Eclipse 3.5 IDE: Generating an Entity Relational ER Diagram for Postgres with AmaterasERD

If you need to generate an ER diagram for a schema, here is how to do it:

One time install

 

Install AmaterasERD on Eclipse 3.5 (must also do AmaterasUML)

• Make sure you have GEF installed
• Download the AmaterasUML plugin JAR file from the project home
• Copy it into your ECLIPSE_HOME/dropins folder (not your plugins folder!)
• Download the AmaterasERD plugin JAR file from the project home
• Copy it into your ECLIPSE_HOME/dropins folder (not your plugins folder!)
• Restart

Generate the Diagram

 

Do this each time you want to render a schema:

• In Eclipse, New->Other->AmaterasERD->ER Diagram
• Give it a name, make sure dialect is PostgreSQL
• Settings:
• JAR file - find the location as directed below
• Driver, URI, User, Password, Schema as directed below
• Make sure there are no spaces after the text in each box. It will foul up the works.
• Click the Load Tables button, you should see a list of your tables
• Make sure to select the tables in the list box! It will only draw the tables that are selected.
• Click Finish
• Right click on your crowded diagram and choose Auto Layout
• Manually finish moving things around to make it readable.
• Export the diagram:
• Right click and choose Save as Image, or
• Right click, Export->HTML

For Reference: PostgreSQL JDBC

 

Above, there were a couple of things you needed to specify for setting up the JDBC.

First, you have to have a JDBC Driver JAR file. If you don’t already have one, you can download one here. Put it in a safe spot on the filesystem, not in a temporary directory. In the JDBC settings dialog, you will need to locate this JAR file.

Second you will need to specify your connection settings. They should be something like for a localhost database:

• Driver: org.postgresql.Driver
• DB: mygreatdb
• URL: jdbc:postgresql:mygreatdb
• User: myschemauser
• Password: rockout
• Schema: public