Placing connectors between tables optimally

Toad Data Modeler
1

Hi:

I am using straight lines connectors between tables with 90 degrees elbow points. I find that I am spending more time than I wanted to moving around connectors to have a nice and clean look, especially when there are lots of tables involved.

I noticed that when I move the tables around, the connectors are not placed using the shortest distance - if possible - they tend to retain their elbow points but that leads to convoluted links. I have to admit, it’s hard to explain without showing it. Check out the two images. Genre is below Film to start with, and the connector is straight. Then I moved Genre to the left of Film and the connector is below them. An optimal connection would have placed the connector between Genre-right to Film-left or Genre-bottom to Film-left. Using the Optimal style to All lines has disadvantages, especially if you have more than one link between two tables - sometimes they are overlapped or very close. The other thing that I want to avoid is selecting Optimal style every time I move a table. I want the tool to do it for me.

image1.png

image2.png

Any thoughts?

Thanks

2

Hi,

by default there are effort to keep anchor points (contact point of Entity and relation) on same positions.

In Toad Data Modeler exist second mode “Optimal Style on Move”. You can switch on this from “Main Menu - Layout - Optimal Style On Move” (or from toolbar). When you switch on this mode, and move by some shapes, than all lines of this shape will be recalculated to optimal all times.

Daril