An interesting question popped up on the forum, and I thought I’d share my ‘answer’ with you folks. I figure this is something a lot of folks do several hundred times a day – pulling up a frequently used database objects in the browser.

The question:

Is there a way to define a shortcut to take me to a Table, package, etc of interest? I have many DBs defined in SQLDeveloper and it’s a pain to continually traverse to the object of interest.

And my answer:

No, but some things to help you get to your object quicker.

  1. View > Find DB Object
  2. Ctrl+Click in the worksheet
  3. Open a Schema Browser
  4. It will even search through your PL/SQL code!
    It will even search through your PL/SQL code!

    Options 1 and 2 will require you to type the actual object name somewhere. In the object search dialog you’ll need to type the name, but you can leave the search scope to ‘ALL SCHEMAS’ and ‘ALL OBJECTS’ so that’s pretty fast. You can click in the search results to be taken to the object. The ctrl+click trick will be faster if you already have a connection and worksheet open and a query or stored procedure call with the object already typed out.

    Hold down the Ctrl key and mouse over your object name...then click!
    Hold down the Ctrl key and mouse over your object name…then click!

    For option #3, I’m drawn to the following key phrase in the user’s question, a pain to continually traverse. Ok, so they don’t like the tree. And so I remind folks that there’s an alternative to the tree that I think they’ll dig. Or you can learn a few tricks to make navigating the tree a bit better.

    It's all about click and  scroll here. None of that funny collapsing and expanding business.
    It’s all about click and scroll here. None of that funny collapsing and expanding business.

    I’m glad this question came up yesterday as I was at the Rockies v Giants game here in San Francisco with the developer who owns both the tree and the schema browser. I think we came up with some pretty cool ideas to lessen the ‘pain’ involved when you start to work with the tree. Stay tuned 🙂

Author

I'm a Distinguished Product Manager at Oracle. My mission is to help you and your company be more efficient with our database tools.

6 Comments

  1. Pete Andrusyszyn Reply

    I believe that this is already an accepted new feature request (hopefully in a release coming soon!) but I believe this is where the concept of a project comes in. The ability to associate objects in a “project” – these 2 packages, 3 functions, 7 tables, and 3 views all belong together in a project that can be easily accessed/opened to continue work.

    • saby mondal

      I loved the ctrl+click. I can see data in tables (as opposed to shift+f4). THANKS!!!

  2. David Grimberg Reply

    My favorite shortcut for this is just to hit + while my cursor is on a table, view, function or procedure object within a SQL or PL/SQL editor. For packages it only takes a little more effort to first select the package name and then hit the same key combination.

    • David Grimberg

      Looks like my key combination got eaten. The above should have read:

      Just hit [shift]+[f4]

    • I prefer the ctrl-click over the popup describes but both are nice features. And we’re working on something REALLY cool for the shift F4 method 🙂

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