Q: Files in Database Explorer

I accidentally dropped a file on Database Explorer pane in SQL Editor and now I have a Files folder with that file there and some interesting context items of which I've found no trace in help.

The context items are the following when invoked on a file:

Link files - I guess the dialog opened by that one only adds new files. The dialog has a small glitch, though. When the file type dropdown is set to SQL (*.sql, *.ddl), there are no files shown in the current folder even if there are files there with those exceptions.
Remove File - pretty obvious
Open as New Document - pretty obvious as well
Load to Current Document - this one has a slight bug. SE has it ANSI encoding as default for new empty tabs and loading an UTF-8 (with BOM) file into a new tab will load the BOM bytes into the code, resulting in syntax error. By the way, is there a way to change the default encoding?
Execute SQL - now that could come in pretty handy if it worked as I'd expect, except that it doesn't: I thought it would simply execute the contents of the file regardless of the contents of the editor. Instead of that it does execute the file but overwrites the contents of the editor with the contents of the file at the same time.

Could you tell us what those are? Is this an abandoned feature or a not-yet-complete one?

Last edited by gemisigo on Tue Dec 13, 2016 6:52 am; edited 1 time in total

This feature enables associating files to database objects and databases. In a simplest example, when you are working on a new schema version for an existing application and you have a bunch of incomplete stored procedures or data seed scripts that you want to associate with that existing schema and access all of that from a single place you can use the Link Files feature.

There is actually a menu available to link files, drag and drop also can be used for the linking. Right click menu can be used to show/hide linked files.

Sounds great, truly fascinating. Any way to link folders perhaps? It would allow to link the files added to the folder automatically.

UPDATE: Perhaps not :( When I drop a folder on anything it shows as if it was a file and says it doesn't exist when I try to open it.

SysOp wrote:

This feature enables associating files to database objects and databases. In a simplest example, when you are working on a new schema version for an existing application and you have a bunch of incomplete stored procedures or data seed scripts that you want to associate with that existing schema and access all of that from a single place you can use the Link Files feature.

There is actually a menu available to link files, drag and drop also can be used for the linking. Right click menu can be used to show/hide linked files.

The feature is great, I started using it to remove the need of having to rely on a file manager to keep track of the files. Alas, drag&drop does not actually work, though that would speed up the linking process quite a bit. Can you fix that, please?

Did you mean drag & drop from Windows Explorer? That should work as long as you don't run the process with Elevated Privileges.

If you mean linked files in DB Explorer, then double-clicking the file name opens it up in the editor.

You said:

	SysOp wrote:
	...drag and drop also can be used for the linking...

I cannot make that work. Neither my file manager nor SQL Editor runs at elevated privileges, still, when I drag and drop a file onto a database object, SE only opens that file, it does not link to the object. I've also tried with Windows Explorer, sadly, with the same results. Check this short video here.

I'm sorry I misunderstood what you meant. I thought you are referring to opening files using drag and drop.

	SysOp wrote:
	I'm sorry I misunderstood what you meant. I thought you are referring to opening files using drag and drop.

Well, no :) That works, I've tested it a thousand times. But I like the Linked Files feature very much. Performancewise it's a bit faster than using drag-and-drop for opening the file.