Documenting the Relationships Graph

 <  Day Day Up  >  

The Relationships Graph does not have a built-in feature for adding comments or descriptions. However, there are a few things you can do to document the Relationships Graph. Always make table occurrence names descriptive and follow a consistent naming scheme. Some developers like to begin the name of a table occurrence with the name of the source table. This practice can be quite helpful when selecting a table occurrence from a list. Table occurrences are alphabetized when displayed in a list, and therefore all occurrences for a particular table that use that naming convention are grouped together in the list.

You also might want to use color to develop a scheme that adds meaning to table occurrences. Table occurrences for data tables, utility tables, and system tables can have different colors. You might also choose to use color to differentiate each table occurrence group. The HTML and XML versions of the Database Design Report include the color of the table occurrences, and display that color in the report output. You can add more table occurrences as group headers or comments. See the example in Figure D.2. A table occurrence name can contain up to 100 characters . The Relationships Graph can be spread across many pages if this is helpful for readability. Use plenty of whitespace and place logical groups of table occurrences on separate pages to make large Relationships Graphs easier to understand and maintain.

Figure D.2. Use " dummy " table occurrences as a means of documenting the Relationships Graph.
graphics/ap04fig02.jpg

CAUTION

Be aware that these "dummy" table occurrences will still appear in any list of table occur rences anywhere in your system, so you need to name them in a way that indicates their special purposes (possibly with a leading asterisk or other special character). It's very possible that upcoming versions of FileMaker will provide some improvements in Relationships Graph management, and this practice could easily become a thing of the past.


 <  Day Day Up  >  


QUE CORPORATION - Using Filemaker pro X
QUE CORPORATION - Using Filemaker pro X
ISBN: N/A
EAN: N/A
Year: 2003
Pages: 494

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net