Schema overview

The Schema Overview tab draws your database as a graphical schema: its tables, their fields and their relationships.

• Global View of Tables and Fields

A new view — the first time you open the tab, or one created with the + button — only displays the first table that has links, with its link fields alone. Add the other tables with the stack-shaped button, Manage tables: each one arrives with its link fields. The + in a table's header adds its other fields. The lists of these two menus have a search box, which ignores accents.

• Visualization of Relationships

Links and references between tables are represented graphically, facilitating the understanding of dependencies and the overall architecture.

• Free Schema Organization

Tables can be moved by dragging and dropping their header, to organize the schema according to your logic or work context. Rearrange the order of the links to untangle the nodes. Grabbing a table's right edge sets its width; the crossed-out eye in its header removes it from the view.

To select several tables, click their header while holding down the Ctrl key (⌘ on Mac), then move them together. A click on the schema's background clears the selection, as does the Esc key outside fullscreen.

Change the side of the links' attachment to improve the diagram's visibility.

When the table or the field a link points to is removed from the view, the link's attachment takes the shape of an eye: a click on it brings it back.

• Go to a Field

When you hover a field, two buttons appear at the end of its row. The red one, Go to field in Ninox, selects the field in Ninox: Ninox opens its table on a record, with the field highlighted. It only acts in Ninox's edit mode ("Edit mode"): outside this mode, the click has no effect. If the field is not visible on the form, Ninext offers to open the fields editor. The gray one, Hide this field, removes the field from the view; the + in the table's header brings it back. In fullscreen, Ninox changes page behind the schema: leave fullscreen to see the field.

• Multiple Views

Each view keeps its own selection of tables and its own layout. The + button creates a view, the pencil renames it, the cross deletes it. The stack-shaped button chooses the tables displayed, and the + in a table's header, its fields. The last button in the toolbar switches the schema to fullscreen; the Esc key takes it out.

The views are saved with Ninext's settings, in the database itself: you find them from one computer to another, and they are shared by all the database's administrators. Only an administrator can save them.

• Zoom and Navigation

Zoom tools allow displaying more or fewer details, depending on whether you want an overview or a precise read. The zoom percentage is displayed between the zoom-out and zoom-in buttons; the next button adjusts the zoom to fit all the view's tables in the window. Each view remembers its zoom.

• Screenshot Copy

The copy button opens a window that offers to copy the schema image to the clipboard (Copy) or to download it in PNG format (Download). The image contains all the view's tables, at their real size whatever the zoom, and not only the part visible on screen.

Why it’s useful:

• Quickly understand the structure of a complex database,
• document an application,
• identify orphan tables or missing relationships,
• present the architecture of a database to third parties.

Accessible from the Schema Overview tab in the Ninext window.