A new feature in Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler is the ability to display table and view comments directly in the ERD. So I can go from this:

Normal Relational Diagram

What you're used to seeing
What you’re used to seeing

to

Relational Diagram with Comments

Same as before but with comments now too
Same as before but with comments now too

to

Relational Diagram with Comments ONLY

Just the comments ma'am, just the comments
Just the comments ma’am, just the comments

Now the cool part is that I don’t have to pick. I can use all three depending on my need. Maybe I need a dev diagram for folks in the know, another diagram for biz users that need the built-in docs, and a 3rd higher level view that just explains the tables purpose.

We do this of course, with Displays.

Displays let me have multiple visual takes on a diagram
Displays let me have multiple visual takes on a diagram

And we configure what’s shown in a diagram by right-clicking in the diagram itself:

Use the 'Names only' to go spartan style...
Use the ‘Names only’ to go spartan style…

How can I find stuff with or without comments?

Maybe you want a report on the documented attributes, columns, entities, or tables in your model. It’s easy to find that, just do an advanced search and look where the value is NOT null.

Also a new feature in this version of the Modeler, doing NOT searches.

So show me tables where the comments aren’t blank:

show me everything basically
show me everything basically

And the results

search_null2

To do the opposite search, just toggle off the ‘Not’ flag in the search parameters.

Author

I'm a Distinguished Product Manager at Oracle. My mission is to help you and your company be more efficient with our database tools.

19 Comments

  1. I recently upgraded to 64 bit ubuntu and installed oracle 12c. Now I’m trying to install sqldeveloper from sqldeveloper-4.1.3.20.78-1.noarch.rpm and I’m getting the same kind of errors as Rajesh reported above couple of years ago. It complains over and over thus: org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: I’ve checked and the jar files all seem to be around, but just not being picked up.

    java -version
    java version “1.8.0_91”
    Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_91-b14)
    Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.91-b14, mixed mode)

    I’ve tried java 1.7 and sqldeveloper says that’s no good. It has to be 1.8 at least. I tried 1.8.0_92 as well, with no success.
    Is this some sort of environment configuration problem?
    Does anyone have any idea what’s wrong with my java set up?

    • cd to your home directly, go into .sqldeveloper, go to the 4.1.3 directory, and edit product.conf

      have the JDK home point to your java 8 JDK

    • Hi Jeff –
      Thanks for the quick reply! I have managed to get things working by deleting the .sqldeveloper directory altogether. I think it gets created once when sqldeveloper starts up if it doesn’t exist, and must have had information in it from a previous effort. I’m sure editing product.conf would have had the same effect!
      Now for OEM…

  2. Jeff, I’m late to the party on this one, but here goes: I’m using 4.1.0.866, and the first thing I noticed in your example is that I get a different relational diagram context menu from what you show (in image 5, “modeler_comments4.png”). My context menu shows much fewer options (maybe it’s configured in Preferences?)

    Anyhow, I created a display but the only comments that show up are those in RDBMS comments. What’s the difference between these and the regular Comments? Are the two supposed to be used? For different purposes? I’ve confirmed that the RDBMS Comments are generated to the DB as table or column comments. What if I don’t want comments in the DB (for many reasons), but I do want comments shown on the diagram? I’ve tried to exclude RDBMS Comments from being generated to DDL (by unchecking Include Comments in the DDL Generation Options dialog), but no success.

    At the logical level, I get this to work but only if I put comments in RDBMS Comments. Why would there be RDBMS Comments in a logical data model diagram (that is, an Entity-Relationship diagram — not to be confused with a Relational or Physical model), which should not be concerned with physical implementation details?

    Thanks,
    Patrick

    • Re comments, comments in RDBMS, and notes – I try to explain that here.

      If you’re in 4.1, I would expect the UI might be different, but the functionality should still be there.

      I think you’re stuck with RDBMS comments if you want them displayed. you might be able to set the publish DDL options to not include the comments – but you’d have to remember that if you have anything embarrassing or confidential there.

      As for the Logical, I would tend to agree with you, but you might get a better answer by posting that to the Forums.

    • Jeff, Thanks for the answers and links; it’ll help.

      I posted a question on the forums a while back, but never got an answer: who or what group should I send my enhancement requests to? Thx

  3. what is the best way to define if one of the attributes in an entity may have multiple answers for ex- a status can have calculated values or null???

    • What’s the best way to define an attribute having multiple values? Do you mean if can only have a value in 1..N? Or do you mean it actually has multiple values? And then what do you mean by calculated values or null?

  4. Jeff — I am loving your blog! I recently used TOAD Data Modeler and my new company is an Oracle shop. I downloaded 4.0 beta of SDDM and find pluses and minuses compared to TOAD, but LOVE the comments in the ERD feature! There isn’t much in the way of documentation yet on 4 so this and your earlier blogs have been printed by me and used to help me learn my way around SDDM. Awesome blog!

    • Wow, thanks so much Sandra!

      The 4 release is getting close, so official release/docs will go live soon.

      Most of what you need should already be documented, v4.0 of the modeler is more of a minor release – more work ‘under the covers’ so to speak..

      I’d love to hear your pluses/minuses take, feel free to email me at [email protected]

  5. Hi Jeff,

    I upgraded to Version 4.0.0.825 to use comments. Now when I try to add comment to Comment RDBMS im getting error – Incomplete Unique Identifier definition: 1 PK

    • I don’t understand the question. This model was reverse-engineered from DB in 3.x version. All I am trying is open model in 4.x, add comment in RDBMS and save. The other think i notice is the name of pk doesn’t have underscore, it has space?? but cannot update long name.

    • I just double-checked, YES, this new feature also applies to Logical models and their associated ERDs.

  6. Getting this error message with SQL Developer DataModeller 4.0 EA3 on Win 7 64 bit

    Warning – could not install some modules: oracle.external.miglayout – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\external\oracle.external.miglayout.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.external.miglayout oracle.external.nlsrtl – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\external\oracle.external.nlsrtl.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.external.nlsrtl oracle.uic – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\lib\uic.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.uic oracle.icons – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\external\oracle.icons.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.icons oracle.javatools_jndi_local – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\external\oracle.javatools-jndi-local.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.javatools_jndi_local oracle.javatools_nodeps – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\external\oracle.javatools-nodeps.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.javatools_nodeps oracle.javaxide – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\lib\javax-ide.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.javaxide oracle.external.berkeleydb – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\external\oracle.external.berkeleydb.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.external.berkeleydb oracle.javamodel_rt – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\external\oracle.javamodel-rt.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.javamodel_rt oracle.jewt_core – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\jlib\jewt4.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.jewt_core oracle.peek – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\lib\peek.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.peek oracle.idert – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\lib\idert.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.idert oracle.ide.searchbar – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\extensions\oracle.ide.searchbar.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.ide.searchbar oracle.ide.persistence – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\extensions\oracle.ide.persistence.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.ide.persistence oracle.ide_print_api – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\lib\ide-print-api.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.ide_print_api oracle.ide – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\extensions\oracle.ide.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.ide oracle.ide.file – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\extensions\oracle.ide.file.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.ide.file oracle.ide.macros – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\jdev\extensions\oracle.ide.macros.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.ide.macros oracle.jgoodies_looks – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\jlib\jgoodies-looks.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.jgoodies_looks oracle.external.xdb – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\external\oracle.external.xdb.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.external.xdb oracle.ide.vfs – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\extensions\oracle.ide.vfs.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.ide.vfs oracle.ide_boot – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\lib\ide-boot.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.ide_boot oracle.java_annotations – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\lib\annotations.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.java_annotations oracle.external.jdbc – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\external\oracle.external.jdbc.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.external.jdbc oracle.ideimpl.peek – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\extensions\oracle.ideimpl.peek.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.ideimpl.peek oracle.ide.indexing – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\extensions\oracle.ide.indexing.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.ide.indexing oracle.ide_osgi – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\lib\oracle.ide.osgi.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.ide_osgi org.eclipse.equinox.common – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\equinox\org.eclipse.equinox.common_3.6.0.v20100503.jar: Not found bundle:org.eclipse.equinox.common oracle.external.timing – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\external\oracle.external.timing.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.external.timing oracle.external.balishare – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\external\oracle.external.balishare.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.external.balishare oracle.javatools_jdk – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\jdev\lib\jdkver.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.javatools_jdk oracle.ide.navigator – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\extensions\oracle.ide.navigator.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.ide.navigator oracle.ide.ceditor – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\extensions\oracle.ide.ceditor.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.ide.ceditor oracle.ide.library – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\jdev\extensions\oracle.ide.library.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.ide.library oracle.external.xmlparser – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\external\oracle.external.xmlparser.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.external.xmlparser oracle.external.jxlayer – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\external\oracle.external.jxlayer.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.external.jxlayer oracle.external.xdk – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\external\oracle.external.xdk.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.external.xdk oracle.javatools – org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: D:\app\SQL DataModeller 4.0\datamodeler\ide\lib\javatools.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.javatools

  7. Jeff,

    today i downloaded Version 4.0.0.12 from otn.oracle.com

    1) When i clicked new connection icon, and changed connection_type to TNS the Network_Alias drop down is NOT loaded with TNS entries. but the same is working fine in 3.2.20.09

    2) when i clicked connect, i am getting this error message in 4.0EA2, but no issues with 3.2.20.09 ( I am on Win 7 64-bit)
    Status : Failure -Test failed: D:\app\179818\product\11.2.0\dbhome_1\BIN\ocijdbc11.dll: Can’t load AMD 64-bit .dll on a IA 32-bit platform

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