option in Model Explorer | Shortcuts folder.
IMHO, relationships shouldn't be in this list. You should get those automatically when you display the entities on the workspace.
Let me explain why relationships are on the list. Imagine the following situations:
a) You removed a relationship shorcut from WS and later found out you need it back. Both objects (shortcuts of the two entities that the relationship connects) already are in the WS. -> Now you have an option to select just the relationship easily.
b) In the WS, there are several shortcuts of Entity 1. You add a new shortcut of Entity 2. Entity 1 and Entity 2 are connected with relationship. Which shortcut of Entity 1 should be connected to the Entity 2?
c) You need to display only shortcuts of entities - without relationships - in other workspaces.
We think now users are allowed to select what they need. If shortcuts of relationships were added automatically, it would mean that users would have to take more unnecessary steps such as remove, move etc.
I see that some thought is going into this issue. I would like to provide my thoughts. Resizing a column header and moving it to the right should not change the size of a column header to the left of that column. It should only resize that specific column. You also have to be able to use both sides of the column sliders, otherwise you can get yourself in a situation like I have in the attachment. The right hand side of the name column won’t left me resize it back to the left so that the rest of the columns are visible. I’m stuck. No matter what I do, the caption column is “stuck” to the right hand side of the dialog. I will never, ever be able to see the rest of those columns again because the dialog remembers its last display. Those columns are gone, never to be seen again. Even if I close the model and open it again, those columns are gone.
Uh, oh. I mean really gone. If I open a different model, the columns are gone there too. Grrr. Houston, we have a problem… This has gone from an ER to a serious bug that needs immediate attention. I really need those columns back. TDM3 is dead to me until then. I’ll post my numerous gripes about the rest of this one when you get back to me on what set up files that I need to delete to get this fixed. In the attachment you’ll see two screen captures. The first one is of the regular dialog. The second is of the dialog expanded to across two monitors. The LHS of the caption column will not move from the RHS of the dialog index_dialog.doc (76 KB)
Just to be sure, I uninstalled/installed TDM3. The columns on the indexes tab of the entity properties dialog were still sized such that I could not see them. I managed to return it to normal in the most counter-intuitive way. I moved the caption column header to the left by moving the right hand slider of the items column to the right. Little by little, the caption column moved to the left. After a while, I got the caption field moved far enough to the left to expand the items column. Again, it expanded by moving the right hand slider of the items column to the right.
Moving a column’s slider to the right should move everything to the right of that column further to the right rather than moving previous columns to the left. I’ll get my numerous gripes about relationship line drawing tomorrow.
As I’ve written, this behaviour will change. We do work very hard on this.
(There’s always a column of which the size is automatically recalculated when you change size of the whole dialog. - e.g. Entity form, Indexes tab, Name column. You cannot change its width manually.)
Nevertheless, the current solutions:
resize the width of the dialog/form as much as possible. In the header, you should be able to see a column or lines of columns that are invisible. Drag them and resize the columns.
you can delete the .txe file where changes of the environment settings you make are stored. Possible path:
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\Quest Software\Toad Data Modeler\Configs.
Important note: The look of the dialogs will reset to the default look, however other changes you’ve made in the environment will be also lost.
In any case, I’d like to ask you for patience. User resize will be available soon (we hope).
My patience was restored by getting the dialog displayed such that I could see all of the columns. In the meantime, I went back to using TDM2 and it generated a BSOD. I’ll post that experience on the Yahoo group.
AD2 - Entire columns are sorted by name - no matter if it’s an entity, relationship or view. Please see the screenshot.
If I’ve misunderstood, please write me back. Thanks.
If you see the attachment with the notes, I think you’ll see what I’m talking about. model_complete_dialog_sort.doc (57 KB)
As I understand it now, you’d like to be able sort the items alphabetically and keep entities, relationships and views separate at the same time.
In other words, sort entities by name, then all relationships by name, views by name.
I’ve created CR for this: 36 211.
Concerning the empty object navigator box for relationships, yes, this bug has already been reported (CR 35 819), and we already fixed it for next Beta.
I’ve checked out sorting of entities and relationships in the object navigator box, they are listed alphabetically (by physical name).
Please see the attachment.
If you have any remarks, please write me back. Thanks.
I wasn’t particularly asking for the items to be sorted by class and then by name, but since you suggested it that sounds like a great idea. The drop down lists in the dialogs in your attachment are exactly what we’re looking for and really missing in TDM2.
Now that things are going well in this area, I’ll move on the relationship drawing. There’s a lot of work to go there.
