edit ER diagram

Overview

With Next Design's ER diagram (Entity-Relationship Diagram), you can visualize the structure of a model by freely arranging the components of the model on the view and connecting the relationships between the components.

The editing operations in the ER diagram are explained below in the following order.

• Add component
• Create relationships between components
• Change shape

info

• Next Design treats the components of a model as models, so the components of an ER diagram are also models.
• In the following explanation, to distinguish between them, the editing target of the ER diagram is referred to as "model", and the components of the ER diagram as "model components" or simply "components".

Add a component

To add components to the ER diagram, follow these steps:

Operation procedure

1. Drag and drop entities from the Toolbox, following these basic operations:

   Model editing > Model editing basics > Edit in main editor > Add model from toolbox

2. With the added component selected, start typing to edit the name of the component.

caution

• If you have set the configuration to add components automatically, if you add components in other views and then switch to the ER diagram, the added components will be displayed near the existing components. Move it around on the diagram.

Repeated shape

• If you add a model that already exists on the ER diagram to the same ER diagram, a circular icon will be displayed on the upper right of the component. This icon indicates the presence of other components of the same model in the ER diagram. Such a construct is called a Repeated shape.

Create associations between components

Use the following steps to connect components in an ER diagram with connectors to represent their relationships.

Operation procedure

1. Move the pointer over the component you want to associate.
2. Drag the [▲] icon displayed in the four directions of the component and drop it on the other component to be related.
3. If there are multiple types of associations, a pop-up selection will appear after the drop, so click to select.
4. Once the components are associated, connectors will appear between them.
5. To remove the association, select the connector and press delete.

caution

• Associations that do not have a connector defined in the profile cannot be linked.
• Whether or not a relationship can be established is determined by the combination of the related source and related destination entities.

To change the shape of each connector, do the following:

Operation procedure

1. Select the connector you want to reshape and right-click to open the context menu.
2. Select one of the following shapes from [Connector Style] in the context menu.
   • straight line
   • orthogonal polygonal line
   • Linear Bezier curve
   • Quadratic Bezier curve

tip

• A straight connector can be changed to a polygonal line by dragging the middle of the straight line.
• You can change the route of the orthogonal polygonal line connector by dragging it in the middle.
• To reset the routing of a connector, from the ribbon, run Home > Alignment > Routing > Reroute ConnectorShapes.
• If you move a shape with orthogonal polyline connectors, the connector path will be auto-routed. To stop this automatic routing, from the ribbon click Home > Alignment > Routing > Auto Routing to OFF. Note that this setting is saved per user.

Change shape

To change the shape of a component in an ER diagram, do the following:

Operation procedure

1. Select the component whose shape you want to change.
2. Click Home > Style > Diagram on the ribbon.
3. Select a shape.

info

• To restore the modified shape, reselect the same shape as the shape definition.

note

• To be able to change the shape, the [Allow shape change] check box in the setting item of the corresponding shape must be ON in the view definition of the profile.
• See Reference > Profile Settings and Modeling Changes for details.