Note
I’m in the process of forking Erviz. The fork is almost done. The Linux packages are prepared and almost ready to be submitted. (27. Sep 03:47 UTC)
————————

Erviz, written by Mitsuru Kono, is a tool that makes it easy to create entity-relation models and the best thing it’s free!

You can run it on Windows, Linux and Mac but for the latter a patch is required which will be discussed later on this page.

Creating the entity-relation diagram

Only these two steps have to be followed:

1. Create a text file and define all your entities and relationships. The syntax is simple as example shows:

   # Using Erviz 1.0.6
   {title: "Syn2Stock ERD V3"; title-size: 20}
   
   # Entities
   
   [Item] {color:red}
    *Item ID
     Type
     SimpleItem
     Bar Code
     Name
     Amount
     Owner
     Comment
     Attachments
     Sources
     Source ID*
     Location ID*
     Lending ID*
   
   [Source]
    *Source ID
     Price
     Homepage
     Manufacturer
   
   [Location]
    *Location ID
     GPS Coordinates
     Name
     Room
     Locker
   
   [Lending]
    *Lending ID
     Borrowed by
     Borrowed on
     Returned on
     Reminder ID*
   
   [Reminder]
    *Reminder ID
     Start Date
     Repeat Interval
     End Date
     Active
     Action
     Email
     Phone
     Message
     Item ID*
     Lending ID*
   
   [Event]
     *Event ID
     Event Type
     Date
     User
     Item ID*
   
   [Attachment]
    *Attachment ID
     File
     External URL
     Private
   
   [Electronic Part] {color:orange}
    *Electronic Part ID
     Value
     Item ID*
   
   [Book] {color:orange}
    *Book ID
     Subtitle
     Author
     Publisher
     Paperback
     Language
     Review
     Summary
     About the Author
     Item ID*
   
   # Relationships
   [Item] *--* [Source]
   [Item] 1--1 [Location]
   [Item] 1--* [Lending]
   [Item] *--* [Attachment]
   [Reminder] ---- [Item]
   [Event] *--1 [Item] <contains ->
   [Electronic Part] ---- [Item] <is a->
   [Book] ---- [Item] </is><is a->
   </is></contains>
   

2. Then turn the text file into the ERD image by calling the convert-files script.

   

Continue reading »