Technical support

Group Coloring in NORMA

Trish Schiefelbein — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 19:30:17 GMT

Matt, While I was at the OTM conference you showed me how the groups can have similar coloring. I was wondering if you could post some directions on how to do this. I looked through the read-me file and could not find any information on it. Thanks, Trish

Color

Pat Hallock — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:54:14 GMT

IS there a way to set background color, text color, shape color, shape fill color etc.?

Pat

Some constraints not verbalized in the html report

Damir Sudarevic — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 19:19:44 GMT

Hi, In the Constraint Validation Report (html) Internal Uniqueness Constraints are often not verbalized (missing); same with Simple Mandatory Constraints. Can not find the pattern, except that the first FactType listed on the report usually have them verbalized, after that they are missing? For Example (model): Accountant(.name) approved Payment(.nr) Accountant(.name) processed Payment(.nr) // both unique and mandatory on the "payment side" Both are properly verbalized in the ORM verbalization Browser, but in the html Constraint Validation Report only the first one has verbalization for Internal Uniqueness Constraint and Simple Mandatory Constraint. Have VS2012 and the latest version of NORMA Any ideas?

Problem with Toolbox on Windows 7 workstation

mnnoon — Sun, 19 May 2013 21:36:47 GMT

On a clients machine they have my login setup up as a regular non-admin user and I asked the local admin to install the Norma tool from his acct. I installed update 2 in vs2012 from the admin acct as well and everything works great except the toolbox for an orm model.

I have the same configuration on my home computer except its on a Windows 8 machine. Back on the clients workstation however the toolbox simply causes the visual studio instance to crash immediately. On my logon session I have access to all the models and I can see changes through TFS that I made at home, but I can't seem to use the tool box for anything including constraints or notes. The act of clicking anywhere in the orm toolbox and then moving the mouse cursor over the orm model instantly causes the visual studio session to crash on the client workstation.

I'm guessing that some sort of process in Visual Studio 2012 is trying to store temporary data into the commons folder when a new object is created using the toolbox and since I have non-admin access it hits a security exception of some sort which causes it to crash. The fact editor does not cause this problem however and I can save everything to my documents folder fine by avoiding the toolbox.

Toolbox items have disappeared in ORM Designer tab

josecarlus — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 07:42:00 GMT

Hello,

I've been using NORMA with VS 2008 during some time and it has been working quite fine. But suddenly the toolbox items in the ORM Designer tab disappeared and only the Entity Type item is still there. I can't figure out what could caused this because I didn't use this tool for several weeks and it is very possible that I have changed some settings to the IDE in the meantime.

Could anyone help me to get back the rest of the items?

Many thanks,

Jose Carlos

How to show sample populations as annotations on the ORM diagram

Phillip — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 14:55:34 GMT

In Terry's book on ORM there are some nice diagrams that show the sample populations as tables on the ORM diagram.

Is there a way to produce this type of view in NORMA.

My workaround is to take a snapshot of the diagram and annotate it the sample populations in paintbrush (obviously I only put a couple of key samples on) !!!

Tks

Phill

Error installing NORMA on VS2010

rdewit — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 10:57:52 GMT

Recently I'm running Windows 7 64bit with Visual Studio 2010. Setup of NORMA does not complete successfully while it doesn't see an installed version of VS2010. Please help.

VS2010 Loss of keyboard control bug

Galatoni — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 13:39:44 GMT

Hello, This is my first post. I don't know how many other people have discovered this bug, but this seemed the logical place to share my experience. Upon starting Visual Studio there is, on occasion, a bug which prevents the backspace and return keys to stop working. Initially when I restarted, the bug stopped. I have since discovered that if you push alt-return (the normal combination to toggle full-screen apps) it returns the focus to the correct windows and the keys work again. Hope that helps!

Generate SQL DDL using VS 2010 Professional

rahulbali — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 03:10:04 GMT

How do I generate the DDL using above platform?

Rahul

Error on Install

AllisonLazar — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:36:05 GMT

I am trying to install Natual ORM Architect for Visual Studio 2010. I tried to install using my admin privileges, and I received the following error. "Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have appropriate permissions to access the item." Any ideas?

How to use regular expressions for a Value Range

Nieves85 — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 10:59:12 GMT

Hello,

I have a value type named Identifier in an ORM model which has to comply with the following regular expression [Aa..Zz]{[Aa..Zz]|[0..9]}*. I have tried putting the expression in the field ValueRange of the value type properties window. However it is not allowing me to use this type of regular expression.

How can I specify this kind of Value Type?

Many Thanks in advance

PascalCase column generation not working in generated SQL; customizing column name output

Tyler Young — Mon, 14 May 2012 22:45:26 GMT

I went into "ORM Model Browser" -> "Name Generation Settings" -> "Name Generation Defaults" -> "Relational Names" -> "Column Specific" -> "CasingOption". On the Relational View it gives the correct casing, but in the generated SQL it's still coming through as camelCase.

On a related side note, I'm going through and customizing the output to give "VARCHAR" rather than "CHARACTER VARYING", etc. One of the customizations I'd like is enclosing the column name in [brackets] for cases where column names are reserved words. For example, [Order] or [Right].

To make changes to the column name, I've tried DDILtoSQLServer.xslt and DILSupportFunctions.xslt, but neither of them are giving the desired [result]. Are there other places I should be looking, or have I just not found the right spot yet?

I realize that the changes I'm making will likely break generation for Oracle, DB2, and MySQL on this machine. For the scope of this project, that's acceptable.

NORMA incorrectly generating views?

Tom Leeman — Fri, 04 May 2012 22:23:21 GMT

I'm not sure if this is a bug or me just misunderstanding something but in the object role model which I've i've uploaded below, the entity type Project(.name) is being partially implemented as a VIEW in the generated Sql Server DDL

e.g.

CREATE VIEW Portfolio.Project_UC1 (WebsiteURL)
WITH SCHEMABINDING
AS
   SELECT WebsiteURL
   FROM
       Portfolio.Project
   WHERE WebsiteURL IS NOT NULL
GO

Link to the ORM file: http://www.sendspace.com/file/4selk1

Tom

Relational View with 0..1 to a 0..1

Looopy — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 01:04:57 GMT

Hi I just wonder how i can select which direction the entities so the relational View will create a DDL correctly. As you can see it do not link the Customer to WebLogin instead it Links Weblogin to Customer. If i set the RolePlayer "Customer" to mandatory and then make it not mandatory it changes direction but next time a change the model it can randomly change it back. Is this a bug or am i doing something wrong?

NORMA VS2010 PLiX Implemenation error

Tom Leeman — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:39:24 GMT

I’ve been attempting to reverse engineer object role models into Visio UML diagrams by using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate.

I have been successful in reverse engineering a very simple object role model based around the proposition “Person buys Car”, which I have attached to this post. However when I attempt to repeat the procedure for more complicated object role models such as the Talent Agency role model found in the ORM Foundation library or for one of my own projects, the NORMA generator throws an error.

Here is the procedure I used
1.   I created a new C# windows forms application project in VS 2010 ultimate
2.   I added the Talent Agency ORM to the project
3.   In the properties window for the ORM, I changed the ORMGeneratorSettings to include PLiX_Implemenation, and then clicked save changes
4.   I then opened up “Talent.Abstract.PLiX.cs” which explained that the generator threw an exception. I’ve attached this file to the post also.

If I repeat the same procedure for the simple ORM I attached to this post, the generator works flawlessly. Additionally, for a ORM i'm creating for a university project, when I attempt the same procedure the generator also throws an error stating that "The required attribute 'dataTypeName' is missing." I've triple checked my data types and even rebuilt the model entirely and I still get the same error. If it helps to understand the problem then I can send these files to you also.

Tom

Can both Visio for Enterprise Architects and NORMA run on the same machine?

mtmccor — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 22:15:10 GMT

Since Microsoft has dropped support for ORM, I need to start transitioning my models to NORMA. Are there any issues with running both NORMA and Visio for EA that has the ORM features?

HTML report verbalizations different to ORM Verbalization Browser

ShawnC — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:57:02 GMT

I was publishing a report for review, and noticed that the verbalizations are different between VS and the report

Verbalization Browser:

Category can be mounted on Slot.
Each Category can be mounted on exactly one Slot.
It is possible that more than one Category can be mounted on the same Slot.

Report: (abbreviated)
Category can be mounted on Slot.
Each Category can be mounted on at most one Slot.
Each Category can be mounted on some Slot.

This applies to every fact type

Bug or my mistake?

Regards

Shawn C

NORMA Visual Studio Versions

John Gilmore — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 08:49:38 GMT

I see that NORMA is available for three different versions of Visual Studio; namely, 2005, 2008 and 2010.

Is there any difference, functional or otherwise, in NORMA on the three different Visual Studio versions?

ORMCustomTool not available for DDL generation

JimLudden — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:37:54 GMT

I'm trying to follow the instructions in NORMA Lab 1 tutorial, slide 45, which says, "

In the Properties window,

check that “ORMCustomTool”

is the value for the CustomTool property.

(This should be there by default)"

However, it is not there, and typing in "ORMCustomTool" does not give me the ORMGeneratorSettings property, so I can't select a target DBMS.

Any suggestions? I'm using the .ORM file posted in the library for the 'IT Management' model.

Requirements Help

Danno2332 — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 20:16:51 GMT

Hi, I used ORM with InfoModeler some time ago. I am looking to see where it is today and would like to reduce my cost. Will Visual Studio 2005 Standard support the NORMA plug-in? If so, can I use any database that supports ODBC? I develop in Firebird RDBMS using RealBasic. TIA!

NORMA VS2010 HTML report queries/bugs

Tom Leeman — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:08:32 GMT

Hi Matt, I have a few queries/bug reports regarding the NORMA generated HTML report.

Query
In the ConstraintValidationReport, why is there a checkbox for each constraint? I assume this may be something to do with showing the report to a client so that they can agree or disagree with the propositions made by checking or unchecking a checkbox. If this is the case, then there is no facility available to save the changes to the report – which I can imagine for large reports might cause some frustration.

Bugs
1. In Internet Explorer, the styling of the report changes slightly between the ConstraintValidationReport and the ObjectTypeList page

2. In browsers other than Internet Explorer (I tested in Firefox and Chrome) the Verbalization Report Contents menu only links to the “Object Types” page

3. In browsers other than Internet Explorer, when you click the “Up” arrow next to the name of the role in the ConstraintValidationReport, you are taken to an incorrect directory.

Tom

NORMA VS2010 error when changing datatype from variable length text to picture

Tom Leeman — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 00:40:15 GMT

If you change the DataType on a value type from "Text: Variable Length" with a DataTypeLength specified e.g. "50" to "Raw Data: Picture" then in Relational View it will show varbinary(50) instead of varbinary. I assume this would be the same with other DataTypes and also with entity types also.

I've attached a picture to make things clearer.

Tom

Error in exclusive-or subtyping population

Nieves85 — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:20:58 GMT

Hello all,

I have created a hierarchy based on subtying connectors using the Exclusive-Or constraint between subtypes.When I am testing the hierarchy through population I create an instance of the father and then I assign that instance to two different types of children.

It should raise some error as the hierarchy says that it has to be only one type of child; but instead it is allowing this situation. The NORMA version that I have installed is 1.0.1106.6295 2011-06CTP.

I put the verbalisation in case someone wants to try it.

Main Statement is an entity type.
Reference Scheme: Statement has Statement_Id.
Reference Mode: .Id.

Fact Types:
Each Main Statement is an instance of Statement.
Each Assignment is an instance of Main Statement.
Each Object Operation Request is an instance of Main Statement.
Each Flow Control is an instance of Main Statement.
Each Wait is an instance of Main Statement.
Each Save Context is an instance of Main Statement.

Examples: 1

Wait is an entity type.
Reference Scheme: Statement has Statement_Id.
Reference Mode: .Id.

Fact Types:
Each Wait is an instance of Main Statement.

Examples: 1

Save Context is an entity type.
Reference Scheme: Statement has Statement_Id.
Reference Mode: .Id.

Fact Types:
Each Save Context is an instance of Main Statement.

Examples: 1

For each Main Statement, exactly one of the following holds:
that Main Statement is some Assignment;
that Main Statement is some Object Operation Request;
that Main Statement is some Flow Control;
that Main Statement is some Wait;
that Main Statement is some Save Context.

Can you give me some input about what is the possible problem?

Thanks in advance,

Nieves

NORMA VS2010 ValueRange

Looopy — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 09:04:13 GMT

Im Trying to add a ValueRange on a DataType: Text: Variable Length. I Type like it says in Lab 3 "Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms" and then i press enter: it now says: "{'Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms'}" instead of "{'Mr', 'Mrs', 'Miss', 'Ms''}". Is there a problem what i am doing or is this a bug? Because when i genereate a SQL Script it also do the wrong: "CHECK (persontitle IN (N'Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms'))" instead of "CHECK (persontitle IN (N'Mr', N'Mrs', N'Miss', N'Ms')),"

NORMA and Access 2003 (2010)

Simon Rodwell — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:55:01 GMT

Hi there

I am new to NORMA. Way back in the 90's I dabbled a bit with Asymetrix InfoModeller and am amazed by the developments since. At that time I remember reading one of Terry Hailpans earlier books and trying to use it with InfoModeller. Only this last sunday I discovered that InfoModeller became Visio Modeller and a day later discovered NORMA. Marvelous thing wikipedia!!!

I was taught ER analysis on my MSc at Keele University in the UK and as a result never fully cracked database - although yes in the end I came through the MSc OK.. Just recently I had to build a Workload management program in Excel (I am a project manager these days at the Open University in the UK). This was a return to programming after about 8 years.and I discovered things about Excel VBA programming that I probably never wanted to know!!!!

So now I am wondering how to latch up my workload management program to a database in the background and this of course brought me back to thinking about Object Role modelling rather than a Entity Relationship solution.

I have a simple practical question. Last night I set up NORMA in VS2010 and all seems to be well there. I am working through the tutorials but I could do with some simple newbie steps to get the DDL output from NORMA working with Access 2003 so I can look at the tables I might be able to generate in Access 2003. I am guessing that I might need to install SQL server from my Office 2003 CD.

Any suggestions. I like the NORMA notation very much but I was always pretty dumb about relationsional database stuff.

All best

Simon Rodwell

Project Manager The Open University UK