External (Shared) Metadata

External (shared) metadata serves for more than one graph. It is located outside the graph and can be shared across multiple graphs.

Creating External (Shared) Metadata

If you want to create shared metadata, select File > New > Other in the main menu.

Then expand the Data Shaper > Metadata item and decide whether you want to define metadata yourself (User defined), or extract it from one of the available sources.

Linking External (Shared) Metadata

After its creation (see previous sections), external (shared) metadata must be linked to each graph in which it is to be used. You need to right-click either the Metadata group or any of its items and select New metadata > Link shared definition from the context menu. After that, a File selection wizard displaying the project content will open. You must expand the meta folder in this wizard and select the desired metadata file from the files contained in this wizard.

You can even link multiple external (shared) metadata files at once. To do this, right-click either the Metadata group or any of its items and select New metadata > Link shared definition from the context menu. After that, a File selection wizard displaying the project content will open. You must expand the meta folder in this wizard and select the desired metadata files from the files contained in this wizard. You can select adjacent file items by pressing Shift and moving the Down Cursor or the Up Cursor key. If you want to select non-adjacent items, use Ctrl+Click at each of the desired file items instead.

Internalizing External (Shared) Metadata

Once you have created and linked external (shared) metadata, in case you want to put it into the graph, you need to convert it to internal metadata. In such a case you would see its structure in the graph itself.

You can internalize any linked external (shared) metadata file by right-clicking the linked external (shared) metadata item in the Outline pane and clicking Internalize metadata from the context menu.

You can even internalize multiple linked external (shared) metadata files at once. To do this, select the desired external (shared) metadata items in the Outline pane. You can select adjacent items when by pressing Shift and moving the Down Cursor or the Up Cursor key. If you want to select non-adjacent items, use Ctrl+Click at each of the desired items instead.

After that, the selected linked external (shared) metadata items disappear from the Outline pane Metadata group, but, at the same location, newly created internal metadata items appear.

The original external (shared) metadata files still exist in the meta subfolder and can be seen in the Project Explorer pane.