Customizing Your Designer

> Dimension Designer provides options or preferences which enable customization of various modeling and UI behaviors. Preferences can be accessed via the Edit > Preferences action on the Main toolbar.

Designer Debug Diagram Diagram Printing Editor SQL Explorer SQL Editor Validation XML Schema as Relational Source Model |

Designer Preferences

General Designer preferences fall into two categories, Modeling and VDB.

Modeling

- Always open editor without prompting - To change/edit a model, it must be opened for editing. Checking this box will automatically open the model in an editor if the user attempts to perform a change in a model. If unchecked, the user will be informed that and editor will be opened before the operation is completed.
- Check and update imports during save - occasionally editing a model may add or remove objects in one model that reference objects in another model. Model Imports keep track of these dependencies within each model. A validation error or warning may appear during a build. Checking this box will automatically check and update imports during the save process. This will result in any unneeded imports being removed from the model or any required imports added to the model. If unchecked, no updating of imports will be performed.
- Validate Automatically - when checked, incremental validation will be performed during any save operation. Incremental validation means that any model that has been changed and NOT revalidated will be validated.

VDB

- Always close an open VDB without prompting when creating or opening another VDB - Dimension's fundamental scope involves one VDB. As such, when switching VDB via Open or Create VDB, any open VDB must be closed prior to opening a second VDB. Checking this box will automatically close the open VDB prior to opening another VDB. Leaving it unchecked will result in a dialog asking the user to to confirm the intent to close then open another VDB.
- Always open editors from last session - When exiting Dimension, various UI & VDB information is saved so follow-on sessions can restore the application to it's previous state. Checking this box will restore any open editors from the previous Dimension session. (Note: if "Always open VDB from last session" is unchecked, then no editors are restored)
- Always open VDB from last session - When exiting Dimension, the VDB name and location on your file system are stored, so restarting Dimension will re-open this previous VDB.
- Always show model imports in the VDB Explorer - When checked, Model Imports are shown under the mode in the VDB Explorer tree view. In unchecked, they are hidden. You can also change this preference via the VDB Explorer toolbar's Additional actions pulldown menu
- Size of recently opened VDB list (restart required) - The File menu will maintain a list of "Most recently opened VDB's" up to the limit specified by this preference.

Debugging Preferences

Debugging....

Diagram Preferences

Several diagram preferences are available to customize your diagrams.

Modeling

- Notations - Standard diagram notation for Dimension is based on UML notation. Future releases may include alternate notations.
- Routers - The relationship link type for Package and Custom diagrams (Foreign Key - Primary Key relationships) can be customzed. Available options include Orthogonal (default), Direct or Manual (user defined breakpoints).
- Font Settings - Select font type, style and size.
- Background Color Settings - Select a unique background color for each diagram type to help differentiate between types.
- Model Size - Displaying very large diagram may take a considerably long time. This preference allows users to set an upper limit on the number of objects to display in a diagram. If this limit is exceeded, a warning is displayed to the user and the diagram is not constructed.
- Relationship Options - UML-type relationships can be customized in a couple of ways. Role Names and Multiplicity labels can be shown or hidden using the check-boxes labeled Show Role Names and Show Multiplicity

Diagram Printing Preferences

Diagram print options are stored as preferences. These can be accessed through this preference page, by right-click on diagram Page Setup action , or via the Modify Diagram Printing Preferences action located on the vertical diagram toolbar .

Editor Preferences

Xml Document Mapping

Table Editor

Transformation Editor

See Editing Your Transformations...

SQL Explorer Preferences

The SQL Explorer

SQL Editor Preferences

The SQL Editor provides

Validation Preferences

Validation preference pages, shown below, include Core, Relational Model, XML-related & XML Schema (XSD) models.

XML Schema as Relational Source Model Preferences

XML Schema as Relational xxxxxx

Related Topics

- Dimension Perspectives
- Model Editors
- Getting Started with Metamatrix Dimension

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