View modes in SqlDBM exist to give different perspectives of the information displayed on a diagram. This allows viewing the diagram at varying levels of detail while always pointing to a single source of truth (no project conversion necessary).

View modes include:

• Logical

• Physical (formerly called Columns) - (Default)

• Description view mode

• Table

• PK/AK

• Keys

The view modes can be accessed from the top toolbar or using the keyboard shortcut: CTRL (CMD) + 1-6

Every view mode can be further configured with relevant view options available from the Diagram Properties menu on the right.

The Physical view mode is enabled by default. This is the most detailed mode, and it displays:

• Schema name

• Physical table name

• Physical column name

• Datatype and length

• Primary or foreign key indicators

These details can be configured from the view mode properties.

This view mode gives a comprehensive overview of all table details and attributes.

This mode shows table and schema names only. It helps give a "bird's eye view" of the landscape so you can focus on the relationships between tables while abstracting their details.

These modes are used to hide all but the key columns in your diagram.

• PK/AK will only show primary and alternate (unique) key columns.

• Keys view will also show foreign key columns.

Be careful when creating a new column in these modes - it will be immediately hidden from view.

To avoid confusion, we display the key indicator on the top of the focused table and the bottom in edit mode. It alerts you that you are in either PK/AK or Keys view mode.

This view mode helps SqlDBM users see table objects with descriptions only. This allows functional users to navigate a project based on table descriptions and not worry about keys and columns.

Double-clicking a table in this view mode will open the comment editor instead of the list of columns.

Logical modeling allows users to specify functional details that may not have a direct physical corollary. Many-to-many relationships and subtypes can be modeled in the Logical view mode, generating the requisite objects in the physical model.

To see detailed info about Logical modeling and the logical view mode, see the article below.

See also

• Logical modeling