The Omni Group Forums - How To Entity-Relationship Diagram

[QUOTE=higgledy;86648]I am looking for a Visio-like product which runs on my Mac. I downloaded OmniGraffle Pro trial[/QUOTE]
OG is light years ahead of Visio. If you take the time to look at the tutorials and demos, you might find some ideas. If you have to port diagrams back to Visio, then of course you have to limit yourself to Visio functionality.

[QUOTE]but I don't see where or how to create an ERD for a database schema. Can someone point me in the right direction? Thank you.[/QUOTE]

1 Basically, you are looking for stencils. Graffletopia is the place to go, and you can get there by doing [URL="http://graffletopia.com/images/application/awesome.jpg"]this[/URL] in OG.

2 You will find hundreds of stencils there: from good (they are actually stencils, with standard symbols, all integrated with each other, thoughtfully created, considering alignment, grids, magnets, etc); through non-standard symbols; to others that are just simple shapes with no integration or considerations. Of course, if you want to avoid re-drawing your diagrams, you need to choose which stencil to use with those considerations in mind.

3 I found the stencils available for ERDs and DMs a bit pathetic, so I wrote my own. You have great timing, I uploaded a few improvements to my Stencils just yesterday.

4 If you want a simple ERD, try the [URL="http://graffletopia.com/stencils/590"]ERD Stencil[/URL]. Many people call Data Models "ERDs"; if you are documenting the full schema, you probably need a DM, not an ERD, and you may find the [URL="http://graffletopia.com/stencils/588"]Data Model Stencil[/URL] helpful.

Cheers