Getting Started with the PowerDesigner Plugin for Eclipse

During your installation of PowerDesigner, you can choose to install a plugin to allow you to use PowerDesigner within your Eclipse environment. The PowerDesigner plugin for Eclipse is available for Eclipse v3.2 to v3.5.

Note:

For information about PowerDesigner features specific to Eclipse, see Working with the PowerDesigner Plugin for Eclipse.

When you launch the Eclipse platform for the first time, it opens the workbench window, which initially displays the Resource perspective. A perspective defines the initial set and layout of views in the workbench window.

The Resource perspective contains different views:

The Navigator view displays a tree view of the projects and their resources
The Editor area displays the content of the projects and resources
The Outline view displays a content outline of the file being edited. (Except for a plain text file)
The Tasks view lists and marks all the tasks and problems to be solved

Note:

The PowerDesigner plugin for Sybase Workspace, which is called Enterprise Modeling, includes all the features of the standard PowerDesigner plugin for Eclipse. When modeling within the Sybase Workspace environment, we recommend that you use the Enterprise Modeling perspective.

Activating the PowerDesigner Perspective
Click the title bar of a view to make it active. (The title bar turns blue). The name of the active perspective is shown in the title bar of the window and its icon is pushed-in in the shortcut bar. We recommend you use the PowerDesigner perspective.
Activating PowerDesigner Toolbars
Specific toolbars are set by default in the PowerDesigner perspective. If for some reason, they do not appear in the toolbar section, you can activate them manually.
PowerDesigner Perspective Components
The PowerDesigner perspective contains the following components:
Creating a Modeling Project in Eclipse
You can create a modeling project in Eclipse to group together all your models and other resources.
Creating a Model in Eclipse
A model is the basic work unit in PowerDesigner. Every model is contained within a project, and contains at least one diagram and any number of other objects. Though a model may be split into packages for organizational reasons or may contain several diagrams, it remains the fundamental basis for your modeling work.
Importing an Existing Model into Eclipse
To open an existing model you have to import it into Eclipse.
Setting PowerDesigner Eclipse Preferences
The PowerDesigner plugin for Eclipse provides options to customize your environment.

Parent topic: Working with the PowerDesigner Plugin for Eclipse