Creating relationships


A relationship represents a semantic link between normally two, generally n entities. Depending on the relationships’ multiplicity, an entity will be designated either as parent or as child.

Open ModelSphere offers two types of relationships: the right-angle and the free angle relationships. Both play exactly the same role, only their appearance is different.
  1. Right-click the relationship creation tool.

  2. Select one of the relationships displayed in the ModelSphere toolbar. (Though you can use any of the relationships, choose the angular line relationship for the purpose of this example).

  3. Click somewhere inside the source entity, then, inside the target entity.

  4. Add the relationships as depicted in the following example.



To create n-ary relationships repeat the following steps accordingly:
  1. Right-click the relationship creation tool.

  2. Select one of the relationships displayed in the ModelSphere toolbar.

  3. Click inside an additional entity, then, inside the corresponding relationship.
If you create a recursive relationship and manually bring every point to the center point of the entity, you will graphically lose the relationship. To get them back Layout entire diagram or Layout a selection of the diagram.