📂Folders to organize diagrams

We now have folders!

Building on the recent revamp of the dashboard, we've added folders as a way to logically group related diagrams.  This was actually the first-ever suggestion received when our suggestion board was launch exactly a year ago! Pretty stoked to have this shipped, should be useful with the growing number of diagrams for each team.

Of course, you can easily move a diagram between folders too. If you've started using folders, let me know what you think!

🔺⃤ Export to AdonisJs migrations

Next export type launched! Users of the AdonisJS framework can now transition from database designs to creating those tables and columns more seamlessly.

AdonisJs is a Node.js web framework that's heavily inspired by Laravel, and supports many of the concepts featured in Laravel, including migrations for database schemas.

Similar to the Laravel export, each table in the diagram is exported into its own migration class. Of course, file names are also set to match the convention in AdonisJS:

{timestamp}_{table_name}_schema.js

You'll find this in the export modal:

For now, the export is in AdonisJS v4 format. Support for the v5 migration format that's in preview is already in the works, and should be launched next!

🔺Auto-increment option for MySQL columns

For MySQL diagrams, you can now specify columns as Auto-Increment. This column option will appear for these MySQL integer types: 

  • BIGINT
  • INT
  • MEDIUMINT
  • SMALLINT
  • TINYINT

AUTO_INCREMENT support for FLOAT or DOUBLE columns has intentionally been left out, since these can cause weird behaviours, and they've been deprecated in the latest MySQL versions.



🏗️ Export to Laravel Blueprint

New export format so you can export your diagrams to Laravel Blueprint drafts. Laravel Blueprint is a package by Jason McCreary that helps with quick scaffolding of Laravel apps.

You can find this new option within the export modal:

Hope this would be helpful for some of you!

If you have a specific export type you'd like to see, let us know in the roadmap here. Would love to add them as well if it's popular among users.

🔲 Multi-select mode: Select multiple tables, bulk move or delete

It's a common thing - you've finished mapping out the diagram of your complex app, tables and all. Looks pretty! But now you're looking to just move these group of tables further apart to create some space to indicate the different sections of the app.

Dang it, it's such a pain to have to do one table at a time!

That's the motivation for this new multi-select mode. You can now perform bulk actions like moving a bunch of tables, or mass deleting multiple tables easily.


The multi-selection mode can be activated in two ways:

  1. Click on the 'Multi-selection mode' button in the lower right:
  2. Use the keyboard shortcut M when on the canvas.

✊Pan-only mode: Move around the board easily

Sometimes, you want to easily navigate around your database diagram without accidentally moving any tables or relationships.

The new pan-only mode allows just that:

Pan-mode can be activated in two ways:

  1. Click on the 'Pan-only mode' button in the lower right:
  2. Use the keyboard shortcut Space. Pan-only mode is activated when the key is held down.


🚚 Export to Laravel Migrations

You can now export your database schema directly as Laravel migration files. Each table will be self-contained within its own migration class, and its file name automatically set to match Laravel's convention. Behind the scenes, this is powered by Jason's awesome Laravel Shift Blueprint package.

Kickstart that next app feature even quicker now. It's even easier now to transition from designing your database models in DrawSQL to your scaffolding your Laravel codebase, without having to recreate those table and columns again.

You'll find this in the revamped export modal:

We're keen to support exports to other frameworks as well, prioritized based on its popularity among DrawSQL users. Have an export format in mind? Suggest or add your vote in the roadmap here: https://drawsql.app/roadmap 


📝Table comments, and for columns as well

One that has been a popular request since the beginning of times, today we've launched table and column notes.

This lets you leave comments for your teammates (or self) for any table and columns. 

Hopefully you'll find this one helpful and as always keen to hear any feedback.

📺 Presentation mode

Sometimes it's useful to view a read-only version of your database diagram in full-screen with maximum screen real-estate. Useful for example when presenting In team discussion and tech meetings. This new presentation mode lets you do just that!

Works on your embeds too! We've used it in our recently launched template gallery, see this template of Laravel Spark for an example.


🖼️ Database schema gallery

This had been in the works for 2-months now, it's finally launched! The gallery is a collection of 200+ database schemas of open-source packages, useful as references when architecting your app's next feature. If you haven't seen it, check it out here. You can still suggest more diagrams, I plan to continuously grow the library with more schema diagrams.

Thanks to all of you that supported the launch, it went surprisingly well 🤯:

  • Featured on ProductHunt homepage for the day - Link
  • #3 on Hacker News - Link

Also gathered tons of feedback from the new users on the day, excited to work on them especially the popular ones. Presentation (full-screen) mode, and table notes would probably be next, stay tuned!

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