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I'm getting to the point where the applications I write need a little more structure during the planning phase. So I'd like to use some sort of visual tool to design the tables and relationships. I'm on a mac and have tried mysql workbench, but I find it buggy and a bit bloated for my intended use. Is something that I could design in that has a nice interface and is primarily a tool for visual design?

Thanks

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+1 because I 100% agree with your statement about MySQL Workbench. DB Designer (from which it shares a bit of lineage) was far better. – qes Jan 13 '11 at 0:25
I did some research on this a little while ago, and MySQL Workbench was the best I found in the free category. Would love to see if anyone knows of anything better---especially something that works with Postgres. – Sharpie Jan 13 '11 at 0:26
@Sharpie Find any reasonably priced? – tshauck Jan 13 '11 at 0:29
Afraid not, our budget didn't include an allowance for that kind of tool so we weren't looking at commercial offerings. – Sharpie Jan 13 '11 at 0:40
Run a virtual PC and use Database Spy! altova.com/databasespy.html – JP Alioto Jan 13 '11 at 4:16

3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

It's Microsoft (so if you hate them please don't downvote), but Visio can be pretty quick and easy to diagram up some DB's.

I saw my boss using a pretty slick diagramming tool only for Mac the other day, but I don't recall the name off-hand.

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Visio is a pretty well-done piece of software, and its graphics have become easily recognizable and interpreted. For design documentation I'd say it's the way to go, and for database design it can certainly do the job well. – Andrew Arnold Jan 13 '11 at 14:50
up vote 0 down vote

I use Argo UML to draw the pictures. It's entirely visual.

It can generate some code, but I've never tried to use those features.

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up vote 0 down vote

I use EclipseUML Omondo and design my class diagram with my database model. I create my objects as classes, then add associations for mappings between classes and stereotypes which generate java annotations in the code. Finally with Hibernate I can deploy my code and test my application. It works pretty well.

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