ORM Lite

The prospects of ORM Lite

pcarbonn — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 07:48:42 GMT

Dear all,

I'd like to hear your thoughts about ORM Lite.

In a previous thread, Fenton asked for a free tool for ORM, to be used by students and enthusiasts. It would certainly help in the adoption of ORM. I would think that ORM Lite could be the answer. It would just need an update of its user interface to make it easier to use (e.g. remove the planning interface) . Better documentation would also help.

I would be curious to know how stable ORM Lite currently is : is it still buggy or production ready ? Is it complete in its coverage of ORM-2 ? Would anybody be willing to help ? (Private responses are welcome)

Thanks in advance,

Pierre C.

ORM Lite for Windows v0.13a Released Today

BrianC — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 01:05:14 GMT

The new release of ORM Lite supports:

Kimball-style dimensional data warehouse design (using ORM diagram annotations)
Larger models (with hundreds of tables and thousands of fact types)
Re-engineering (with SQL table import and data profiling)
Easier model navigation and searching
Text-based fact entry (similar to NORMA)
Improved Rmap and Verbalizer
Automatic generation of fact type history tables (without explicit modeling)
Selectively prevent fact types from being included in Rmap (an "ignore" flag)
Light-weight question tracking for Fact and Object Type modeling
Flag sample data as the actual data source

As with prior releases, ORM Lite will run on Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and Unix operating systems.

IMPORTANT installation notes:

Be sure to uninstall your old version of ORM Lite before installing the new one.
Convert each old file by opening the file, running the command "Button Scripts -> Install ORM Diagram" from the Script menu, and then saving the file.

Merging Entity Types in ORM Lite - A Quick and Painless Process

BrianC — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 01:26:07 GMT

In this series of posts I will explain some important features of ORM Lite that help save time and effort in modeling projects. While wondering where to begin, I read with interest Tyler Young's account of his current ORM modeling project. He gave a good example of a common challenge for large re-engineering projects. So let's start with the problem of merging entity types. I'll skip the earlier steps of importing the tables from the existing database, converting them to fact types, and loading profile data into the ORM tool, and move right in to consolidating entity types themselves.

Here are the steps:

Open the ORM Object Type report. This report shows a table view that lists the Name, RefMode, and Data Type of all of the Object types in the model. Elapsed time: 1 second.
Filter the report to only show the entity types of interest. This is done by selecting the Name column, clicking the filter button, and typing a string that all of the targeted entity type names will contain, for example: "date". Elapsed time: 2 seconds.
Click on each entity type row to verify that it should be merged. Clicking on the row will update the content of the ORM Lite verbalizer window which shows the original column's data type, column name, database label, and the column's data profile (that shows the number of distinct values in the column, the most commonly occurring values, and the max/min values) and other documentation on that column that has been loaded into the model. Elapsed time: Less that 1 second each to display the information, but you may want to take a little more time to verify that the entity type should be merged.
If the entity type is one that should be merged, directly copy and paste its new Name, RefMode, and Data Type into the report. This will create entity types with duplicate names. ORM LIte allows duplicate names based on the idea that it should be legal to temporarily to create an invalid model as long as that condition is later corrected. Elapsed time: less that 1 second each.
After updating the Names, RefModes, and Data Types for all of the columns to be merged, click on one of the target entity type rows and then click on a "diagram link" in the References window. The link will open the diagram on one of the merge candidates. Elapsed time: 2 seconds.
Make sure the diagram is the active window and click the "Combine Dup OT" button to merge the duplicate object types. ORM Lite look for any other entity types that have the exact same Name and RefMode. It will report the number of duplicates found and ask permission to complete the merge.Click OK. Elapsed time: 4 or 5 seconds.

And you are done.

Total time to merge 100 entity types: less than two minutes.

ORM Lite release v0.12h - completely redesigned user interface

BrianC — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 20:00:42 GMT

Prior to this release, ORM Lite development has focused on the drawing canvas. We were able to successfully introduce a new, simpler approach for drawing ORM models. This is the first release that steps away from that narrow focus and addresses the total experience of learning to use a new tool. Everything that was not essential has been removed from the user interface. Everything that remained has been reorganized and simplified. The help screens have been completely rewritten and reorganized.

If you have seen any prior release of ORM Lite, this is a good time to take a new look at the program.

Thanks to Ken Evans for his invaluable comments on the prior release.This new release is dedicated to him for his efforts on behalf of the ORM community.

ORM Lite - new release v0.12d - easier to use for new users (especially for students)

BrianC — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 15:54:45 GMT

ORM LITE is a light-weight, open-source ORM tool that implements most of the ORM 2 notation. New features: simpler to learn, easier to use, improved Rmap, improved verbalizer, new Entry Sequence Diagram, new ability to merge object types, better help. Please try out this new release and help us to improve this introductory-level ORM tool. This release is available in the ORM Foundation Library.

What’s New in v0.12d?

This release is focused on making the tool easier to use for new users (especially for students). The "ORM Quick Start" available from the help menu explains how to create diagrams, describes the most essential scripts, and provides ease-of-use short cuts for common operations. Rmap is available at the click of a button as is a new "Entry Sequence Diagram" that shows the implications of mandatory constraint decisions on database use. (Did you really want to require that all of those facts be entered at the same time?)

One of most common problems that beginners encounter: creating two different Object Types when they intended to have two graphics for the same Object Type, is now easily found and fixed. (To find the problem, just click on the "Repeat Object Type" button and look for duplicates. To fix it, select one of the duplicates and run the "Combine Duplicate Object Types" script.) This can also be used to combine two Object Type that are later discovered to be the same. (Simple make the Name and RefMode identical and then use the script to combine them.)

An ORM verbalizer that is included that will work on Binary Fact Types and Object Types.

Rmap's naming of columns and tables has been improved.

While there is still room for improvement, this release marks a major step forward in ease of use, especially for new users and students.

Welcome to the new ORM-LITE forum

BrianC — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 02:26:08 GMT

Scope: This forum is dedicated to sharing ideas about the ORM-LITE modeling tool.

ORM-LITE is a new, light-weight, open-source ORM tool that implements most of the ORM 2 notation. ORM-LITE was created to help popularize ORM. It is open source software, so it can be shared at no cost. It is completely self contained, so it is easy to install. It is cross-platform, working on Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and Unix. When users are ready to upgrade to an industrial strength tool, NORMA is recommended.

In addition to ORM2 diagrams, the current release includes an Rmap algorithm, SQL generation, and a relational tables diagram that is automatically created and updated by Rmap. The relational tables diagram provides a concise summary of an ORM model and makes it easier to demonstrate the value of ORM/Rmap.

Why the ORM community will find it of interest
Members of the ORM community would like to see a greater demand for ORM. We are promoting ORM by packaging ORM-LITE as an add-in to the GanttPV project scheduling tool. Because GanttPV is downloaded about 100 times per day, this strategy will put an ORM tool into the hands of 100 new project managers each day. As more project managers learn about ORM, more teams will adopt it. ORM-LITE includes a brief introduction to ORM and points users to the ORM Foundation web site for more information.

ORM-LITE is scriptable. It is hoped that ORM practitioners will be interested in using ORM-LITE to develop and test new ORM related algorithms. For example, the current release contains an implementation of Rmap (the script is included and can be modified as desired); an ORM to UML mapping algorithm is in the works. A programming guide and object map for ORM-LITE are available in the Library.

ORM-LITE works with the GanttPV Server. This makes it easy to share models among team members. Model changes are tracked and can be shared via the server.

The current release of ORM LITE is available at http://pureviolet.net/ganttpv/orm/index/ or in the library section of this web site.