We’ve started to roll out an exciting new feature: real-time collaboration support in Database Designer. Until now, all previous versions of DB Designer were single-user only, and there was no way for multiple users to safely edit the DB schema.
The new version of DB Designer with real-time collaboration utilizes a special protocol based on conflict-free replicated data types and supports an almost unlimited number of editing users.
One of the most significant changes is how the new collaboration feature works. In previous versions of DB Designer, your schema was saved directly to the Studio server every time you clicked the save button. If you left the editor without saving changes, all changes were lost.
With the new designer, we introduce the concept of a “draft” — a network-based document with your DB schema that can be edited by multiple users in real-time without network outages or conflicts. All your changes are immediately saved to the draft but not to the Studio server. Only when you click the Push Changes button Studio take your current draft and apply it to your project (similar to the save button in previous versions).
One drawback of the new version is that if you make unintended changes to your schema, you have only two options to cancel the changes:
- Press Ctrl+Z to revert.
- Click on the Rollback Changes button to recreate the draft.
The Rollback Changes button will drop your current draft and replace it with a fresh copy from the schema currently saved in Studio.
We’re rolling out the new feature in multiple phases:
- This week, we enabled the new version for a small group of users.
- Next week, all new projects will have the new designer enabled by default.
- In a couple of weeks, we’ll roll out the feature for most users.
Our existing customers with paid subscriptions have the option to keep the current version at least until the end of this year.
DB Designer became our third component out of four planned to support real-time collaboration. As of now, we support collaboration in the Web UI Designer, Mobile UI Designer (beta), and DB Designer. The only component left is the Business Logic Designer.