Use this menu item to open a project, begin a new project, or save a project. Choosing New opens the default schema, mydb. Choosing Open opens a file dialog box with the default file type set to MySQL Workbench Models (MWB). To display a list of recently opened MWB files, choose the Open Recent menu option. The keyboard command to create a new project is Ctrl N and the command to open an existing project is Ctrl O.

To close the currently active MySQL Model or EER Diagram tab, use the Close Tab option. You can also do this from the keyboard by pressing Ctrl W. To reopen the MySQL Model tab, see Section 7.2.3, “The View Menu”. To reopen an EER Diagram tab double click the EER Diagram icon in the EER Diagrams section of the MySQL Model page.

Use the Save or Save As menu options to save a model. When you save a model its name appears in the title bar of the application. If you have made changes to a project and haven't saved those changes, an asterisk appears in the title bar following the model name. When you save a model it is saved as a MySQL Workbench file with the extension mwb.

Use the Import menu option to import a MySQL data definition (DDL) script file, one created by issuing the command mysqldump --no-data, for example. If the script does not contain a CREATE db_name; statement, the schema objects will be copied to the default schema, mydb. If the script creates a database, a new tab bearing the database name is added to the Physical Schemata section of the MySQL Model page. If the script contains data, it will be ignored. Importing a DDL script is discussed in detail in Section 16.1, “Reverse Engineering Using a Create Script”.

Under the Import menu option you can also import DBDesigner4 files.

There are variety of options under the Export menu item. You may generate the SQL statements necessary to create a new database or alter an existing one. These menu items are discussed in detail in Section 17.1, “Forward Engineering Using SQL Scripts”.

Using the Export menu item you can also export an EER diagram as a PNG, SVG, PDF or Postscript file. For an example of a PNG file see Figure 6.1, “The sakila EER Diagram”.

The print options are only enabled if the EER Diagrams tab is selected. You have the choice of printing your model directly to your printer, printing it as a PDF file, or creating a PostScript file. For more information see Chapter 19, Printing. Note: the printing options are only available in commercial versions of MySQL Workbench.

Use the Document Properties menu option to set the following properties of your project: