Inexplicable changes to object positions making it hard to compare/merge

Our data model has approximately 500 entities and 600 relationships. We have it saved to a TXP file.

When I open our data model in TDM and save it (without changing anything) some positional attributes (Width, NamePositionX, NamePositionY, X, Y) for some of the nodes (Relation Shortcut) change inexplicably.

This seems to happen to an even greater extent when another developer opens the file, particularly when his display is set to a different resolution.

This makes it difficult for us to use text diff viewers to compare and merge the file in source control since we would have to scroll through hundreds or thousands of differences in order to find what had actually changed.

Please advise.

Hi,

thank you. Unfortunately in the current version there might be differences when working with the same model on different machine with different screen resolution or operating system. We will try to optimize the current behavior, but it won’t be a quick fix, that’s why I cannot promise it will appear in the product soon.

If you need to track chagnes, I recommend to use Sync & Convert wizard for comparison (there all visual or workspace related graphical items can be eliminated). Opening a model without any modification should not result in changes in version control system items.

And if you want to track changes textually, please have a look at Model | Reports/XSL Transformation… There is a possiblity to generate Complete XML. This format contains just database objects (with meaningful names of datatypes etc.) and probably this is a good way how to track changes textually, using the simplified XML.

Regards,

Vaclav

Message was edited by: vaclav
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Thanks for the reply. I will try your suggestions.