HOW TO OPEN MULTIPLE TABLES IN SQL DEVELOPER SIMULTANEOUSLY

I’m guessing the user is in a hurry, hence the shouting and lack of punctuation. But that’s OK, I think we’ve all been there.

There’s a couple of different ways to get this end result:

1. Use the Pins
2. Change the Preferences

Pinning Objects

At the top of every editor in SQL Developer, you’ll see a push pin button in the toolbar. Toggle that push pin to ‘Freeze Content.’ It doesn’t ‘freeze’ your table in the database, but it does force the table editor to persist even as you open another table editor.

The pin is pushed – the editor is now ‘frozen’

Now if I open another table, the pinned table editor will remain.

Table two is open, and table one is still there.

But I want to SEE both tables at the same time!
Then we need to pull out another trick – ‘New Document Tab Group.’ Right click on the table editor tab and ask for the new document tab group. Voila.

Tab Groups are shown concurrently in the SQL Developer desktop display

Change the Preferences

By default, as you open a database object in SQL Developer, it will cause any previously opened object to close. However, you may want to leave these open until you explicitly close them.

This preference, if enabled, will auto-pin any database object you open.

I’m not a big fan of this preference, but it’s there if you want it. Just don’t forget to close objects when you’re done working with them.

I’ve used their new Kscope13 mobile app for Android to set my schedule. You’ll just need to visit the Google Play marketplace, download the app, and request to set your password – it doesn’t seem to use your existing ODTUG authentication.

It looks great so far!

Just browse each day’s activities, find something you like, and hit the ‘Star’ button at the top of the screen. This will add it to your calendar. No more walking around looking lost with all those conference calendar papers!

You can even see which of your friends and colleagues will be attending. Now what I’m not sure of, is there a way to share your schedule?

If you just want a SQL Developer-themed cheat sheet, then keep reading.

The KScope13 app for Android

Sunday Symposiums

The Database and Developer’s Toolbox Symposium

For the second year in a row, Kris Rice, senior director at Oracle Corporation, has put together a fantastic line-up of speakers for those interested in the database. Mike Hichwa, Jeff Smith, Maria Colgan, Tom Kyte, and Kris Rice will all discuss the future of the Oracle Database. This day alone is worth the price of admission.

I’ll be on at 11AM to talk about Oracle SQL Developer version 4.0.

Monday

SQL Developer Tips & Tricks
11:30AM – 12:30 PM

I think y’all know what this is all about?

KScope13 Android App

Tuesday

Hands-on Training: SQL Tuning using SQL Developer
8:30AM – 9:30AM
Make sure you register for this. You’ll need to bring your computer with the Dev Days VirtualBox software and image downloaded and installed. We’ll have an hour to go over a self-paced lab for tuning queries in SQL Developer. I and a few friends will be there to help you get started and answer any questions.

Data Modeling 101 with Oracle SQL Developer
2:00PM – 3:00PM
An introductory talk on using our data modeling technology to design and build your data models.

Top Ten Cool Features in Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler
3:30PM – 4:30PM
Oracle ACE Director and Modeling Guru, Kent Graziano, shares his favorite modeling features in SQL Developer.

Wednesday

The 80′s Called, They Want Their Command Line Interface Back
9:45AM – 10:45AM
This is going to be FUN. I’ll have a certain ‘bullet-proof’ DBA on hand to help me debate the merits of GUIs and CLIs and when it makes sense to use one, the other, or both. Come here to watch the fireworks and don’t be afraid to participate!

SQL Developer for DBAs
11:15AM – 12:15PM
Leighton Nelson, very well known in DBA and the IOUG community as well, will talk about how SQL Developer has become a great tool for DBAs, not just developer and the query folks. He’s told me to expect some live demo too, so I plan to be there with plenty of popcorn (for me!)

Thursday

Version Control the Database Development
11:00AM – 12:00PM
The folks at dbMaestro have built a source control solution for your database objects and have integrated it with SQL Developer. Caveat: I’m not endorsing dbMaestro or their technology, but if you’re a database developer, I would recommend stopping by and checking out their story.

Wouldn’t it be nice if your favorite tool could give you some sort of visual indicator of your location to help avoid these traumatic, self-inflicted injuries?

Oh, wait a second, something doesn’t look right here…

While I can’t talk about features in products we haven’t released yet, or talk about release dates, I can assure you that we’re listening, and that the next version of SQL Developer is shaping up nicely and will make many of you more productive, happier, and less prone to code yourself out of a job.

If you have an idea or suggestion…

…for improving the product, don’t forget our Exchange!

Designer incorporates support for business process modeling, systems analysis, software design and system generation.

I don’t want to get you too excited, because this technology is being phased out. You can read the official statement of direction here, but but going forward we’re recommending you use JDeveloper, Fusion, and our other middleware technologies to build your applications.

What I want to get to, is a very frequently asked question from Oracle Designer customers who are starting to use Oracle SQL Developer and Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler:

How Can We Get Our Table APIs?

One of the Oracle Designer features was the ability to create PL/SQL packages that handled your SELECTs, INSERTs, UPDATEs, and DELETEs for your tables. My colleague Chris Muir had this to say a few years ago about the feature:

Not only can Oracle Designer generate Oracle Forms, but it can also create a set of packages to wrap specified schema tables, known as the Table Application Programming Interface (Table API). The packages allow the calling program to indirectly select, insert, update, and delete the relating table data through the Table API PL/SQL packages.

So, the good news is that we can mostly do this in SQL Developer, mostly.

Just find your table in the connection tree, right-click, and ask for the code to be generated.

Pay no mind to the custom editor background color you see in this screenshot

What gets ‘spit out’ is a PL/SQL package with 3 procedures:

1. INS
2. UPD
3. DEL

Notice there’s no ‘SEL,’ hence my mostly qualifier.

Here’s the actual code generated for my BEER table:

create or replace PACKAGE body BEER_tapi
IS
     -- insert
     -- stuff
PROCEDURE ins(
          p_STATE   IN BEER.STATE%type DEFAULT NULL ,
          p_COUNTRY IN BEER.COUNTRY%type DEFAULT NULL ,
          p_ID      IN BEER.ID%type DEFAULT NULL ,
          p_CITY    IN BEER.CITY%type DEFAULT NULL ,
          p_BREWERY IN BEER.BREWERY%type )
IS
BEGIN
     INSERT
     INTO BEER
          (
               STATE ,COUNTRY ,ID ,CITY ,BREWERY
          )
          VALUES
          (
               p_STATE ,p_COUNTRY ,p_ID ,p_CITY ,p_BREWERY
          );
END;
-- update
PROCEDURE upd
     (
          p_STATE   IN BEER.STATE%type DEFAULT NULL ,
          p_COUNTRY IN BEER.COUNTRY%type DEFAULT NULL ,
          p_ID      IN BEER.ID%type DEFAULT NULL ,
          p_CITY    IN BEER.CITY%type DEFAULT NULL ,
          p_BREWERY IN BEER.BREWERY%type
     )
IS
BEGIN
     UPDATE BEER
     SET  STATE = p_STATE ,COUNTRY = p_COUNTRY ,CITY = p_CITY ,BREWERY =
          p_BREWERY
     WHERE ID = p_ID;
END;
-- del
PROCEDURE del(
          p_ID IN BEER.ID%type )
IS
BEGIN
     DELETE FROM BEER WHERE ID = p_ID;
END;
END BEER_tapi;

A Final Word On Oracle Designer

While Oracle SQL Developer and Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler will do many of the things Designer did, they will never do EVERYTHING Designer did. So we can help you move off Designer, but don’t expect the SQL Developer family to be complete replacement. In terms of the Designer ‘designs’ – these can be largely imported into new Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler models. We’re always tweaking the import logic to add more and more support for Designer artifacts. Version 3.3 of the Modeler did quite a bit of work in this area specifically.

• You can synchronize your model or your database and generate an ALTER script
• When you import one or more objects from a data dictionary to your model, it ties that model to that particular database

So the challenge presnted is: who do I compare my model against a different database and generate an ALTER script?

The answer is easy:

Upgrade to version 3.3 of Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler

When you use the Synchronize feature in version 3.3, you get a new dialog:

New for version 3.3 – choose a different connection for syncs!

Once chosen, we’ll connect to do the compare as usual.

If you’re not using the stand alone modeler, and are using the modeler inside of Oracle SQL Developer, you’ll need to use Help > Check for Updates to get access to version 3.3 of the modeler.