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I'm using Visual Studio 2017 and Entity Framework 6, and for the life of me, I cannot find the EDMX file, Entity Data Tools, Model Browser, or Entity Designer...
Am I losing my mind here? I've created multiple new projects trying to find these UI-based tools for working with the Entity Framework data models and can't seem to get anywhere.
Please help!
I believe I have the correct tools installed in the VS2017 Install:
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Entity Framework is an object-relational mapping technology that enables . NET developers to work with relational data by using domain-specific objects.
Another way to get the EF version you are using is to open the Package Manager Console (PMC) in Visual Studio and type Get-Package at the prompt. The first line with be for EntityFramework and list the version the project has installed.
Thank you. Entity Framework is made up of the EF Tools for Visual Studio and the EF Runtime. The Entity Framework Tools for Visual Studio include the EF Designer and the EF Model Wizard and are required for the database first and model first workflows. EF Tools are included in all recent versions of Visual Studio.
Entity Framework 6 Power Tools help you build applications that use the Entity Data Model. The power tools can generate a conceptual model, validate an existing model, produce source-code files that contain object classes based on the conceptual model, and produce source-code files that contain views that the model generates.
Useful design-time utilities for EF 6, accessible through the Visual Studio Solution Explorer context menu. When right-clicking on a file containing a derived DbContext class, the following context menu functions are available: View Entity Data Model (Read-only) View Entity Data Model XML View Entity Data Model DDL SQL Generate Views
EF Tools are included in all recent versions of Visual Studio. If you perform a custom install of Visual Studio you will need to ensure that the item "Entity Framework 6 Tools" is selected by either choosing a workload that includes it or by selecting it as an individual component.
For anyone looking at this, in my case the answer was that I was using a Code-First implementation of the Entity Framework, which apparently does NOT give you access to the Visual Tools.
So there is no EDMX file in Code-First Entity Framework.
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I had similar issue. I reinstalled Entity Framework 6 tools without luck, even reinstalled SQL tools (sorry, forgot exact name). But solution was very simple:
right-click the edmx file-> choose Open with->choose ADO.NET Entity Data Model Designer
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At the installation of VS2017 you had to go to Individual Components to install those tools, don't think they are installed by default.
You can run this install from the VS Installer
Entity Framework not appearing in Add New Item list in Visual Studio 2017
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Please also see the current documentation. They state that for current Visual Studio versions, the tools will be included. For previous versions, separate installers (MSI packages, not extensions) are available for download at the Microsoft Download Center. F.e., see Visual Studio Releases > Visual Studio 2013, which will tell you where to find the MSI for Visual Studio 2013.
As in response to gotmike's accepted answer, today there's an 3rd party marketplace extension called Entity Framework Visual Editor, which can be used (I didn't try it myself) to generate a visual representation out of the code first model/POCO classes.
Also note that the Entity Framework Power Tools always had the feature to preview code first entities in a designer view called "View Entity Data Model (Read-only)". This option appears in your context menu when you select a model class derived from DbContext.
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