ER utility

[Leb i Sol]

Hello Gang!

I am still hopeing that http://wmotion.com/visualizer.html

willl be out for windows platform...does anyone knows of ANY visual tools for FM? oh why oh why FM never got the concept of tables vs. files

Thank you!

[Lee Smith]

Hi Leb i Sol,

Here is a URL that lists serveral utilities some are for Windows.

http://www.fmfiles.com/dev1.html

HTH

Lee

[Leb i Sol]

Thanx Lee!

I guess I have to accept the fact the FM came "from" MAC community...

All the best!

[Kurt Knippel]

there are literally hundreds of ER diagramming programs for Windows. All of them are general purpose and are not specific to any one database engine or application. Even lowley charting/drawing programs such as Visio have all the ER tools in them.

[Leb i Sol]

Hi Captkurt!

I know about charting/drawing aspect of it.....but I was looking more for a "tool that will generate ER diags based on relationships in FM" -http://wmotion.com/visualizer.html

I am tired of re-looking up relationships throughout the files....and yes I could record it myself with some joke-of-a-program that will put little DB symbols but who wnats to update charts if involved in FM.

I am sure u'v seen the little tool "Relationships" in MS Access.........now that would be nice in FM as well.

I am suprised that FM people never did this?! I mean this is the CORE of DB design and yet no tools to go along.....

Anyhow

[Lee Smith]

AFAIK, Visualizer is the only Utility that draws an ER using the relationship information in the files. Before Visualizer, the way to do this was by using the Design Functions built in FileMaker. Here is a little file that was sent to me by Beverly Voth a few years back that demonstrates how get the relationship information (I upgraded it to FM 5, but have a version 4 if anyone wants it).

In addition, most of the Analyzer type utilities will give you similar details about the relationship, and Bob Weaver has a file in the Sample Forum called "SoftDoc" that I believe will also do this.

Once you have the information about the relationships, it should be a piece of cake do draw the ERDs up, even if this like closing the barn door after the horses are out.

HTH

Lee

getRel.FP5.zip

[kennedy]

You can find Bob's great SoftDoc utility here.

It won't do the ER diagramming, but will allow you to do many analyses based on the info. And you might be able to craft an export to Visio or something (if you do, please post to Bob's SoftDoc thread for the rest of us to use!

[Leb i Sol]

Thank you guys very much...this was what I was looking for!

I wonder why FM does not included this....thank god for people that are willing to share their knowledge!

oh and Kennedy...If I get it to run most definetly I will...it will take me some time to learn and go through the sample files....I am getting some ideas...XML + Visio or Adoobe Illustrator (I think v 10 supports XML based drwaing not sure thoguh....)

Thanx Lee and Kennedy!