Abstract

The Mogwai tools provides cutting edge java software development tools available to the public. It's main goal is to develop a free entity relationship modelling tool supporting most of the current known databases. Here are some of it's key features :

• Visual entity relationship modelling tool
• Integrated version tracking
• Integrated data dictionary
• Integrated model mart
• Multi user capable
• Supports MySQL, Oracle , PostgreSQL, ...
• JDBC database abstraction layer
• Can be extended using plugins
• GPL license
• Implemented in Java ( runs on Win32 / Unixes / Linuxes )
• Based on SWT for fast and reliable user interfaces
• Uses SWT / Graph2D

Also, it's planned to be easily integrated into the Eclipse development environment

This is a redesign of a well established ER - Tool also called Mogwai, hosted at sourceforge.net. The project website is http://mogwai.sourceforge.net. This tool is also based on java, but is implemented as a Swing standalone application, and also has some serious drawbacks concerning its internal design and usability. The new implementation is based on the above mentioned facts, but without the drawbacks.

System artifacts

Project

A project is a database schema. A project is assigned to a development team and contains the whole information about a database schema.

Entity

An entity represents a database table. An entity is assigned to a project, thus a database schema.

Attribute

An attribute represents a table column. One or more attributes are assigned to an entity. Every attribute is assigned to a domain.

Domain

A domain represents the physical implementation of a logical concept. A domain can be reused by multiple attributes. For instance, Order number, Customer number and so on are domains and can be reused accross the whole database schema. In fact, it must be reused to make the modal consistant to itself.

Relation

A relation defines a relation, a foreign key between two entities. This relation also defines the entity attributes what are used to define the relation.

Index

An index can be created to make data searching faster. An index is assigned to an entitym and an index is build on one or more attributes. An entity primary key is also a index.

Subject area

A subject area is a visual presentation of the whole model or a part of it. One or more entities are assigned to a subject area.

Version

A version marks a version of the whole database schema.

Change

A change defines the changes that were done to the model to build a version from an older version.