The PowerDesigner Add-In for Visual Studio

During your installation of PowerDesigner, you can choose to install a plugin to allow you to use PowerDesigner within your Visual Studio environment. The PowerDesigner add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio and Team Foundation is available for Visual Studio 2005, 2008, and 2010.

The Visual Studio development is highly configurable, with many different explorers and other windows that can be moved all over the screen and be docked and tabbed together. Consequently, the screen below shows only one possible configuration:

The main screen areas displayed here are as follows:

The Toolbox, like the PowerDesigner toolbox, is contains tools to build your diagrams.
The Document Window is equivalent to the PowerDesigner canvas, and is the space where you build your model diagrams.
The Model Explorer is equivalent to the PowerDesigner Browser, and lists all the models in your project along with all their model objects displayed in a tree view.
The Properties window is equivalent to a PowerDesigner property sheet, and lists the properties of the currently selected object. Standard PowerDesigner property sheets are also available.

The following PowerDesigner-specific menus are available in the Visual Studio menu bar:

Diagram [View in the standard PowerDesigner interface] – tools for manipulating model diagrams
Model – lists of model objects
Symbol – tools for manipulating diagram symbols
Language/Database etc. – depending on the type of model currently open in the document window, this menu will change to provide tools for manipulating the subject of your model, including code generation and reverse-engineering
Repository – tools for working with the PowerDesigner model repository
Model Tools [Tools in the standard PowerDesigner interface] – tools for manipulating the model

Other PowerDesigner menu functions are integrated into the standard Visual Studio menus.

Creating a Modeling Project in Visual Studio
You can create a modeling project in its own standalone solution, or add a modeling project to an existing solution.
Creating a Model in Visual Studio
You can create any of the model types supported by PowerDesigner from within Visual Studio. The following procedure focuses on how to create an object-oriented model (OOM).
Working with an RQM and Visual Studio Team System
A PowerDesigner Requirements Model (RQM) is used to create a hierarchy of project requirements that must be fulfilled during the development of the project.
Model-Code Synchronization
By using code synchronization with PowerDesigner genlets, you can realize aspects of the model-driven development process to improve productivity through the automation of code generation. The PowerDesigner add-in for Visual Studio provides the capability for instantaneous bidirectional updates of model objects and actual code, including automating the transformations and merging of generated files.

Parent topic: The PowerDesigner Interface