The ORM Foundation

Matt,  Just getting back to this. Thanks for the information. This explained a lot. I also noticed that there are also entries in the relational view tables with no indicators (PK, FK, U) They seem to correlate with objects for which there are no uniqueness constraints on their role box. I think that I probably need to take another look at ...

When I look at the tables created in the NORMA relational view tab, I notice that some table elements are bold and some are not, and that some are prefixed by PK, FK, U# or nothing at all. Where can I find information on how to decode the meaning of all this? Thanks.  Richard

I like using NORMA to develop ORM model fragments, including populating them with test data, and saving them in separate files. Is there a way to move the fragments into a common file - either using import/export, cut/paste or some other capability?

In "Temporal Modeling: Part 4," Terry Halpin discusses using rigid subtypes in ORM and provides some examples (e.g., in figures 3, 4, and 7). Is there any way of identifying/portraying rigid subtypes in NORMA, even though rigidity is a dynamic constraint?

Ahaa - Insight! Matt was right. As a matter of visual preference, I had the ER learning mode set for crows foot only. Once I turned ER learning mode to "Off", the mandatory dot placement selection started working. While I will probably change it back to the role box side and crows foot, I will at least know what to look for next ...

I have found the Sample Population Editor to be an extremely useful feature for testing. However, much of my test data often comes from spreadsheet or delimited text files (comma or tab deliminated). Manual entry of the data becomes most tedious. Some means of entering the data (i.e., cut/paste or import/export) would be most useful.  Richard

When I attempt to change the position of the mandatory dot by using Tools>Options>ORM Designer>Appearance>Mandatory Dot Placement from RoleBoxEnd to ObjectShapeEnd, nothing changes. This may be a problem with my installation because the mandatory dot placement does change when I open the .orm file on another machine. Any ideas as to ...

Lets say that I start out by defining an entity type called Location Name with RefMode = .name and Data Type = Text Variable. Then I have used the population editor to load a long list of building names. Later, I decide that I want Location Name to be a value type. Is there a way to make this conversion without loosing the list of building names ...