For Visual Studio 2022
This Visual Studio 2022 extension is the easiest way to add a consistently correct Entity Framework model to your project with support for EF6 and EFCore2-7.
It's an opinionated code generator, adding a new file type (.efmodel) that allows for fast, easy and, most importantly, visual design of persistent classes.
Inheritance, unidirectional and bidirectional associations are all supported. Enumerations are also included in the visual model, as is the ability to add text blocks to
explain potentially arcane parts of your design.
While giving you complete control over how the code is generated you'll be able to create, out of the box, sophisticated, consistent and correct Entity Framework code
that can be regenerated when your model changes. And, since the code is written using partial classes, any additions you make to your generated code are retained across
subsequent generations. The designer doesn't need to be present to use the code that's generated - it generates standard C#, using the code-first, fluent API - so the
tool doesn't become a dependency to your project.
If you are used to the EF visual modeling that comes with Visual Studio, you'll be pretty much at home. The goal was to duplicate at least those features and, in addition,
add all the little things that should have been there. Things like:
- importing entities from C# source, or existing DbContext definitions (including their entities) from compiled EF6 or EFCore assemblies
- multiple views of your model to highlight important aspects of your design
- the ability to show and hide parts of the model
- easy customization of generated output by editing or even replacing the T4 templates
- entities by default generated as partial classes so the generated code can be easily extended
- class and enumeration nodes that can be colored to visually group the model
- different concerns being generated into different subdirectories (entities, enums, dbcontext)
- string length, index flags, required attributes and other properties being available in the designer
and many other nice-to-have bits.
Note: This tool does not reverse engineer from the database (i.e., "database-first"). Microsoft has provided tools for that, and there are other, well-maintained opensourced
projects that provide that functionality as well.
For comprehensive documentation, please visit the project's documentation site.
For the VS2019 version, click over to Entity Framework Visual Editor
Migrating from VS2019
You'll have to change a line in your model's .tt file to accommodate how Visual Studio 2022 handles library imports in text templates.
Change line 5, which reads
#><#@ assembly name="EnvDTE"
to be
#><#@ assembly name="Microsoft.VisualStudio.Interop"
That's it. Of course, if you customized any of the standard templates, you'll have to go through the customizations the same way you've always done and
bump your changes up against the new templates. Not much has changed that didn't absolutely need to be changed due to the VS2022 differences, but there
may be a bugfix or two your customized templates don't have. But, hey ... if you've been customizing the templates, you know the drill, right?
We're looking for help!
Let's be honest -- the documentation is woefully out of date. There are a ton of new features in the tool that aren't mentioned in the docs anywhere,
and that's just plain not good.
If you're interested in helping out, please drop a note at the GitHub project site.
More hands make the work lighter, and I know there are some really bright people amongst the userbase who are much better at writing documentation than I am.
ChangeLog
4.2.7
- [NEW] Support for per-entity inheritance in EF7
- [NEW] Added option to generate nullable indicators
- [NEW] Added temporal table support for EFCore6 and above. These aren't supported by every database, and you're on your own to know if your database supports them.
- [NEW] Arrays of native types can now be used as property types in EFCore8+ projects
- [NEW] Aggregate ("owned") types can now be stored as JSON properties in EFCore7+ projects
- [NEW] Associations with transient, non-collection objects can be stored as JSON properties in EFCore7+ projects
- [NEW] Added support for reverse engineering EFCore v8 assemblies
- Fixes issue when generating code for properties that have a default enumeration value. Thanks to @equipatuequipo for the pull request.
- Association classes are back, but only for cases where each side of the many-to-many bidirectional association has a single identity property.
- Removed EFCore2 and EFCore3 parsers. Those EFCore versions have been obsolete for quite a while. If you need to use them, you can still use the 4.2.5 version of the extension.
- Constructors with required-but-transient associations no longer have those associations as parameters. If that constructor is needed, add it to the partial class file.
- Tightened up the concept of transient entities. We're now generating better code for these and the restriction that transient associations must be auto properties has been removed.
- Entities now update their displays immediately when the Persistent flag is changed.
4.2.5
4.2.4
4.2.3
4.2.1
- [NEW] Added support for EFCore7
- [NEW] Added ability to import EFCore7 assemblies
- [NEW] Added ability to use property types not available in the select list, along with a global option enabling this feature in Tools/Options/Entity Framework Visual Editor (see https://github.com/msawczyn/EFDesigner2022/issues/28)
- [NEW] Added support for DateOnly and TimeOnly types in EFCore 6+
- [NEW] Added ability to specify decimal precision in EFCore5+ projects
- Fix for View->Other Windows->Entity Model Explorer not working (see https://github.com/msawczyn/EFDesigner2022/issues/29)
- Fix error in code generation template for EFCore5+ projects
4.2.0
4.1.2
- [NEW] Added ability to create association classes via drag and drop of an entity onto a bidirectional many-to-many association
- Restored ability to open secondary diagrams
- Compiler update to Visual Studio v17.1.0 fixes missing designer menu items
4.0.1
- Added validations preventing use of temporal tables in unsupported scenarios
4.0.0
- [NEW] VS2022 extension
- [NEW] Added support for EFCore6
- [NEW] Added support for temporal tables
Earlier changes at the VS2019 version.
A big thanks to 
for providing free development tools to support this project.
