So someone asked us on Twitter this morning about a new Document that opens on an Export of a query result set.

The short answer is, that wasn’t intentional – it’s a BUG. Good news – we HAVE cleaned that up for version 18.4.

But, what exactly are we doing for 18.4?

Kill All the Bugs

For this version, it will just include bug fixes – no new features. So for Holiday Season, you can expect the most stable and reliable version of 18.

So to fix the aforementioned bug, we will write notes on doing things like database copies, exports, etc – in a new Utilities log panel. You won’t see this unless you have opened the Log panel, so it won’t be intrusive. Plus, you’ll see how long it took for us to do something, and if we spit out a file, we’ll include links to make them easier for you to open.

Yes, that’s a link. It took 1 second to build a 1300 rows Excel file, fwiw.

Several releases ago we had to disable a popular feature, due to performance issues when working with larger code blocks – Breadcrumbs.

Breadcrumbs will be back. And yes – you can still turn them off in the preferences.

Well, I’m happy to report we’re working to bring that back. It’s apparently ‘wicked fast’ now, and it’s getting the info from our Abori parser, which you can see in the Code Outline.

So, some of the bug fixes will result in improved features – we have a list of things that are getting added to our Real Time SQL Monitoring Reports for example, so it should offer quite a it of value over just saying ‘we close a ton of bugs.’

Also, I’m not sure we can get to Zero published/known bugs for version 18.4, but that’s our goal!

Please contact your My Oracle Support rep on any open bugs or service requests you want updates on.

Required Legal Notice

I reserve the right to change my mind, and please don’t make a buying decision based on what I’ve said above – even though SQL Developer is practically free.

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.

20 Comments

  1. Hi Jeff,

    Just updated SQL Developer 18.4. Whenever I run any statement ex. Update / Dbms_output I see strange characters in Script Output.

    Below is the sample I receive for Update

    0 rows updated.

    ����

    Do I need to change any settings?

  2. Jacob Overgaard Madsen Reply

    We are now in 2019, and 18.4 is not released yet. Will it become 19.1 instead? Thanks in advance.

  3. What is with the licence cost for the Java platform SQL Developer is using.
    Is the Java platform of the included Java free of charge or is a licence required to pay?

  4. I hope you guys will not forget about bugs in SQL Editor code templates !

  5. Aaron Sheldon Reply

    Hi Jeff,

    Wasn’t sure were to put this, so I’m dropping it here.

    I just upgraded from 18.2 to 18.3 and noticed the XML to JSON conversion of o.jdeveloper.db.connection\connections.json inserts an incorrectly formatted customURL property for TNS connections. Specifically it inserts an unnecessary client string “jdbc:oracle:oci8:@”, when all that is needed is just the TNS name. The lazy onetime workaround is to connect the first time via the connections properties window, which overwrites the customURL property in o.jdeveloper.db.connection\connections.json.

    Not a major problem, just a bit annoying, but understandable given how brittle converting between XML and JSON can be.

  6. Will we be able to import connections.xml files from an older SQL Developer export? I have a large file I want to import after recently having to re-image my MacBook.

    • yes, that was broken going from 18.2 to 18.3 – 18.4 won’t be a problem

      if you grab 18.2 and import your connections, you should be fine…and then run 18.3 and move over – sorry for the inconvenience here

  7. Kaley Crum Reply

    The comment about 18.4 being all about “bug squashing” just made my day. SQL Developer is something I use every day, and there are so many releases where the new version is so buggy, I can’t use it, and I have to go back to using an older version. Please keep up the bug-squashing…. Doing this (rather than rolling out new features) will make a significant portion of your users happier I believe (I know I’m speaking for most, if not all the SQL Developer users at my company…they would rather see annoying bugs removed rather than new features added).

    • You’re technically paying for it when you buy the database license(s) – but we would never charge you specifically for just SQL Developer.

      I make the distinction between a ‘no-cost option of the database’ and ‘free’ because you actually get access to My Oracle Support for SQL Developer via your database contracts.

      I hope my answer didn’t muddy the waters further!

    • Eric Schrauth

      But there are no licensing issues with using SQL Developer with the XE version of the database, correct?

    • Eric Schrauth

      Aw, now you took all of the fun out of it! What is the cost if I want to do that?

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