[phpMyAdmin] How to enable Designer in phpMyAdmin

Some times we need to create ERD. In phpMyAdmin this can be done very easily. Just you need to change some configuration.

I am assuming that you have already installed phpMyAdmin (in my case it’s 3.4.3.2 version). You have to follow these simple steps;

Step 1: Open the file

libraries/config.default.php

Step 2: Find and change these configuration like this:

$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘pmadb’] = ‘phpmyadmin’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘bookmarktable’] = ‘pma_bookmark’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘relation’] = ‘pma_relation’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘table_info’] = ‘pma_table_info’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘table_coords’] = ‘pma_table_coords’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘pdf_pages’] = ‘pma_pdf_pages’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘column_info’] = ‘pma_column_info’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘history’] = ‘pma_history’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘designer_coords’] = ‘pma_designer_coords’;

Step 3: Now, create a database name phpmyadmin. You can copy and paste in these script.

Click to download phpmyadmin.sql

**NOTE: People are getting some unknown characters like ‘–’ and facing difficulties to load the SQL into the database. So I remove the SQL block form here and upload that in my github repository. Please download from there and accept my apologies for that.

you are done!

Step 4: Now select any of your database from the left side database list

Step 5: You will get a “Designer” tab

Step 6: Now, you need to logged out to phpmyadmin and then log-in again to be able to see the Designer tab. Click on the “Designer” tab and you will get something like this:

That’s all, you can now enjoy the model 😉

Updated suggest by:
– Meri Alvarado

About Tanveer
RIA (Rich Internet Application) Developer with a wide variety of business applications. Particularly interested in client/server and relational database design. Always interested in migration projects, as well as close interaction with the DB manufacturers.

26 Responses to [phpMyAdmin] How to enable Designer in phpMyAdmin

  1. Pingback: Meng Enable Designer di PhpMyAdmin | Mari Berbagi

  2. Meri Alvarado says:

    This is working. Just kindly set TYPE=MyISAM to ENGINE=MyISAM.

    Also, you need to logged out to phpmyadmin first and log-in again to be able to see the Designer tab.

  3. ronnie says:

    is this working on phpmyadmin 3.5.0? im still having a trouble displaying Designer tab

    im using fedora 15

    i have a user pma@localhost and i grant that as all previlage to all database.

    i also run have the script from here examples/create_tables.sql

    i edited config.default.php

    i also add $cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘controluser’] = ‘pma’;

    i restarted apache and mysql and it won’t display

  4. Tanveer says:

    Well I am not sure why it’s not working on your Linux box. But it should work. Please try again and let me know if you have any specific question regarding that. Thanks!

  5. Jhustin says:

    Why is that when I click the designer tab, I get the model but it don’t show the relations of my model?

    I’m talking about the blue lines below your step 6. Thank you. 🙂

    • Tanveer says:

      Hi Jhustin,
      Thanks for visiting my weblog. Well it depends on how did you make your relationship between table to table in the database. If your table doesn’t has any relational structure then it will not show that blue line. Please make sure your database has those relational mapping between tables. Thanks!

  6. Edwin says:

    I was curious if you ever considered changing the layout of your website?

    Its very well written; I love what youve got to say. But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better.
    Youve got an awful lot of text for only having 1 or 2 pictures.
    Maybe you could space it out better?

  7. Pingback: Desain tabel secara visual di phpmyadmin | Ikatlah Ilmu dengan Menuliskannya...

  8. quantim says:

    Hey there, You have done an incredible job. I’ll definitely digg it and personally recommend to my friends. I’m sure they will
    be benefited from this website.

  9. Hey there just wanted to give you a quick heads up.

    The text in your article seem to be running off the screen in
    Firefox. I’m not sure if this is a format issue or something to do with web browser compatibility but I thought I’d post
    to let you know. The layout look great though! Hope you get the problem fixed soon.

    Thanks

    • Tanveer says:

      Thanks a lot for your comment. Could you please let me know which version of FF you are using. I find nothing wired in my FF 20.0.

  10. Great post. I was checking continuously this blog and
    I am impressed! Extremely helpful info specially the last part 🙂 I care for
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  13. seyfer says:

    MySQL said: Documentation

    #1064 – You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘–
    – Database : `phpmyadmin`
    –
    DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS `phpmyadmin`’ at line 1

  14. Bureera says:

    i have followed the steps and created phpmyadmin db with mentioned tables as well ,updated config file and logged in again but still unable to see the designer tab. I am using version 4.0 and i am not getting where the problem exist

    Regards
    Bureera

    • Tanveer says:

      Select any database from left side and then mouse over to top right “More” menu item. See if it’s load the “Designer” option or not. If you didn’t find any then recheck your ‘phpmyadmin’ table and ‘config.default.php’ file.

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