Editing the Application Settings
Open Application Settings |  General Tab |  Appearance Tab |  OK - Cancel |  See Also

The application settings form is a valuable piece to the puzzle that is Database Schema Designer.  The settings on this form control how the application will behave by default.  All newly created Schema's will use the settings described here.   All of the settings can be overridden by the individual Schema document as well.

  1. Click "Tools -> Application Settings" from the menu to open the Application Settings screen.
    Open Application Settings
  2. General Tab
    This tab is used to setup the basic properties of the Schema.  Here you can:
    General Tab


    • Set the number of Undo/Redo points that will be tracked for the Schema.
    • Determine whether non-critical application warnings will be displayed.
    • Determine whether newly created objects will use custom user created names or application assisted names.
    • Manage the default Permissions for new Schemas.   See Manage Permissions Tutorial
    • Toggle the creation of Primary Key Constraints on newly created Tables.
    • Determine if the auto-created Primary Key Constraint is also an Identity Column
    • Toggle the creation of a string (VarChar) column for newly created Tables.
    • Toggle the use of the Primary Key Prefix system on new Tables.
    • Determine if a Table's Foreign Key Constraints recaculate their position when a Table is moved.
    • Determine if View's create Joins in the From Clause ( new ANSI-compliant syntax ) or in the Where Clause ( old syntax proprietary to SQL Server ).
    • Reset the values on this tab to Database Schema Designer's installed defaults.
  3. Appearance Tab
    This tab is used to setup the basic display properties of the Schemas visible objects.  Here you can:
    Appearance Tab


    • Choose the font face, size and color to use when rendering Comments, Tables, and Views.
    • Choose the background color to use when rendering Comments, Foreign Keys, Tables and Views.
    • Toggle the display of the object icons when rendering Comments, Tables, and Views.
    • Toggle the display of Table column Datatypes, Nullability and Unique Constraints.
    • Reset the values on this tab to Database Schema Designer's installed defaults.
  4. Click the OK button to submit your new settings.
    - Or -
    Click the Cancel button to discard your changes.

When the application is closed these settings are saved to an INI fle ( DBSD.ini ) in the applications path.   If you want others to use the same settings, make sure DBSD in not open and simply copy your INI file into their target directory and start the application.

To apply these new settings to an existing Database Schema:

  1. Copy the INI file as described above.
  2. Open the Schema Appearance Properties.   See the Schema Tutorials to learn how to do this.
  3. Click the reset buttons to syncronize Appearance Settings.