General Information - What is DBDesigner 4?

DBDesigner 4 is a visual database design system that integrates database design, modeling, creation and maintenance into a single, seamless environment.

It combines professional features and a clear and simple user interface to offer the most efficient way to handle your databases.

DBDesigner 4 compares to products like Oracle's Designer�, IBM's Rational Rose�, Computer Associates's ERwin� and theKompany's DataArchitect� but is an Open Source Project available for Microsoft Windows� 2k/XP and Linux KDE/Gnome. It is release on the GPL.

DBDesigner 4 and MySQL

DBDesigner 4 is developed and optimized for the open source MySQL-Database to support MySQL users with a powerful and free available design tool.

All MySQL specific features have been built in to offer the most convenient way to design and keep control of your MySQL-Databases.

DBDesigner 4 Development

Because DBDesigner 4 is an Open Source Project you are welcome to become a member of the DBDesigner 4 Forum to share your experiences, report bugs and submit feature requests.

Or you can download the source from the download page and fix bugs yourself or build additional features into the program.

DBDesigner 4 - Features

DBDesigner 4 provides powerful features to create a visual model of any database.

Starting from a reverse engineering engine to automatically retrieve a model from existing databases, extensive modeling tools and editors to a syncronisation function which will apply model changes automatically to the underlying database - it is all part of DBDesigner 4.

Design Mode vs. Query Mode

DBDesigner 4 supports two switchable userinterfaces. The Design Mode is used to create and maintain the visual databases model. The Query Mode is used to work with table data and build complex SQL query statements for the use in PHP, Kylix or another programming language.

Plugins and Open Source

The models created in DBDesigner 4 are stored in XML. They can be modified by third party plugins which are direcly launched from within DBDesigner 4 and other third party products.
Because DBDesigner 4 is an Open Source project it is easy for programmes to develop new plugins or expand DBDesigner 4 to adapt specific needs.

List of features:

* Available on Linux / MS Windows
* User Interfaced based on industry standard layouting software
o Canvas navigation similar to Adobe Illustrator® and Photoshop®
o Palettes (docked / floating) including "Bird Eyes view"
o Available objects include tables, realtions, labels, regions, images
o Extensive Drag'n'drop support
o Extensive Popup-Menu support
o Advanced Editors
o UNLIMITED Undo-/Redo- functions
o Copy-/Cut-/Paste clipboard functions (XML, DDL)
o Align functions

* Design Mode / Query Mode
* Reverse engineering MySQL, Oracle, MSSQL and any ODBC databases
* Userdefined schema-generation
* Model-To-Database syncronisation
* Index support
* Automatic foreign key placement
* Weak entity support
* Standard Inserts storing and sync
* Full documentation capabilities
* Advanced model printing
* Output as image
* All MySQL datatypes with all options
* User defined datatypes
* Database storage, ability to save model within database
* Network-/Multiuser access through database storage
* Version control*
* SQL Query Builder
* SQL Command History
* SQL Command storage within model
* Plugin interface

* Version control only available when using database storage