Programming Practices
ORM Designer has support for best programming practicies in web projects. You can benefit from separating database model into multiple files which is useful for plugins or modules. Visualization data are related to a module. Position of tables, relations and relation visualization is stored into module file and used once imported into other project. ORM framework definitions exported from ORM Designer are unified and can be compared on commit for changes. Another great feature you would appreciate if using versioning systems (Subversion, CVS etc.) is separation of database model definitions and visualization. When comparing on commit, you can check only for changes in database model.
External Tools
- Application
allows you to define external tools which can be executed directly from ORM Designer enviroment. - More information about this feature is available in article ORM Designer External Tools.
Plugin Support
- Multiple file support: You can split project into more files and use these parts in other projects as modules or plugins.
- Unused plugins: Unused or disabled plugins can be hidden.
- Creating/merging plugins: New plugins can be created using graphical user interface. Existing plugins can be merged.
Unification
- Internal XML: Database model definitions are stored in unified ORM Designer XML document which is the same for all frameworks.
- Meta data: ORM Designer XML document contains all database definitions found in source ORM framework files.
- Unified export: When exporting into ORM framework format, definitions are unified into default format (exported definitions sort order might vary from source import)
- Notice: We advise you to make backup copy when importing new project to ORM Designer so you can compare files on commit once exported from ORM Designer.
