New in DeZign for Databases V5

DeZign for Databases V5 includes the following new features. View the version history/release notes for a complete list of features and product enhancements. Also see the versions comparison chart for an overview of the changes between version 3,4 and 5.

Update Model From Database With the new update model from database feature you can compare a model to the actual database and selectively choose the changes to apply to your existing data model. This new feature enables adding new database objects to the model, synchronization of existing objects, such as updating changed table columns, adding new table columns, and deletion of removed objects. [Available in Professional and Expert Editions only]

Attribute Color Coding DeZign for Databases V5 allows you to color code individual attributes in the diagram. You can now for example "highlight" your important or changed attributes. This new feature improves the communication of your designs within and beyond the data modeling group of your company.

Support for Schemas/Owners A lot of databases support schemas these days. Schemas essentially partition a single database into multiple "namespaces" which can have different privilege levels. Depending on the logged on user, you can reverse engineer database objects across schemas/owners. In the new Schema/owner Editor you can associate database objects with schemas/owners.

Customizable Data Type Conversion Rules With data type conversion rules you have full control of data type conversions when switching your data model to a new target DBMS. You can define your rules (or mappings) in a so-called data type conversion rules file (.dcr file). Usage of a conversion rules is optional. When the source data type is not defined in the conversion rules, DeZign's internal conversion routine is used.

Enhanced Object Browser The Object Browser was fairly slow in the previous version when loading in large projects. This was successfully addressed in V5 by re-designing the Object Browser. By using the new techniques, even large projects will now load in quickly. The Object Browser now also contains indicators to show the number of objects in the different lists.

New Compare Models Pane To have better insight of the differences between database objects after comparing, the Compare Models Pane was extended with object filtering and a new feature was added to simultaneously scroll through the details when comparing the definitions of two database objects.

Improved Reports The generation of data model reports is considerable improved. Version 5 introduces a new technique to prevent report tables to extend beyond margins of the document. Names of objects using name templates are now automatically generated when generating a report. New PDF settings enable you to work with page numbers and to set the papersize for the PDF export of the report.

Domain Usage Domains are reusable user-defined types or "attribute templates" that promote consistent domain definitions. You can reuse them in your data model by applying them to attributes. A missing feature in the previous version of DeZign for Databases was the possibility to see where a domain was used. In V5 you now have this overview. In the domain editor, a new tab "domain usage" has been added.

Extended Indexes Support A lot of effort was put into new functionality with indexing. DeZign for Databases V5 now supports index expressions, index column sort options and function based indexes (FBI). This new functionality is effective when reverse engineering a database, editing indexes (Entity Dialog) and when generating the database.

New Databases Supported The number of supported databases has been enlarged. Support for Oracle 11g has been added, and for IBM DB2 users we added the possibility to import a database by making use of a direct connection to the database. We now also support ElevateDB. Forward and reverse engineering is supported for this new database.

Improved Reverse Engineering The "database drivers" to extract database information (meta data) are improved for all supported databases. More database object properties such as character set usage, collations, comments on database objects, index expressions, schema name etc are captured. As a result of the improved database drivers, performance when capturing a complete database has been increased.

Windows Vista Support DeZign for Databases V5 is compatible with Microsoft's latest operating system - Windows Vista.

See also:
Version history/release notes
Versions comparison chart