Dialog Box General Options

To set general options for dialog boxes, select Tools > General Options, and select the Dialog category in the left hand pane.

The following options are available:

Operating Modes

Option

Description

Auto Commit

Specifies that any change made in a property sheet is automatically committed in the object definition. You cancel a change by using the Undo feature.

If this option is disabled, you must click Apply or OK to commit your changes.

Name to Code mirroring

Automatically keeps the code of an object synchronized with its name via the application of any naming conventions (see Naming Conventions). To disable Name to Code mirroring on an individual object, click to deselect the equal sign button to the right of the code field.

This option is independent of (but required by) the Enable name/code conversions model option, which permits more complex transformations on codes via controls the application of conversion scripts (see Name and Code Conversion Scripts).

Property Sheets

In PowerDesigner, property sheets appear by default with a certain size and a series of tabs in the upper part of the dialog box. The following options are available for property sheets:

Option

Description

Keep size

Preserves the customized size you have defined

Keep last tab

Opens the property sheet to the last selected tab

Open mode

Controls how property sheets are opened. You can choose between:

  • Open each object in the same property sheet

  • Open each object in its own property sheet

Tabs mode

Controls the display of tabs. You can choose between:

  • Tabs on one row - Aligns all tabs on a single line with arrow buttons < and > for browsing

  • Tabs on several rows - Displays tabs on two lines, their size corresponding to the length of their title.

Shortcut Property Sheets

The following options are available:

Option

Description

Internal Shortcut

Controls whether double-clicking an internal shortcut opens the property sheet for the shortcut or for the target object.

You can switch from one mode to the other by pressing the Shift key while opening the property sheet. If the target object cannot be found (target model is closed for example), the shortcut property sheet automatically opens.

External Shortcut

Controls whether double-clicking an external shortcut opens the property sheet for the shortcut or for the target object.

For more information, see Creating Shortcuts.

Object Lists

The following options are available:

Option

Description

Auto-insert rows

Specifies that a new item is created automatically in a list when you click an empty row

Use default name

Specifies that new items are given default names upon creation, allowing you to create multiple new objects without having to supply names or other properties.