There are several ways to create new tables in
Power*Architect. The first way is to click on the
New Table Icon on the sidebar menu. The cursor turns
into a "+" cursor indicating the mode change. Simply
click on the playpen on the spot you desire to place
the new table at. The second method to create a
table is to right click on the playpen and select
the "New Table" option. A newly created table will
then be placed at the point of the right click. A
third way is to type the letter T with the mouse
over the playpen.
To edit a table, right click on the table title and
select "Table Properties". This pops up the Table
Properties dialog.
In this dialog, you can:
Change the name of the table
Rename the primary key section of the table
Add comments/notes about the table
First select the table the new column will be placed
in. Click on the "Insert Column" button and a column
is created in the selected table. Another way to add
a new column is to right click on a table and select
the "New Column..." option. The new column will be
added to the table below the selected column. It
will be placed at the bottom of the table if no
columns are selected. If a table has existing
columns in the primary key and you wish to create
new columns within the primary key, select a column
that is already in the desired primary key and then
create a new column. The newly created column will
be placed within the primary key as well.
Select the desired column, right click and select
"Column Properties". The Edit Column Properties
dialog pops up. Or you can select the column and
click the "Edit Column" button on the Playpen
toolbar.
In this dialog, you can:
Rename the column
Change the type of data the column holds
Set the precision of the data
Set the scale
Indicate if the column is in the primary key or not
Indicate if the column should handle null information or not
Indicate if auto increment is allowed or not
Add additional comments about the column
Set a default value for the column
A special feature of the Power*Architect is that if a column orginated from a database, the Power*Architect is able to remember the database and table it orginated from.
The Power*Architect allows you to drag columns within a table's key and from table to table freely. Simply select the desired columns and drag them into the desired destination. For now, only one column can be moved at a time.
To create a relationship, select the desired type of
relationship on the Playpen ToolBar. The
non-identifying relationship icon is
(keyboard shortcut is shift+R). The identifying
relationship icon is identified by
(shortcut key is R). The cursor changes to the "+"
cursor to indicate the mode change. First click on
the parent table and then click on the child table.
Once this has been done, the relationship will be
created, and will appear as a link between the two
tables.
Select the desired relationship and right click on
the relationship. Choose the "Relationship
Properties" options. This can also be done by
selecting the relationship and clicking on the
relationship properties button. In both cases, the
Relationship Properties dialog will appear.
In this dialog, you can:
Rename the relationship
Choose the relationship type
Change the primary key end cardinality
Change the foreign key end cardinality
There are two ways to select multiple items in the playpen. One way is to hold down the shift key or the ctrl key as more items are being selected. The alternative method is to use the selection box.
The Power*Architect allows diagram objects to move around freely in the playpen. To do so, first select the items you want to move in the Playpen. Click and hold on one of the selected item and drag the items to a desired spot on the playpen.