I really like the simple search (and useful keyboard shortcuts) to jump to an object, something that is fairly tedious in SSMS. (expand, expand, expand, pick folder, use filter or type dbo.stuff in a large group of objects, hope you didnt add a typo!)
The find all references is also useful, I really don't like either scripting sys.comments or using the find dependencies as they are both tedious. This may be specific to my use case, but finding the tree of dependencies n levels deep is something I find myself doing and it is a pain in the neck. (find references, now find references to those objects, now find references to those objects, pull apart this mess)
I like the quick info as well, though alt+f1 usually does this for me, if I can get the information without blowing out the result set or opening a new window, that's great.
I haven't finalized the pricing yet, but it should not break the bank. I am going to start with SSMS 2012, and if there's a demand to support older versions, I'll do that. I am curious what you would consider as a reasonable price for this? Also, I think you can use SSMS 2012 to connect to older Sql Server Databases. Is there a reason for you to use the older SSMS?
I consult to a lot of different businesses and nobody is running SSMS 2012 -- it's all 2008 R2. I think if you want to target the most developers for SQL, you'll likely find that's by far the most common version. It's a very conservative market -- I probably won't see 2012 until long after the next version is out.
Try the SSMS Tools Pack. The 2008 version is free. Doesn't do exactly what this demo does, but what it does is different and much more. It keeps your script history and has an execution plan analyzer.
This looks nice, I'll probably take a look at it as I spend an unfortunate amount of time in SQLSMS.
As an aside, I would have liked to be able to know a bit about the plugin's features without needing to watch a video (but I guess you'll certainly flesh out the website once the plugin is ready to be sold).
Thanks. Yes, the website will definitely be better in the future. I have been working on the tool by myself for a while and right now I just wanted to make sure that this is something people would use.
1. How is your find all references different than the show dependencies function?
2. Your quick info function looks similar to just hitting Shift-F1 when highlighting an object. Yours maybe doesn't even do as much. Are you aware of the Shift F1 command?
Results wise, "Find all references" should show you a flattened list of the hierarchy that you see with show dependencies. Also, the idea was to make it keyboard friendly.
Quick Info might potentially involve to show more information (definition, references etc). If not, and if nobody sees value in it, I might take it out.
After installing your product it has been sitting for several minutes grabbing all the schema or something... so I can't get even get quick info to work at this point when Alt-F1 works every time.
But very few people even know about hitting Alt-F1. Might make sense for your quick info just to call that same function so people even know how to do it.
So with Alt-F1 I can copy and paste the columns and stuff out of it. With your quick info I can't. Yours doesn't tell me the varchar lengths, nullable, etc etc like alt-f1 does. If I am using a certain database already your quick info shouldn't make my pick a database first either.
having a "find all references" feature is a god send. can't tell you how many time i've scripted the database to a new query window and did a manual search just to find out all the place a stored procedure is being used.
Awesome! Thanks for letting me know. I would have thought "Find References" and "Quick Info" would be the most underused features and maybe I should take them out.
It's a convenient way to answer the common question of, "if I change ____, what else will break?"
It's of course possible to do this by looking through systables/information_schema/etc (I'm sure this is how you're doing it) but I always forget how. :)
I use Toad for Oracle and you can execute the current statement with ctrl + Enter. Your execute current query feature is exactly what I have been looking for! I can't believe that SSMS has never implemented such a feature.
The find all references is also useful, I really don't like either scripting sys.comments or using the find dependencies as they are both tedious. This may be specific to my use case, but finding the tree of dependencies n levels deep is something I find myself doing and it is a pain in the neck. (find references, now find references to those objects, now find references to those objects, pull apart this mess)
I like the quick info as well, though alt+f1 usually does this for me, if I can get the information without blowing out the result set or opening a new window, that's great.