Release Notes for PowerDesigner[TM] Version 12.5

(c) 1991-2007 Sybase, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved.

Updated May 11th 2007

Thank you for choosing PowerDesigner as your design tool!
Please read this document to learn about last minute updates to the product and documentation.

This version is certified for the following operating systems:
Windows Vista
Windows XP
Windows Server 2003

Installation

Even if you have purchased only some of the PowerDesigner modules, you can install the others in stand-alone mode for a 15 day evaluation period.

Non-administrator users may receive a warning message during installation. Setup requires write access on certain directories and on the registry that non administrator users may not have. Setup can continue despite this warning message but will fail if the user does not have the required rights.

The PowerDesigner 12.x beta must be uninstalled before installing PowerDesigner 12.5. Verify that the PowerDesigner home directory has been deleted before starting the new install.

PowerDesigner supports the Sybase Asset Management (SYSAM) system used by other Sybase products, which provides various forms of license. You can install PowerDesigner in trial mode or with a license: stand-alone local, stand-alone served or floating. In stand-alone served and floating mode, be sure to indicate both server name and port. Even if optional, it is better to indicate the port number which default value is 27000.

Upgrading from previous versions of PowerDesigner 12.x

PowerDesigner 12.5 setup will automatically upgrade PowerDesigner 12.1 without requiring any input on your part.

PowerDesigner 12.5 setup will automatically upgrade PowerDesigner 12.0 but will ask you if you want to install the Visual Studio plug-in if Microsoft Visual Studio is detected.

PowerDesigner 11.x (and lower) and PowerDesigner 12.5 can coexist on the same computer without any major problems.

The first time you open version 12.1 or lower models in PowerDesigner 12.5, they will be updated to version 12.5. This process takes longer than the standard time needed to open a model saved with version 12.5.

Models saved with version 12.5 may be corrupted if they are opened in version 12.1 or lower.

New features in PowerDesigner 12.5

• Common features
  • Native database connection
  • Support JDBC, ADO .NET connections
  • Improved repository performance
  • Improved repository proxy performance
  • Support for Meta Extensions in the Report Wizard
  • CDM-CDM mapping
  • CDM-OOM, OOM-CDM mapping
• Physical data model
  • Import Erwin 7.0
  • New or enhanced database support
    • IBM DB2 UDB V9
    • Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - including database mirroring, service broker, analysis services generation and reverse engineering of cubes
    • Sybase IQ 12.7
    • Oracle 10 Transparent encryption key support
• Object Oriented Model
  • UML 2.0 full support : package diagram, interaction overview diagram, activity diagram
  • OCL
  • .NET Compact Framework O/R mapping code generation
• Business Process Model
  • Data Flow Diagram
  • BPEL 2.0
• Requirements Model
  • User-defined requirement code
• Information Liquidity Model
  • ETL & EII modeling
  • CDM / BPM connectors
• Eclipse/WorkSpace support enhancements
  • Generate and reverse engineer database using connection profile
  • Reverse engineer database from Database Explorer
  • Use SQL Editor to edit stored procedures and triggers

Database and Language support

• Modified Database Definition files between 12.1.0 and 12.5.0
  All Database Definition files have been modified except.
  • Access
  • Adabas D
  • ALLBASE/SQL G.1
  • AS/400
  • MySQL
  • NonStop SQL
  • Red Brick Warehouse 6.2
  
  The following DBMS versions are newly supported:
  • IBM DB2 UDB 9 Common Server
  • Oracle 10g R2
  • Sybase IQ 12.7
  
  
  
• Customized DBMS
  If you have customized your DBMS file to take advantage of the mechanism of user-defined queries during reverse engineering, you must read the "Extension mechanism for ODBC reverse engineering queries" section in the chapter "DBMS Reference Guide" in the Advanced User Documentation manual, and modify your DBMS as described.
  
  
• Connection to a Unicode database
  For some databases, you may have to set up charset information in the ODBC drivers dialog when you connect to a Unicode database.
  Depending on the character set that the target database uses, you may have to change the charset attribute of your ODBC data source.
  For example, to connect to a Unicode Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise database, you must indicate in the charset field the code of the Unicode character set (in this case "utf8").
  Each ODBC driver has its own tuning parameters to indicate the character set, this information is located in the driver help file. Search for the keywords "charset" or "character set" in the ODBC driver help file.

Eclipse support

• Eclipse versions

  PowerDesigner plug-in supports Eclipse 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3.
  A setup option allows you to install the Eclipse plug-in. The setup automatically detects the Eclipse version and installs the correct plug-in.

  Eclipse 3.1 plug-in requires JDK 1.4.
  Eclipse 3.2, 3.3 plug-in requires JDK 1.5.

• Trial expiration under Eclipse
  If you are using a trial version of PowerDesigner as an Eclipse plug-in, and the trial period has expired, you will have to launch the PowerDesigner executable from its home directory to reactivate a license.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 support

• PowerDesigner trial and Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 plug-in
  If you are using a trial version of PowerDesigner as a Visual Studio 2005 plug-in and PowerDesigner 12.5 trial expires, you will have a dialog proposing to install a valid PowerDesigner license when you launch Visual Studio.
  In order to avoid this dialog, you must close all PowerDesigner views in Visual Studio.
  
  
• Limitation in PowerDesigner install linked to Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 plug-in
  If you want to use PowerDesigner as a Visual Studio 2005 plug-in, and the PowerDesigner files are located on a shared drive, you must authorized its execution through the network before running PowerDesigner setup on a client computer, as follows:
  1. Launch Administrative tools and Select .Net Framework 2.0 Configuration.
  2. In Runtime Security policy, select Machine > Code Groups > All Code
  3. In the contextual menu, select New and create a code group for PowerDesigner. You must set the Condition type to Strong Name and import the Public key from the PowerDesigner DLL sybase.powerdesigner.VisualStudio.dll located in the VS2005\Assemblies subdirectory of PowerDesigner home. Use existing permission set "FullTrust". Universal Naming Convention (UNC, like "\\server\share"...) cannot be used here.

Additional information and known issues

• Changes in metamodel
  If you have developed VB scripts, or plug-ins, read this section, as metamodel changes may impact your code.
  Refer to the MetaModel Object help for more information.
  
  In the BPM, Data transformations playing a part in choreographies (linked to processes) are transformed into processes with an Assign type containing a sub-object data transformation (assignments). Data transformations cannot have a symbol anymore.
  
  In the OOM, several changes have been made to support UML2.
  The Metamodel around the Activity diagram and Activity Object has been changed.
  The Object State has been renamed to Object Node. Activity Transitions have been changed to a new Flow link object.
  The collaboration diagram has been renamed to communication diagram.
  
  Some attributes have been renamed in XSM:
  Entity.Public As String --> Entity.PublicURI As String ' Public URI of the entity.
  Entity.System As String --> Entity.SystemURI As String ' System URI of the entity
  Notation.Public As String --> Notation.PublicURI As String
  Notation.System As String --> Notation.SystemURI As String
  
  
• Changes in behavior of GetExtendedAttribute method
  In version 12.0, boolean extended attributes were just handled as text in VBS.
  In version 12.1 and above, boolean extended attributes are handled as VB booleans in VBS.
  VB scripts must be updated to take into account this change.
  If you just want to maintain the previous code as it was, you will have to use the method GetExtendedAttributeText instead of GetExtendedAttribute.
  
  It is best to change your code to actually consider boolean extended attribute as boolean.
  For example, the following code will not work in 12.1 and above:
        if obj.GetExtendedAttribute("MyBooleanAttribute") = "true" then
  and has to be replaced by
        if obj.GetExtendedAttribute("MyBooleanAttribute") = true then
  
  If you prefer to keep a textual value for the attribute, you must change the type of the extended attribute to String.
  
  
• Connection profile limitations
  In addition to ODBBC connections, Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server native connection profiles can be used for a repository connection.
  
  A JDBC connection requires that the path to the bin directory of JRE is included in the PATH environment variable.
  
  Reverse engineering cannot be performed through JDBC for the following databases :
  • Microsoft Access 2000
  • Microsoft Access 95 & 97
  • ADABAS D
  • ALLBASE/SQL G.1
  • ANSI Level 2
  • Sybase Avaki
  • IBM DB2 5.x for OS/390, UDB 5.x Common Server, UDB 6.x Common Server
  • INFORMIX SQL 8.x
  • MySQL 3.22, 3.23, 4.0
  • NonStop SQL
  • ODBC 3.0
  • Microsoft SQL Server 7.x
  • Sybase AS IQ 12.5.3, 12.5, 12.6, 12.7
  
  
  
• Change in user-defined type representation for Microsoft SQLServer
  In previous versions of PowerDesigner Abstract Data Types could be used to generate aliases to basic types or CLR types.
  They can now only be used to create CLR types and aliases must be created using Domain.
  
  
• Opening Oracle PDM models containing views from pre-12.0 version
  Related to CR #449810.
  This bug was caused by the mismatch between views and Oracle packages during the reverse engineering by script. In previous versions, the Usage attribute was always set to "query only" (Read-Only) by PowerDesigner, no matter the usage of the view in Oracle. It will be now generated according to the Oracle syntax.
  We have added an auto-update of the model when opening it so that only views containing the "with read only" syntax in the query are actually kept read-only. All others have this attribute reset and by default will be updateable. Views with the Usage attribute set to "With check options" are not affected by the auto- update.
  In the event that the "query only" flag must be kept, even if SQL Order means the opposite, you must run the following VBS on the model before opening the model with version 12.5. This VBS adds the read-only syntax on the view sql query if it is not set and the view usage attribute is set to "Query only" (not recommended.)
  
  <<
  ' This VBScript browse all views from model and
  ' updates the sql query to match the "query only" attribute of the view
  UpdateViewQuery ActiveModel
  
  Sub UpdateViewQuery(pPackg)
  Dim V, s, p
  for each V in pPackg.Views
  if (V.ViewUsage = 0) then ' 0: query only
  s = replace(V.SqlQuery, ";", "")
  s = replace(s, vbTab, "")
  s = replace(s, vbLf, "")
  s = replace(s, vbCr, "")
  s = replace(s, " ", "")
  if (Right(lcase(s), Len("WithReadOnly")) <> "withreadonly") then
  V.SqlQuery = V.SqlQuery & " with read only"
  end if
  end if
  Next
  For each p in pPackg.Packages
  UpdateViewQuery p
  Next
  End Sub
  >>
  
  
• Reverse engineering of Where clause from Replication Server in the Information Liquidity Model
  For Replication Server 12.5 or 12.6, the reverse engineering of article and subscription "where" clauses can be incomplete if the columns involved in these clauses have the following data types (the result is different depending on whether RSSD is deployed on an ASA or ASE server):
  ASA RSSD:
  • smallmoney
  • datetime
  • date
  • time
  • smalldatetime
  • numeric
  • decimal
  • float
  
  ASE RSSD:
  • numeric
  • decimal
  
  
  
• DBMS Specific Physical option tab in Physical Data Model
  In some cases, the new DBMS specific tab for physical options in the PDM will not show all possible physical options. If you need to use one of the missing options, you must use the standard physical options tab.
  
  
• Rational Rose model import
  Before importing a Rational Rose model with nested packages, you should check if a named path named "Curdir" is already defined.
  Go to Tools > General options> Named Path and delete the line where Name=curdir if it is present.
  During Rational Rose model import, PowerDesigner may request the value for the Curdir named path. You must enter the value of the directory that will resolve the name of the .cat file. It is usually the location of the .mdl file you are currently importing.
  
  
• Drag/drop from browser to diagram
  Drag/drop from browser to diagram will always create a shortcut. The general option "Drag/drop default action" that was applied in version 12.0 and before is now only used in drag/drop targeting the browser.
  If you actually want to move an object by drag/drop targeting a diagram, you will have to use the key combination Shift + Drag/drop
  
  
• Diagram symbol support
  A diagram can now have a symbol in another diagram. You can drag/drop a diagram inside another one to create a diagram symbol.
  Drag/drop in any form will only create a shortcut and/or symbol.
  To move a diagram you must use the contextual function "Move diagram to package"
  
  
• List report
  Multicolumn sort is not available. Sort uses only the first column.
  
  
• HTML template for list report
  List reports generated in HTML format are based on a template. The interface does not allow you to easily change this template. The template used is the default one used for reports.
  In order to modify the HTML template used when generating a list report in HTML format, you must modify the default template for Report.
  Open the property sheet of any report, select the template you want to use, click the button "Set as default" and cancel.
  
  
• Repository on MBCS or Unicode database
  When you are connecting to a Unicode or MBCS database and consolidating models with MBCS data, you must have a specific registry key setup in order to properly take into account the size of each character in the database.
  The "MaxBytesPerChar" value indicates the number of bytes used to save a character in the database.
  This entry is automatically installed during setup if your code page is different than Latin Western characters (ie cp1250, cp1252 or cp1254). If this is not the case, but you want to connect to a Unicode or MBCS database to save MBCS data, you will need to set this key manually.
  
  [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Sybase\PowerDesigner 12\Repository]
  "MaxBytesPerChar"="3"
  The MaxBytesPerChar value depends on the database charset:
  • For SBCS (Single Byte Character Set), you do not need the registry key or you can set its value to "1"
  • For DBCS (Double Byte Character Set), you must set the registry key value to "2"
  • For Unicode (or MBCS, ie. Multiple Byte Character Set), you must set the registry key value to "3" (or more, in rare cases)
  
  
  
• License server and Vista
  The license server, Flexlm, cannot be run as a service under Vista. You will have to run it as an executable, by double-clicking on it in a file explorer.
  
  
• License server and PowerDesigner on same computer
  You cannot run PowerDesigner on a computer where a license server is installed.
  If you are using a stand-alone served or a mobile floating license and you work disconnected from the server, and if your workstation hosts other products that also use Flexlm served licenses, you may have problems when returning your license to the server.
  
  
• Dual Monitor
  When using dual monitors, if you want PowerDesigner to use the last monitor where you have placed a property sheet to display the next one, you will have to set up the following registry key :
       [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Sybase\PowerDesigner 12\General]
       "UseLastActivePopupMonitor"="yes"
  
  

Printable documents

All documentation is available in two formats : on-line help (CHM) & PDF

Both Advanced User documentation and Integrating with other products (formerly called TechDocs) books are now available as on-line help.

Tools

VB Script

The VBScript folder in the PowerDesigner directory contains some Visual Basic scripts that can be used as samples or tools. A text file (VBSreadme.txt) describes its content.

OLE Automation

The OLE Automation folder in the PowerDesigner directory contains some samples for using OLE automation to access PowerDesigner objects.

No executable files are delivered. You need to compile them with a corresponding development environment to use them.

Repository

PowerDesigner 12.5 is delivered with an authenticated Sybase SQL Anywhere 10.0.0 database, which can be used as a PowerDesigner repository database.

Please refer to the PowerDesigner Installation Guide or to online help (search for Authenticated keyword) for the installation procedure. The Sybase SQL Anywhere engine delivered with PowerDesigner cannot be used for any purpose other than a PowerDesigner repository database.

Importance of time setting

Sybase Web Site

Find the latest information on PowerDesigner at Sybase's award winning Portal http://www.sybase.com (Go to the 'Products' section and look for 'Enterprise Modeling'), or use the following link http://www.sybase.com/powerdesigner

You can access news, white papers, the latest technical documents and other useful downloads from this site.

In addition, you can register at the Sybase Portal and select PowerDesigner in your profile - you will then have easier access and can automatically receive all the latest news and technical information on PowerDesigner.

Finally, access the 'Support' section and receive even more technical information on PowerDesigner!

The Help menu of PowerDesigner also gives you access to various relevant pages on the Sybase sites: PowerDesigner page, Support, online books...