Month Year Issue

May 1998 Issue: 2

Journal of Conceptual Modeling
www.inconcept.com/jcm

InfoModeler Tips and Tricks: General Tips, Issue Two
by Dr. Anthony Bloesch

To jump to the conceptual source of a dictionary object, right-click on the object and select 'Go To Definition'. For example, to find the ORM object type corresponding to a table: right-click on the table and select 'Go To Definition'.
To create an index: select one or more columns and use the right-click menu.
To read or write information to or from your InfoModeler model using a program: use InfoModeler's OLE interface. See the online help topics under OLE Automation for more information.
To add a fact to an ORM model: hit the F6 key. You can then edit the fact normally. If an object type is selected, the fact will include the object type.
To add a fact to an ORM model using the Fact Editor: hit the F5 key. If an object type is selected, the fact will include the object type.
To reverse engineer a database into ORM: it is better to first reverse engineer into a Logical Model, fix up the conceptual names, then save as ORM. This gives the reverse engineering algorithm better domain information that is then used to produce a better ORM model.
You can copy and paste from a logical model into an ORM diagram -- the tables etc are reverse engineered into ORM.
To insert OLE objects and pictures into a diagram: use the menu item Edit | Insert Object....
To export a report to a word processor or an HTML editor, generate a report's output as RTF (File | Export to RTF), and then edit the new file in the word processor or HTML editor.
To generate wall size printouts: set the page size (File | Page Setup) to a sufficient size, create the diagram and then print the diagram. InfoModeler will tile the pages appropriately.

Dr. Anthony Bloesch is currently Director of Database and Software Modeling Solutions at Visio Corporation. Previously Anthony was Vice-President of Engineering at InfoModelers Inc. and a Research Fellow at the Software Verification Research Center. Anthony has published and researched widely on topics including: conceptual database modeling and querying, software specification languages, object-oriented analysis and design, and automatic diagram layout.