Unit 6. Relationships (III)

Tidying the relationship window

When our database contains many tables and relationships, the Relationship window could become so complex that it is difficult to interpret. We can overcome this difficulty by tidying the window and visualizing only the tables and their relationships that interest us in one moment. We use the Clear layout and Show direct relationships options for this as we will describe to you next.

Situate yourself in the Relationships window and select one of the following methods:

Select the Clear layout option in the Edit menu

or,

Click on the button on the toolbar.

All the tables and all the relationships in the Relationship window will disappear. The relationships disappear from the window but remain in the database, we have only clear the window.

From this moment we can add the tables that interest us with the Show table option learnt before and also relationships defined with these tables with the Show direct option we will explain next.

Showing Direct Relationships

This option permits us to visualize all the relationships based on a specific table in the Relationships window, to do this:

Position yourself in the Relationships window and choose between:

Rght click on the table and select the Show direct option in the contextual menu that appears,

Click on the table to select it and select the Show direct option from the Relationship menu.

Click on the table to select it and then click on the button.

All the relationships associated with the table and all the tables related in these relationships will now appear.

Visualizing all the relationships

If you wish to visualize all the relationships in the Relationships window:

Position yourself in the Relationship window and choose between:

Right click on the background of the window and select Show all from the contextual menu that appears,

or,

Select the Show All option from the Relationships menu

Click on the button.

All the existing relationships in the database and all the associated tables will appear.

To practise these operations you can perform the Step by step Exercise exercise on the relationships window..

  Unit 6 exercises.

  Unit 6 evaluation test.

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