ERPDesk

1. Getting started

When you open ERPDesk you'll see the welcome screen:

• Start a new diagram — pick a starting point:
  • Blank — an empty canvas.
  • Basic ER — two entities joined by a relationship.
  • Basic Class Diagram — a base class and a subclass.
  • Basic Flowchart — start → task → decision → end.
  • Basic Sequence — two lifelines exchanging a message.
• Recent files — reopen a diagram you worked on before (double-click it).
• Open file… — browse for an existing .umlproj diagram.

Pick any option and the editor opens.

2. The editor at a glance

• Left — Model Explorer (top) & Toolbox (bottom): the Explorer lists every diagram in your project and the shapes inside it; the Toolbox holds all the shapes you can add, grouped by diagram type.
• Centre — Diagram tabs & Canvas: a tab strip across the top lets you switch between diagrams; the canvas below is where you build the current one.
• Right — Properties: settings for whatever you currently have selected.
• Top — Menu & toolbar: file commands and quick actions.
• Bottom — Status bar: counts, the cursor's position, and the zoom level.

You can drag the dividers between the panels to resize them.

3. Working with multiple diagrams

A saved .umlproj file is a project that can hold many diagrams — for example an ER diagram, a class diagram, and a flowchart all in one place.

• Switch diagrams: click a tab above the canvas, or double-click a diagram in the Model Explorer.
• Add a diagram: click the ＋ button at the end of the tab strip.
• Close a diagram: click the ✕ on its tab (a project always keeps at least one diagram).
• Jump to a shape: double-click it in the Model Explorer to open its diagram and select it.

Each diagram keeps its own grid, snap, and background settings.

4. Adding shapes

There are three ways to add a shape:

1. Drag a shape from the toolbox onto the canvas and drop it where you want.
2. Click a shape in the toolbox to drop it in the middle of the view.
3. Double-click an empty spot on the canvas to add a basic node.

The toolbox has a tab for each diagram type (ER, Class, Process, Sequence), a search box at the top to find any shape by name, and a Recently used section so your common shapes are always close at hand.

5. Moving around the canvas

• Zoom: hold Ctrl and scroll the mouse wheel (zooms toward the cursor).
• Pan: hold the middle mouse button and drag. You can also scroll to move up/down, or hold Shift and scroll to move left/right.
• Fit to screen: click Fit in the toolbar (or View → Fit to screen) to frame your whole diagram.
• Reset zoom: click 100% to return to actual size.
• Auto-layout: click ⊞ Arrange (or View → Auto-layout diagram) to tidy a messy diagram automatically — nodes are organised into clean columns following their connections. It's a single action you can undo. (Imported SQL schemas are arranged this way for you.)

The current zoom level is always shown at the bottom-right.

6. Selecting and arranging

• Select a shape or connection by clicking it.
• Select several by dragging a box around them on an empty part of the canvas.
• Add to a selection by holding Ctrl while clicking. Ctrl-clicking something that is already selected takes it back out again.
• Nudge the selection with the arrow keys (hold Shift for a bigger step).
• Right-click anything for a context menu of the actions that apply to it.
• Move shapes by dragging them; selected shapes move together.
• Resize a selected shape using the small square handles around its edge.
• Snap to grid keeps everything tidy — toggle it in the toolbar or the Properties panel.

7. Connecting shapes

1. Pick the kind of link you want from the drop-down next to Connect — association, directed, inheritance, realization, aggregation, composition, dependency or foreign key. Each one sets the right arrowheads and line style for you.
2. Click Connect in the toolbar to enter connect mode. The cursor becomes a crosshair.
3. Drag from one shape to another. The shape you are about to land on is outlined in green, so the drop target is never a guess.
4. ERPDesk drops back into normal editing after one link. Tick keep beside the drop-down to stay in connect mode and draw several in a row, or press Esc to leave at any time.

Select a connection to change its routing (straight, orthogonal, or curved), its arrowheads (none, open, filled, diamond, or composition), its line colour and style, and to add a label (for example a cardinality like 1, N, or 0..1). The Relationship preset drop-down there re-applies any of the presets above in one go.

Linking two tables

Draw a link between two Table shapes and ERPDesk offers to turn it into a real foreign key: choose an existing column on the child table or let it create a conventionally-named one, pick the column it references (primary keys are listed first), and say whether it is required. The link then shows up in your generated SQL — not just on the diagram. Choose Just draw the line if you only want the visual.

8. Editing shape text

• Most shapes: select the shape and edit its Name in the Properties panel.
• Class, Interface, and Enum boxes: double-click any attribute or operation row to edit it. Press Enter to save and start a new row. Use the “+ attribute” and “+ operation” links to add rows. Leaving a row empty removes it.

9. The Properties panel

What you see depends on your selection:

• A shape: name, fill colour, border colour, border style and thickness, font size, and (for class shapes) the stereotype and an italic-name option. A Geometry group lets you type an exact X, Y, width and height, or press Fit to content to size the shape to its own rows.
• Several shapes: the Appearance settings apply to all of them at once, and an Arrange group appears with align, distribute and make-same-size buttons.
• A connection: label, routing, line colour and style, the start/end arrowheads, and a Relationship preset drop-down that re-applies any of the standard link types in one go.
• Nothing selected (canvas): the diagram’s name, grid size, whether the grid is shown, whether positions snap to it, and the canvas background colour.

Colours can be picked from the swatches, typed in as a hex value (e.g. #2F6FED), or chosen from the … button next to each colour field, which opens a picker with a palette, RGB sliders and a validated hex box. Sections can be collapsed by clicking their headings. Every change applies instantly — and every change is undoable.

10. Undo, copy, and delete

• Undo / Redo: Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y (or the arrows in the toolbar). Everything is undoable, including colour and font changes, column edits and closing a diagram tab. The status bar shows what Ctrl+Z will reverse.
• Cut / Copy / Paste: Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V. Pasted shapes appear slightly offset. Copies go to the Windows clipboard, so you can paste between two ERPDesk windows.
• Duplicate: Ctrl+D drops a copy next to the original without touching the clipboard. Select all: Ctrl+A.
• Tidy up a selection: Edit → Align, Edit → Distribute and Make same size. With several shapes selected these also appear in the Properties panel.
• Fit to content: grows a shape to exactly fit its own rows — useful after adding columns to a table.
• Delete: select something and press Delete (deleting a shape also removes its connections).

11. Saving and opening

• New: File → New (Ctrl+N).
• Open: File → Open… (Ctrl+O).
• Save / Save As: File → Save (Ctrl+S) or Save As…. Diagrams are saved as .umlproj files.
• Auto-save: your work is automatically backed up every couple of minutes, so you're protected if something unexpected happens.

The name of the open file is shown in the window title. An asterisk (*) next to it means you have unsaved changes. If you choose New, Open, or close the window while changes are unsaved, ERPDesk asks whether to save, discard, or cancel first — so you won't lose work by accident.

12. Designing tables and generating SQL

ERPDesk can turn a diagram of tables into a ready-to-run SQL script.

1. From the ER tab of the toolbox, add a Table (SQL) shape. It starts with an id primary key and a name column.
2. Select the table and, in the Properties panel, click Edit columns…. For each column set its name, type (INT, VARCHAR, DECIMAL, BOOLEAN, DATETIME, UUID, …), optional length/scale, and the flags: PK (primary key), Null, Uniq, Auto (auto-increment), and FK. For a foreign key, tick FK and fill in the referenced table and column.
3. Add as many tables as you need. The table box shows a 🔑 next to primary keys and 🔗 next to foreign keys.
4. Choose File → Export → As SQL (DDL). Pick your database — PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, or SQLite — and the script updates instantly. Copy it or Save it as a .sql file.

Watching the SQL as you work

Turn on View → Live SQL panel (or the SQL button in the toolbar) to dock the generated script under the canvas. It regenerates as you edit, so you can see exactly what a change does to your schema without opening a dialog. If tables live on more than one diagram, the export dialog offers to write the whole project as a single script.

Importing existing SQL

Already have a database script? Choose File → Import SQL…, then paste your CREATE TABLE statements (or Load a .sql file) and click Import. ERPDesk reads the tables, columns, keys, and foreign keys and draws them as a new diagram — so you can visualise, edit, and re-export an existing schema. It understands the common SQL of all four supported databases.

13. Exporting and sharing

From File → Export you can save your diagram as:

• SQL (DDL) — a CREATE TABLE script for your database (see above).
• XMI (UML 2.x) — the standard UML interchange format. Open the resulting .xmi file in another UML tool such as Visual Paradigm, Enterprise Architect, StarUML, Modelio, MagicDraw or ArgoUML. ERPDesk also reads its own .xmi files back via File → Import XMI (UML)… — round-trip is lossless (layout, colours and table details are preserved). Files from other tools are imported as a UML model and laid out automatically.
• PNG — a high-resolution image.
• SVG — a scalable vector image (stays crisp at any size).
• PDF — a single-page document.

You can also export just the selected shapes as a PNG, or use File → Copy as Image to copy the whole diagram to the clipboard and paste it straight into another app.

Sharing your model with another UML tool

1. File → Export → As XMI (UML 2.x)… — save the .xmi file.
2. In the target UML tool, use its Import → XMI command and pick the file.

Layout typically does not survive a hop to another tool (each vendor reads XMI slightly differently), but classes, attributes, associations and table structures do. Round-trips stay lossless when you import the file back into ERPDesk.

14. Light and dark mode

Switch between themes from View → Dark mode. Your choice is remembered the next time you open ERPDesk.

15. Keyboard shortcuts

Press ? at any time to open the full shortcut cheat sheet. The essentials:

16. A 60-second first diagram

1. From the welcome screen, choose Blank (or a template).
2. Drag three shapes from the toolbox onto the canvas.
3. Click Connect, then drag between the shapes to link them.
4. Select each shape and give it a name in the Properties panel.
5. File → Export → As PNG… to share your diagram.

That's it — happy diagramming!

17. About ERPDesk

Choose Help → About ERPDesk… to see the product version, build number, and a link to backendside.com. The build number bumps with every release, so it doubles as a quick way to confirm which version you're running.