It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flow charts, network diagrams, and simple circuits.

It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. Use the arrow keys to move to the next entity or duplicate it by pressing CTRL+Enter (or CMD+Enter on MacOS).Dia is designed to be much like the commercial Windows program 'Visio'. When you’ve finished, press CTRL+Enter ( CMD+Enter) to exit the text edit. Of course, you can also drag new attribute rows from the shape library and drop them within the entity shape.Įdit an attribute row by selecting it, then pressing Enter. You can also right click on the row shape, select duplicate, then edit the text. Select an existing row and press CTRL+Enter (or CMD+Enter on MacOS) to duplicate it. The easiest way is to duplicate an existing attribute row.

This works better with the second style of diagram.Īdd extra attributes to entities: Sometimes your entity shapes don’t have enough space for all the attributes you need. See this earlier post for a more detailed description on how to use the scratchpad in draw.io to make creating ER diagrams quick and easy.Įxport to text: Want to create a text list of entities and their attributes and keys? Use the draw.io text plugin and export it to a text file. If you are creating the second style of ER diagram, you can store a ‘template’ with as many extra ‘rows’ for the attributes as you typically need. Use template shapes: Use the scratchpad for storing groups of shapes so you don’t have to build each up from scratch. To create an associative entity in the first style of diagram, add an entity shape and a relationship shape, and group the two shapes together. An associative entity (easier to see in the second type of diagram), is shown with a dashed outline and connector – this type of entity is needed wherever you have many-to-many relationships.A weak entity (shown as a double rectangle), because it doesn’t have it’s own unique key – it only exists in relation to entity to which it belongs.Using the HabitTracker example that I have used in previous posts, the entities are: User, Coach, Habit, Checkin, and Comment. A second entity following this example would be Course, which would include the attributes Professor, a list of enrolled Students, and the Subjects that the Course contains. These represent a collection of data, using a rectangle with attributes ‘hanging’ off it, or box containing a list of its attributes.įor example, an entity Student could include the attributes StudentID, Name, Address, Course, Subjects, Marks.

Dia er diagram tool