Getting Started with the PowerDesigner Plugin 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 plugin for Microsoft Visual Studio and Team Foundation is available for Visual Studio 2005 to 2008.

All Visual Studio development takes place in "solutions", which contain "projects". You can create PowerDesigner models directly within a solution, or within any type of project, including the PowerDesigner-specific "modeling project".

• 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).
• The Visual Studio Development Environment
  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:
• PowerDesigner Menus
  The following PowerDesigner-specific menus are available in the Visual Studio menu bar: