Everyone likes pictures. Generate a report without any pictures, graphs, or charts and see how many ‘likes’ you get at work.

Everyone gets excited about data modeling, and in some circles, folks think that data models are synonymous with diagrams. But really, the diagram is just the ‘pretty picture’ you add to your office report. Don’t get me wrong, these pictures CAN be very important.

There are lots of things you can do to customize the look and feel of your diagrams. You can change colors and fonts, add pictures (also new for 4.1), create subviews (which filter the objects shown), and displays (which allow you to have different visual versions of your diagrams.)

I had originally said this was new in version 4.1, umm no. Apparently it’s been in here since version 2.1 and I just haven’t been paying attention. So if you haven’t seen it before, it’s probably new to you 🙂

Yet another way to share information via pictures.
Yet another way to share information via pictures.

You can drag and drop a display, model, or subview to an existing diagram.

Those new visual artifacts now also act as hyperlinks. So I can quickly ‘jump to’ say a version of my diagram that only has comments. Or I can even link to a different model in my design.

Select the item from the tree and drag it to the diagram
Select the item from the tree and drag it to the diagram

Double-clicking on the diagram object immediately opens said display, subview, or model.

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I'm a Distinguished Product Manager at Oracle. My mission is to help you and your company be more efficient with our database tools.

6 Comments

    • I guess we changed our minds since 2011. And I’m not sure MySQL had modeling support back when we first acquired this technology.

  1. Stephane Vinette Reply

    Is it in Oracle’s plan to include MySQL as an RDBMS to the SQL Developer Data Modeler tool? And if yes, what is the timeframe??

    Thanks!

    Steph

    • Stephane Vinette

      Yeah, I am aware of SQL Workbench… not great! Several deficiencies…

      I’m currently evaluating several data modeling tools, as part of a new platform, that would both work with Oracle and MySQL. So far, I’ve evaluated MySQL Workbench and Toad Data Modeler, with the latter coming on top. Navicat and Power Architect is also on my “to evaluate” list. But, as of now, SQL Developer Data Developer (or SDDM) is by far the best tool. I thought that, since Oracle acquired the MySQL technology, they would incorporate MySQL into the SDDM toolset. Oh well…

      Off hand, would you know or are aware of a good data modeling tool that would both handle Oracle and MySQL?

      Thanks for your input! Much appreciated…

      Steph

    • It doesn’t make sense for us to have 2 modeling solutions for MySQL..have you shared your feedback with the MySQL team? If not, send it to me, and i’ll get it to the right people.

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