[mschumann]

I am using eclipse 3.2 (Build id: M20060629-1905) and the newest version of MyEclipse (5.0. GA, Build id: 20060805)

I created a ER diagram with about 40 tables in it. While I can export it to a .jpg image if I don’t rearrange the tables in the ER diagram, eclipse chrashes if I try to export the ER diagram after rearranging the tables. Does the rearranging results in more memory that is needed to generate the jpg ? Without rearranging the generated jpg has a size of 2.7MB.

And while I am at it, I would like to know where the information about the a table location on screen is saved. The .mer file, as I have seen only contains a xml description of the table objects. I would like to share my .mer files with other developers and want them to have the same arrangement of tables as I prepared it.

I would appreciate any hint or help!

[Riyad Kalla]

Unfortunately the export functionality renders from a bitmap to a JPG, so the bigger your ‘canvas’ is, the faster you run into the memory limitation of the bitmap size (which can get *huge* fast), so when you arrange what is likely happening is it is stretching the canvas out just a bit more than normal and then you are hitting the memory limit. A nice workaround that actually most folks prefer, is to install a PDF Printer like PrimoPDF and just “print” your diagram to a PDF.

And yes, the .mer file contains the layout information, I haven’t dug through one in a while so I don’t recall the layout, but if you erase it, your layout defaults back to automatic-positioned.

[mschumann]

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to try out PrimoPDF, because its just available for Windows and I am using Linux. Anyhow how does the workaround with a PDF Printer work, if the bitmap of the ER diagram is created only when the ‘export to jpg’ function is activated ? I am afraid I didn’t quite understand how a standard PDF Printer would work with Eclipse.

[Riyad Kalla]

Actually if you are on Linux then there is no printing alternative since Eclipse doesn’t support printing on Linux (it should in the 3.3/Europa release though since GTK added generic print support)

[Jörg Zintel]

Isn’t it possible to increase the memory settings somewhere?

[Riyad Kalla]

Zintel,
If you mean the heap/permGen memory yes you can do that, but it won’t effect the image export issue unfortunately.

[Jörg Zintel]

thanks for the reply.
Does it then depend on the graphics card memory, which might not be enough?

[Brian Fernandes]

Zintel,

Unfortunately it does not depend on your physical memory; it’s an OS limit that we hit when trying to create a large BITMAP resource internally – you need a simple BITMAP before encoding to something like JPG. Linux did have a larger limit than Windows, but it did have a limit all the same – how large (in pixels) was the diagram you wished to export?

Having said that, there are workarounds and we are looking at fixing this in an upcoming release; we realize it’s an important issue that needs attention.

Sorry for the inconvenience until then.

Best regards,
Brian.

[Jörg Zintel]

Hi Brian,

thanks for your support. I can’t tell you the size of the diagramm (how can I find out the pixels if I can’t create a jpg?). It has 74 Tables and 14 Views.
I installed FreePDF XP and can print it on 2 DIN A0 pages. But personally I would preffer a jpeg because I want to create a poster of it using “SKS Poster Drucker” which only accepts JPEG. If I configure FreePDF XP to generate JPEG od PNG then it works with up to 300 DPI (about 11.000×11.000 pixels). Using 600 DPI screws up my memory 😉

Well, I think I can live with that workaround, hoping that this gets improved in one of the next versions.

Best regards

Joerg

[Brian Fernandes]

Joerg,

Thank you for the additional information.

We have already taken this matter up internally and will try getting a fix out by 5.0.3, but I cannot promise you this as priorities and tasks have not yet been decided.
I will keep you informed.

Best,
Brian.

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