Navicat supports a simple and cosy way to add table in Model. One great feature is field type predication. It reduces the amount of time spent on table design. In this tutorial, I will show you how to design a table without opening the table designer and how the field type predication works. First, open a model file in Navicat. In the model, click the ‘Table’ icon to add a new table to the diagram. You can simply click here to edit the table name. Then, press ‘Tab’ or the ‘Down Arrow’ key. Now, you can start to enter the field name. Navicat will predict field types based on the field names entered. For example, if you enter ‘id’, it predicts as a primary key and sets to ‘int’. If a name contains ‘date’, it sets to ‘datetime’ type. Or, you can simply enter an ‘asterisk’ before the field name to recognize as a primary key and enter a colon after the field name to customize the field type. You can also reorder the field by pressing and holding down the Shift key. Use the mouse to drag the field to a desired location. If you drag the field out of the table, it will delete the field. Now, click the ‘Foreign Key’ icon to add a foreign key between tables. Drag and drop the field from one table to another. After that, right-click the foreign key line and set the cardinalities.
