Our users sometimes say to us: “Vertabelo is awesome but... how can I add the data?” Oh, come on! Vertabelo is not a database engine or a database administration tool. At least not at the moment. For now, Vertabelo is intended mainly to design database models. This doesn't mean that we don’t care about what you can do next with models created in our application. Of course, we do! That’s why we provide our users with some useful tools on our website and in our GitHub repository.

In this article I’m going to show you how to design SQLAlchemy models using Vertabelo, an online tool for visual database design, and our code generator. SQLAlchemy is propably the most advanced and well engineered OR/M for Python, while Vertabelo is a database design tool that works in a web browser. The Vertabelo code generator is an pythonic script called vertabelo-sqlalchemy. As you can see, the script is open source and hosted on GitHub.

We hadn’t planned on adding a feature to print diagrams. Our original idea was that Vertabelo would supersede paper diagrams. Nevertheless, some of our users pointed out that they rely heavily on printouts (Export to PDF topic). So, I’d like to announce a new feature called “Export to PDF” also known as “Printing.” Note that exporting a database model to a PDF file is available for Premium and Team account plans only (see the comparison of the plans’ features in our Pricing).

Sorry for that tabloid title, but I couldn’t resist. I’m going to show you how to view the database design of other people’s systems. It will work for legacy systems as well. Of course, you may call show tables and describe table in the database console but that’s a very rudimentary way to examine the structure. You’ll miss a bird’s eye view of the design which is crucial to understanding a system as a whole.

So I’m sitting here thinking to myself: How should I share a new Vertabelo feature with you? Should I write an over-hyped article full of industry jargon and marketing-speak? Hmmm. Tried and failed. I’ve just gotta show you the feature straight up and how simple it is to use. More meat, little fat, no fluff :). Well tah dah! Here it is: Go ahead, click on it. Use the mouse wheel to zoom.