5.6 Maintain Entity Elements

To maintain an entity's elements, select the entity's shape on the diagram and:

• select the Elements… option from the entity's right-click menu, or

• select the Entity Elements… option from the Edit menu, or

• click the button on the toolbar.

The Maintain Entity Elements dialog, which consists of a toolbar and a list of elements that belong to the entity, is displayed:

Elements shown here have either been explicitly defined as belonging to this entity or are shown as the result of the entity's relationships with other entities.

Note that an External Entity's elements cannot be maintained in any way.

The following information is shown for each element in the dialog:

• Its build status (a green tick if the element has been built, a red cross if the element is required to be built)

• A symbol indicating whether the element is an identifier or is shown as the result of a relationship with another entity. The symbols in use are:

(>) for includes (<) for joins a gray key for parent identifiers a gold key for identifiers.

 

• Its Name,

• A notepad icon, if the element has notes

• Its data type, if it has one

• Its field type and length, or the type and length of the data type if it has one

• Its field name

• Its originating (or from) entity, if it is shown as the result of a relationship with another entity.

This dialog allows you to:

• Create elements for the entity.

• Change elements in the entity.

• Delete elements from the entity.

• Set an identifying element, as described in 5.6.4 Setting an Identifying Element.

• 5.6.5 Re-sequencing Elements.

• Maintain element notes.

• View element 5.6.8 Validation and Build Error Messages.

Changes to the entity's elements and its relationships with other entities will be reflected in the model diagram once this dialog is closed.

You should also be familiar with how to 5.6.6 Transferring Elements and 5.6.9 Building an Entity.