Elba

Elba is one of three editors and the most advanced (Lucca is actually not even worthwhile presenting yet). Elba allows you to connect to a relational database and to create a conceptual system on top of it. The whole program is database-aware and tries to support the user by supplying relevant information from the database at each step.

Elba has a complete feature set to enable you to create your own conceptual systems. It does support most of ToscanaJ's features, only if you want to use the more advanced options like system-specific database views, you will have to edit the XML file created, otherwise you can use the more comfortable user interface of Elba.

Some features of Elba are:

• Editing of diagrams and contexts
• Database wizard helps you connecting to different databases (internal, JDBC, ODBC, MS Access files)
• Scale generators help creating different types of diagrams
• The diagram layout and manipulation is based on n-dimensional structures, making editing diagrams easy while ensuring additive drawings
• Still different manipulators can be used to override the additivity and to create arbitrary Hasse diagrams
• A grid can be used as guides for neat layout. This is supported by all manipulators
• A very simple XML editor allows adding the descriptions of the different elements
• SQL scripts can be exported to port small databases from proprietary systems into using the embedded database engine
• An XML summary of the diagrams can be exported to analyse the realised diagrams, i.e. the coverage of the lattices by the objects in the database