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Accepting enhancement suggestions for new releases
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SysOp
Site Admin


Joined: 26 Nov 2006
Posts: 7833

Post Accepting enhancement suggestions for new releases Reply with quote
We have started formal process of compiling list of enhancements for implementation in version 3 maintenance releases and for new major version 4.

If you have any suggestions, please email them to the support account specified in the SQL Assistant Help/About box.


Last edited by SysOp on Sat Dec 31, 2022 11:10 am; edited 1 time in total
Mon Jan 07, 2008 1:29 pm View user's profile Send private message
aamirocp1



Joined: 26 Feb 2008
Posts: 9
Country: Pakistan

Post insert statement problem Reply with quote
hi

if you look into the syntax of oracle insert statement. you find that insert statement does not include the syntax of statement like these

insert into table values record

from oracle release 9.2 we can use records in place of list. I think its also a bug in oracle documentation never find a syntax like this there but on otn you can find its example and other stuff. also while evaluating your product i found out that your product especially in case of Oracle is not ready for the market. you need to detail many areas. you need to test the weather all possible syntax are there. My last sentence is very important. It will rate your product high. current you have mostly addressed the oracle plsql and sql areas loosely.

in the end i always say you have nice ideas but its important to put them right too and test it.
Mon Mar 10, 2008 3:06 pm View user's profile Send private message
SysOp
Site Admin


Joined: 26 Nov 2006
Posts: 7833

Post Reply with quote
Hi,

Thanks for the suggestions. Definitely interesting, but not fare. I'm personally working with Oracle for 15+ years and never heard of this before. I don't think particular feature is not likely to be implemented soon.

I understand your desire to have a tool that knows about every syntax option available in every Oracle version, every feature and every package constant and so on. Yet, even Oracle development tools (the most recent you can get your hand on) do not support that.

Here is basic description of our planning process for choosing what to implement in future versions:
1. Chosen features that are needed most for majority of database developers are always on the top of the list.
2. Chosen features must significantly boot developer productivity and be used often.
2. Chosen features must be documented in DBMS manuals and should be supported in multiple versions – this is just too much to develop and support nuances available in every DBMS version and maintenance release.
3. Chosen features should be available on multiple-platforms and it is a big plus if they confirm to ANSI SQL standards or at least some analogs should be available in most other DBMS systems supported by SQL Assistant (currently 7 of them)


Aside from that… I would like to suggest a method for rating some functionality and features of SQL Assistant, before saying some really offending stuff like "your product especially in case of Oracle is not ready for the market" based on the fact that some very obscure or non-standard Oracle features are not supported. Compare it to Intellisense in Oracle Developer or SQL*Plus or other Oracle tool. Can you name any that would bit SQL Assistant in its area? If yes, name these features.

Secondary, you always welcome to suggest new enhancements, but please be considerate of other people and think if other people really need them.
Mon Mar 10, 2008 5:15 pm View user's profile Send private message
aamirocp1



Joined: 26 Feb 2008
Posts: 9
Country: Pakistan

Post next version? Reply with quote
when you are planing to release the next version. what features it will include for oracle.
Tue Mar 11, 2008 1:39 am View user's profile Send private message
SysOp
Site Admin


Joined: 26 Nov 2006
Posts: 7833

Post Reply with quote
Next maintenance release 3.5 is scheduled for the end of March, beginning of April. We are adding several new things: Eclipse plug-in; text-block comment/uncomment functions; parsing and supporting SQL batch separators defined in "DELIMITER statement" in MySQL/DB2 targets, supporting Oracle batch-separator /; new code wrapping options in code formatting functions; improving behavior of historical query caching and reusing. Oracle's object support might make it to the 3.5 list, but there is no guarantee. Version 4 date is not yet determined, likely end-of year. There could be additional maintenance and bug-fix releases in between with new features and improvements added in each release/sub-release.

Just in case.... the most recent version is 3.1.22. For more details please see here http://softtreetech.com/support/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=22026
Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:43 am View user's profile Send private message
judahr



Joined: 09 Mar 2007
Posts: 319
Country: United States

Post Multiple entry using keyboard Reply with quote
Assuming:

Select
From dbo.Table t

When in the Select clause you type "t.", it would be nice to be able to use the keyboard (perhaps holding down Ctrl) and use the arrows and enter to quickly add columns. So holding Ctrl while clicking enter would output "t.Column1, " and shift the window over, keep the same row highlighted so you could click the down arrow and repeat.

Added bonus: Personally I prefer tall syntax.

Select t.Column1,
t.Column2,
t.Column3
From dbo.Table t

So if it could support that as well as an option of course. Or just follow the selected Code Formatting style.
Tue Mar 11, 2008 1:50 pm View user's profile Send private message
SysOp
Site Admin


Joined: 26 Nov 2006
Posts: 7833

Post Reply with quote
Tip: Don't type "t.", type * then Ctrl+Space. Use keyboard to quickly select the required columns. Just in case... arrow right key can be used to select, arrow left to unselect columns, arrow up and down to navigate the list. Arrow right and left can be also use to expand/collapse column levels.
Tue Mar 11, 2008 2:22 pm View user's profile Send private message
bshin



Joined: 21 Mar 2008
Posts: 2
Country: United States

Post auto-complete candidate list Reply with quote
One feature I'd really like to see is have the auto-complete list show the candidate list based on pattern matching rather than exact match. For example, when I type in "Select * From " SQL Assistant pops up a list of table names like the following:

CLIENT_REQUEST
CLIENT_SEARCH_EVENT
CLIENT_CART_EVENT
CLIENT_SESSION
CLIENT_SEARCH_FAIL
CLIENT_SEARCH_SUCCESS

Currently, you need to type in CLIENT_S everytime for SQL Assistant to only display the 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th table. It would be much easier for users if you could type in 'S' and have SQL Assistant filter out any tables without that letter and order the list alphabetically. Next if the user types in another 'S', it filters out all except CLIENT_SESSION and CLIENT_SUCCESS. The former table name would show up first, because the pattern 'SS' shows up in the string earlier.

In other words, you pattern match user input on (%input%) and list the result of the pop-up alphabetically. I would imagine it'll be a big plus if the table/column name candidates are large. Also, you don't have to remember the exact table/column name. If people prefer exact matches, could it possible to at least add an option for this feature?
Fri Mar 21, 2008 12:40 pm View user's profile Send private message
SysOp
Site Admin


Joined: 26 Nov 2006
Posts: 7833

Post Reply with quote
Thank you for your suggestion. I don't think this is a good idea. Many people would have difficulties locating the right objects quickly. Just imagine for a second that you are working with a large database system hosting tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of objects (for example a typical Oracle 10g/11g db catalog, or a SQL Server or DB2 with an ERP application). Doing such filtering will make it very difficult to quickly locate what you need because the list will be always very very long, every object having letter "s" in any place of their will be displayed

In my opinion, what you suggest, may help only in very small databases very the object list is relatively short.

I invite other people would like to vote on this topic, to add your comments here. If this becomes popular, I can setup a polling issue.
Fri Mar 21, 2008 1:02 pm View user's profile Send private message
bshin



Joined: 21 Mar 2008
Posts: 2
Country: United States

Post Reply with quote
By the time you type in your third or fourth letter, wouldn't your candidate list be dramatically reduced even if you're working with thousands of objects? Maybe this feature would work better with a crude AI, so that it learns which object name to display first based on the choices you make. For instance, if I type in 'src' and I keep choosing 'sp_search_code,' then the Assistant can display that object name as the preferred candidate the next time I type in that pattern.

I think it would be great if this became an optional feature rather than have it replace the method the software is currently using to generate the candidate list.

SysOp wrote:
Thank you for your suggestion. I don't think this is a good idea. Many people would have difficulties locating the right objects quickly. Just imagine for a second that you are working with a large database system hosting tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of objects (for example a typical Oracle 10g/11g db catalog, or a SQL Server or DB2 with an ERP application). Doing such filtering will make it very difficult to quickly locate what you need because the list will be always very very long, every object having letter "s" in any place of their will be displayed

In my opinion, what you suggest, may help only in very small databases very the object list is relatively short.

I invite other people would like to vote on this topic, to add your comments here. If this becomes popular, I can setup a polling issue.

Fri Mar 21, 2008 6:04 pm View user's profile Send private message
SysOp
Site Admin


Joined: 26 Nov 2006
Posts: 7833

Post Reply with quote
Please take a look at the code snippets feature. You can define as many code snippets as you want. For example, you can define "srs" snippet and choose whether to have automatically replace it with "'sp_search_code" after the last letter "s" is entered or use some hot key to activate it, The default key is Ctrl+Enter. Not only you can get 'sp_search_code" inserted automatically with less keystrokes, you get the complete SELECT, UPDATE or EXECUTE statement inserted for that table or procedure. The sky is the limit. As a good example, check how "cfetch" code snippet is defined. This snippet generates complete block of code with user defined variable declarations, complete cursor logic, including declaration, opening, fetching, scrolling, closing and more...

Code snippets provide very powerful and yet flexible extensions that can dramatically cut the amount of code you type by hand. People who define their own code snippets and use them regularly generally save over 90% on code typing!
Fri Mar 21, 2008 10:57 pm View user's profile Send private message
judahr



Joined: 09 Mar 2007
Posts: 319
Country: United States

Post My .02 Reply with quote
SysOp wrote:
Thank you for your suggestion. I don't think this is a good idea. Many people would have difficulties locating the right objects quickly. Just imagine for a second that you are working with a large database system hosting tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of objects (for example a typical Oracle 10g/11g db catalog, or a SQL Server or DB2 with an ERP application). Doing such filtering will make it very difficult to quickly locate what you need because the list will be always very very long, every object having letter "s" in any place of their will be displayed

In my opinion, what you suggest, may help only in very small databases very the object list is relatively short.

I invite other people would like to vote on this topic, to add your comments here. If this becomes popular, I can setup a polling issue.


Mnemonic snippets would probably be useful for the CLIENT_ example given. My initial reaction is that it wouldn't be a net benefit (time savings would be negated by times it isn't useful). There is also a possibility of a performance hit. Speed is the reason I switched to here from SQL Prompt. After doing some experiments (SELECT * FROM dbo.sysobjects WHERE type='U' AND name LIKE '%add%' ORDER BY name) It would work better for objects earlier in the alphabet, but if you are using object names further down you would have to type a lot more letters to get your result. My vote would be not worth the time.

However, using an MRU, or better yet, MFU, certain lookup tables or hot base tables might be a good option. However, personally I'm used to typing certain combinations of letters and seeing the results a certain way. And again, might slow down the app because now you would have to maintain usage data. Then you also have issues with skewed results. Having a db with CLIENT and a bunch of CLIENT_* tables. A user might end up typing C, choosing Client (to reduce typing), which causes a usage. Then bringing up the list again to find the actual table they want which causes another usage. (Hands stay where they are instead of moving to arrows for navigation because it reduces travel time and somehow ending up on the wrong home keys.)

Just some thoughts.
Tue Apr 01, 2008 8:29 am View user's profile Send private message
SysOp
Site Admin


Joined: 26 Nov 2006
Posts: 7833

Post Reply with quote
We are looking for ways to improve the existing historical query features. Right now these features are only helpful to people who type the same queries again and again and of a very limited use to everybody else.

The historical list is based on a combination of MRU and MFU. Your suggestion for object name lookup sounds very clause to what the purpose of Historical lookup is, we just need somehow to make it more efficient and don't be limited to complete queries, perhaps suggest intermediate code fragments too. When you refer to a table in your code in the FROM or JOIN parts you usually pick the same columns and conditions for the JOIN and WHERE clauses. Right? So if SQL Assistant can show suggestions for code fragments along with the object names, I think this can improve the productivity. The fragments can be short or long, just object name or the entire JOIN or FROM/WHERE.

What do you think? If you like the idea, how do you see the layout for such popups? Should code fragments appear along with object name or in a separate place? What control users need to have over such popup contents?
Tue Apr 01, 2008 11:17 am View user's profile Send private message
judahr



Joined: 09 Mar 2007
Posts: 319
Country: United States

Post Reply with quote
SysOp wrote:

What do you think? If you like the idea, how do you see the layout for such popups? Should code fragments appear along with object name or in a separate place? What control users need to have over such popup contents?


How about a split display with a hotkey toggle? Similar to how you offer join suggestions, top portion might show list of tables as it does now, with the bottom section showing fragments in a different color. Hitting the hot key would switch the panel places and typing and arrows would allow you to select the fragment. Hitting the hot key again would switch it back.

Common tables and joins would be good. I don't see much of a use for columns. The where clause usefulness is somewhere in between the two.
Wed Apr 02, 2008 8:07 am View user's profile Send private message
SysOp
Site Admin


Joined: 26 Nov 2006
Posts: 7833

Post Reply with quote
Thanks for the input. We are currently researching these options. We were looking into setting up a user controlled section for MRU and MFU code fragments object names on top of the object name popup. I will be happy to provide an early private build to wet this new feature for usability and to receive your feedback as soon as this version becomes available.
Wed Apr 02, 2008 11:46 am View user's profile Send private message
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