Обсуждение: Re: [pgsql-general] DB GUI Design tool
> Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 12:04:38 +0900 > From: Jean-Christian Imbeault <jc@mega-bucks.co.jp> > > Can anyone recommend a free GUI DB design tool for Windows I could use > to model my database design? (something similar to the design tool in MS > access). > DataArchitect by TheKompany (http://www.thekompany.com/products/dataarchitect/) seems to be a powerful tool. It is not free, but with 40$ extremely cheap and runs on Win32 and Unix as it is based on QT. Christoph Dalitz
On Wed, 10 Jul 2002, Christoph Dalitz wrote: > > From: Jean-Christian Imbeault <jc@mega-bucks.co.jp> > > > > Can anyone recommend a free GUI DB design tool for Windows I could use > > to model my database design? (something similar to the design tool in MS > > access). > > > DataArchitect by TheKompany > (http://www.thekompany.com/products/dataarchitect/) seems to be a > powerful tool. I just played with it, and I can't say I'm very impressed. When I connected it to a postgres database and asked it to generate a document from that schema, it generated ten empty table definitions. And when creating tables, there seems no easy and automatic way to have it draw a line indicating that a foreign key in one table references a primary key in another, and make this line stick no matter where you move the table in the diagram. Also, I couldn't figure out how to delete items from the diagram. Not to mention that creating table definitions in it is a lot more work than just typing SQL into a text file. So after about half an hour of playing, I abandoned it. Unfortunately, I still have a need for some sort of graphical tool so I can make pretty pictures for clients, but I've got a good budget for it, so I'd be interested in any other recommendations. But I found this one hard enough to use that in the end my "tool" may be paying a drone to keep a Visio diagram up-to-date based on changes to my text files. cjs -- Curt Sampson <cjs@cynic.net> +81 90 7737 2974 http://www.netbsd.org Don't you know, in this new Dark Age, we're all light. --XTC
On Wed, 10 Jul 2002, Curt Sampson wrote: > On Wed, 10 Jul 2002, Christoph Dalitz wrote: > > > > From: Jean-Christian Imbeault <jc@mega-bucks.co.jp> > > > > > > Can anyone recommend a free GUI DB design tool for Windows I could use > > > to model my database design? (something similar to the design tool in MS > > > access). > > > > > DataArchitect by TheKompany > > (http://www.thekompany.com/products/dataarchitect/) seems to be a > > powerful tool. > > I just played with it, and I can't say I'm very impressed. When I > connected it to a postgres database and asked it to generate a document > from that schema, it generated ten empty table definitions. And when > creating tables, there seems no easy and automatic way to have it draw a > line indicating that a foreign key in one table references a primary key > in another, and make this line stick no matter where you move the table > in the diagram. Also, I couldn't figure out how to delete items from the > diagram. > > Not to mention that creating table definitions in it is a lot more > work than just typing SQL into a text file. > > So after about half an hour of playing, I abandoned it. Unfortunately, > I still have a need for some sort of graphical tool so I can make > pretty pictures for clients, but I've got a good budget for it, so I'd > be interested in any other recommendations. But I found this one hard > enough to use that in the end my "tool" may be paying a drone to keep a > Visio diagram up-to-date based on changes to my text files. Pgaccess has a database design feature. It's currently called 'Schema' unfortunately. It doesn't generate a diagram from an existing database though and I'm not sure about lines moving when items are moved around. -- Nigel J. Andrews Director --- Logictree Systems Limited Computer Consultants
On Wed, 10 Jul 2002 17:30:03 +0900 (JST) Curt Sampson <cjs@cynic.net> wrote: > > On Wed, 10 Jul 2002, Christoph Dalitz wrote: > > > DataArchitect by TheKompany > > (http://www.thekompany.com/products/dataarchitect/) seems to be a > > powerful tool. > > I just played with it, and I can't say I'm very impressed. When I > connected it to a postgres database and asked it to generate a document > from that schema, it generated ten empty table definitions. > Admittedly I had not tried it. > Not to mention that creating table definitions in it is a lot more > work than just typing SQL into a text file. > At my former workplace we had an own program that took a text file with the description of the data model, compared it with the structures found in the Oracle database and created/altered tables accordingly. It seems to me that this is the most effective approach because graphical tools become clumsy when the model contains more than four tables. Hopefully I can find some time in the future for an implementation of something similar. > So after about half an hour of playing, I abandoned it. Unfortunately, > I still have a need for some sort of graphical tool so I can make > pretty pictures for clients. > What good is a messy picture with hundred tables containing zillions of attributes for your clients? Don't they need a somewhat simplified overview of only the most important E/R's? If it is only for pictures, there is a free UML-tool that I occasionally use: http://wwwhome.cs.utwente.nl/~tcm/ It is written with Motif however and thus only runs on Unix. If you eventually find something appropriate I would greatly appreciate a short note on the tools that you have found. Christoph Dalitz
On Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 05:30:03PM +0900, Curt Sampson wrote: > So after about half an hour of playing, I abandoned it. Unfortunately, > I still have a need for some sort of graphical tool so I can make > pretty pictures for clients, but I've got a good budget for it, so I'd > be interested in any other recommendations. But I found this one hard > enough to use that in the end my "tool" may be paying a drone to keep a > Visio diagram up-to-date based on changes to my text files. Rod Taylor had a nice postgresql_autodoc.pl script at http://www.zort.ca/postgresql. It connects to an existing database and generates dia files. You have to place the tables where you'd like on the diagram, so you still need a drone, but it's pretty good. A -- ---- Andrew Sullivan 87 Mowat Avenue Liberty RMS Toronto, Ontario Canada <andrew@libertyrms.info> M6K 3E3 +1 416 646 3304 x110
Try http://www.casestudio.com/ Db Diagram looks pretty good. J/ On Wednesday 10 July 2002 10:30, you wrote: > On Wed, 10 Jul 2002, Christoph Dalitz wrote: > > > From: Jean-Christian Imbeault <jc@mega-bucks.co.jp> > > > > > > Can anyone recommend a free GUI DB design tool for Windows I could use > > > to model my database design? (something similar to the design tool in > > > MS access). > > > > DataArchitect by TheKompany > > (http://www.thekompany.com/products/dataarchitect/) seems to be a > > powerful tool. > > I just played with it, and I can't say I'm very impressed. When I > connected it to a postgres database and asked it to generate a document > from that schema, it generated ten empty table definitions. And when > creating tables, there seems no easy and automatic way to have it draw a > line indicating that a foreign key in one table references a primary key > in another, and make this line stick no matter where you move the table > in the diagram. Also, I couldn't figure out how to delete items from the > diagram. > > Not to mention that creating table definitions in it is a lot more > work than just typing SQL into a text file. > > So after about half an hour of playing, I abandoned it. Unfortunately, > I still have a need for some sort of graphical tool so I can make > pretty pictures for clients, but I've got a good budget for it, so I'd > be interested in any other recommendations. But I found this one hard > enough to use that in the end my "tool" may be paying a drone to keep a > Visio diagram up-to-date based on changes to my text files. > > cjs -- Pruner Jan jan@pruner.cz http://jan.pruner.cz/ ----------------------------- Only Robinson Crusoe had all his work done by Friday
> Rod Taylor had a nice postgresql_autodoc.pl script at > http://www.zort.ca/postgresql. It connects to an existing database > and generates dia files. You have to place the tables where you'd > like on the diagram, so you still need a drone, but it's pretty good. Can you make subdiagrams in DIA? I guess that you can make N copies of the extracted file and then remove the unwanted entities from each diagram, but it's not really a good way. Any way to reimport to a PostgreSQL database from DIA - or any plans to make such a tool? -- Kaare Rasmussen --Linux, spil,-- Tlf: 3816 2582 Kaki Data tshirts, merchandize Fax: 3816 2501 Howitzvej 75 Åben 12.00-18.00 Web: www.suse.dk 2000 Frederiksberg Lørdag 12.00-16.00 Email:kar@kakidata.dk
Curt Sampson wrote: > >>>From: Jean-Christian Imbeault <jc@mega-bucks.co.jp> >>> >>>Can anyone recommend a free GUI DB design tool for Windows I could use >>>to model my database design? (something similar to the design tool in MS >>>access). >>> > ... > So after about half an hour of playing, I abandoned it. Unfortunately, > I still have a need for some sort of graphical tool so I can make > pretty pictures for clients, but I've got a good budget for it, so I'd > be interested in any other recommendations. But I found this one hard > enough to use that in the end my "tool" may be paying a drone to keep a > Visio diagram up-to-date based on changes to my text files. If you have the budget, I've found PowerDesigner from Sybase to be very nice. It's something like $995 for the "Physical Designer" product, but a company can afford that. It understands every major DB that I've ever heard of, plus multiple versions of most of them (yes, it has an entry for Postgresql 7.x). You can create a schema from scratch, or it will reverse engineer a schema to the graphic too, though you will have to manually arrange the tables and reference lines to make it look nice. The drawing tool is top-notch and will do probably everything you want it to. Then after you change the schema to what you want, it can create the schema file to be used in psql to create the DB. It also has report generation capability (HTML & RTF output), as well as a consistency/error checker. If you have a big enough budget, they also have ERD and other tools in the product family, but I've never used any of them. I find the Physical Designer to be more than adequate for my work. The only real drawback is that it only runs on an Win32 platform; but then VMWare solves that problem by letting me run ms-win2k under Linux. :-) HTH, Kevin
Sybase also have a free one out that is really good also asentlnx It is windows based and you just use the ODBC. Darren On Wed, 10 Jul 2002, Kevin Brannen wrote: > Curt Sampson wrote: > > > >>>From: Jean-Christian Imbeault <jc@mega-bucks.co.jp> > >>> > >>>Can anyone recommend a free GUI DB design tool for Windows I could use > >>>to model my database design? (something similar to the design tool in MS > >>>access). > >>> > > > ... > > So after about half an hour of playing, I abandoned it. Unfortunately, > > I still have a need for some sort of graphical tool so I can make > > pretty pictures for clients, but I've got a good budget for it, so I'd > > be interested in any other recommendations. But I found this one hard > > enough to use that in the end my "tool" may be paying a drone to keep a > > Visio diagram up-to-date based on changes to my text files. > > If you have the budget, I've found PowerDesigner from Sybase to be very > nice. It's something like $995 for the "Physical Designer" product, but > a company can afford that. It understands every major DB that I've ever > heard of, plus multiple versions of most of them (yes, it has an entry > for Postgresql 7.x). You can create a schema from scratch, or it will > reverse engineer a schema to the graphic too, though you will have to > manually arrange the tables and reference lines to make it look nice. > The drawing tool is top-notch and will do probably everything you want > it to. Then after you change the schema to what you want, it can create > the schema file to be used in psql to create the DB. It also has report > generation capability (HTML & RTF output), as well as a > consistency/error checker. > > If you have a big enough budget, they also have ERD and other tools in > the product family, but I've never used any of them. I find the > Physical Designer to be more than adequate for my work. The only real > drawback is that it only runs on an Win32 platform; but then VMWare > solves that problem by letting me run ms-win2k under Linux. :-) > > HTH, > Kevin > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster > -- Darren Ferguson