OData Visualizer Extension

OData Visualizer Extension

Yesterday I wrote
about VS2010
extension manager.
One of the great
extensions that you
can download and
use is the OData Visualizer.
The OData Visualizer helps
us to get a visual graph of the OData Protocol’s types, properties,
associations, and other aspects of the EDM which you get
from an OData metadata endpoint.

Installing OData Visualizer

Installing the OData Visualizer is very easy. Go to your Extension
Manager and search for OData Visualizer in the online gallery.
Once you find it just install it and then restart VS2010 in order to
it to be available. It is also available in the Visual Studio Gallery
from here.

Setting the Environment

In order to use the OData Visualizer you need to have an OData
metadata endpoint which is referenced in a project. In the example
I use the following WCF Data Service which was created on top of
a school EDM:

public class SchoolDataService : DataService<SchoolEntities>

{    

  public static void InitializeService(DataServiceConfiguration config)

  {

    config.SetEntitySetAccessRule("*", EntitySetRights.AllRead);      

    config.DataServiceBehavior.MaxProtocolVersion = DataServiceProtocolVersion.V2;

  }

}

I have created a console application and created a service 
reference to the service I showed above.

Using the OData Visualizer

In the Solution Explorer click the right mouse button on the created
service reference and choose the View in Diagram menu item:

This will result in the following OData Protocol Model Browser:

After opening the OData Protocol Model Browser you can
start visualizing your model. Use the Conceptual Model Content to
add all the aspects you want to visualize. For example, after I click
on add all for Entity Types this is the graph I get:

You can also see in the right menu that I have a model browser that
helps to navigate the model and see all its aspects. You can also
export the model into a XPS file if you like.

Summary

When using OData Protocol if you want to see a visual representation
of the model you can do it using the OData Visualizer. As I showed
in the post it is very easy to install it and to use it as a VS2010
extension. I found that tool very useful and I recommend you to
download it too.