I received this great list from Nathan Palmer a few weeks ago. I think this is actually a fantastic list of bugs (if there is such a thing!) - Nathan has gone to the trouble to identify and describe many annoyances and bugs that I have found in SqlBuddy myself, and also many ideas that I hadn't thought of! I think if we could fix this lot then Buddy would be *much* more usable on as a day to day product.
Tobin
========= EMAIL BELOW =============
Hello,
I ran into your product while surfing through the C# code projects on SourceForge.net. I always seem to find interesting and sometimes very useful software on there. Anyway, your product caught my eye since I use Microsoft Query Analyzer about 80% of my work day. I installed and used SQL Buddy exclusively for 1 day. I switched back to QA, but I thought you might like to hear some comments from me about it.
#1
I like your Intellisense idea. There are a couple of places where I rather it auto-pop up on my screen just like Visual Studio does. One case is when I join two tables together and reference their fields using table aliases. For example:
Select *
From Table1 t1 inner join Table2 t2 on t1.id = t2.t1_id
It would be great in this case if once you hit the period after the alias a list of fields would come up and behave just like Visual Studio so that you can start typing it and once it is found just hit tab or enter.
Other cases that I think would work rather well is when you start typing a statement and you type FROM and then space. I think it would be great to bring up a list of the tables and views that are in your current database. With the WHERE you could bring up a list of the current fields, unless there is an alias then you would have to wait for them to type the alias or bring up a list of all the fields. Either way. A lot of intellisense could be done this way with the obvious exception of the SELECT since you dont know what table you are selecting from at that point.
#2
It would be *awesome* to have a Find feature that would search your dataset. This might be a strange request but I often find myself trying to locate a specific piece of data that all I know is in some field in my dataset. Currently SQL Buddy provides a little better interface to this by exporting the data to an XML file and then I search through that. But anything in-line is a lot less painful process (ofcourse in-line editing of the data would be great too!)
#3
When I do an update statement I really need to know how many records were affected. I use it to make sure that I updated the same amount that I was expecting to update. This is a *huge* deal to me. If my update # is different then I need to go back and find out what I did wrong, it can help to find issues before they become a bigger issue.
#4
Auto size the width of a column. Or at least give me the capability of selecting all the rows by click on the top left hand corner of the grid and then double click on one of the column borders to size them all (similar to excel). Enterprise manager currently does this. It saves a lot of time and annoyances when you are working with larger fields.
#5
Have a more visible splitter control. It doesnt look like there is one there at all until you move your mouse to the right area.
#6
Name documents with their server/database for easy access. Currently when I have more than 1 document open its just New Document 1, New Document 2, etc. So I dont really know which one is the database Im looking for. I have to move through each one to find out unless I remember which document # it is.
#7
Relating to the last one when I have documents open between different databases and I have my view on Database Explorer when I switch back and forth between them there is a very noticeable pause because its refreshing the list of tables within that database. Maybe some type of a cache could be used for this?
#8
A louder running indicator. Many times after I had hit F5 to run my query I thought it wasnt running yet. Something as simple as clearing the grid when you hit F5 would be fine, something more obtrusive would be great J Also the amount of time that it has been running it a great thing in query analyzer. It lets me know if maybe I should cancel my query and re-write it a different way to get better results.
#9
I dont like how once my query finishes it bring it to the foreground. When Im working it really messes me up. Id rather have it flash the document or something that lets me know but is un-obtrusive.
#10
Have an indicator like () if all the data isnt being shown in the datagrid. This killed me a couple of times when I didnt realize my complete data wasnt being shown.
#11
Being able to select multiple lines of text by clicking in one place holding down shift and then clicking in another. This is a strange oddity in the text editor.
#12
Im expecting both an Edit Menu (For Copy/Paste functionality) and a standard Cut/Copy/Paste on the right click menu.
#13
The change database dropdown Is in a really odd spot. Id suggest to move it down to where its showing the current database since that is what it is modifying anyway
#14
Have a cancel button if you accidentally hit close on the program. This happened to me once and since I had already hit Cancel I had to get all the way out and back in.
Here are a couple of bugs I had, there isnt a lot of information its more for your information. I can provide some more information about them if you like.
Bugs
When my clipboard collection is full I get an exception. If I clear my clipboard everything is fine.
When using the scroll wheel to scroll it only scrolls a very small amount then stops.
Overall though SQL Buddy is a great implementation and I think it has great potential. As it is right now Query Analyzer is going to stay my primary. But Im keeping SQL Buddy installed mainly for that XML export.
Keep up the good work!
Nathan Palmer
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Regarding number 4, autosizing of columns...
This is something you actually CAN do, you just get the resizing arraw when hoovering over the split of columns and then you double click the left mouse button...
I know you don't resize all columns that way, but at least it solves part of your problem...
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I received this great list from Nathan Palmer a few weeks ago. I think this is actually a fantastic list of bugs (if there is such a thing!) - Nathan has gone to the trouble to identify and describe many annoyances and bugs that I have found in SqlBuddy myself, and also many ideas that I hadn't thought of! I think if we could fix this lot then Buddy would be *much* more usable on as a day to day product.
Tobin
========= EMAIL BELOW =============
Hello,
I ran into your product while surfing through the C# code projects on SourceForge.net. I always seem to find interesting and sometimes very useful software on there. Anyway, your product caught my eye since I use Microsoft Query Analyzer about 80% of my work day. I installed and used SQL Buddy exclusively for 1 day. I switched back to QA, but I thought you might like to hear some comments from me about it.
#1
I like your Intellisense idea. There are a couple of places where I rather it auto-pop up on my screen just like Visual Studio does. One case is when I join two tables together and reference their fields using table aliases. For example:
Select *
From Table1 t1 inner join Table2 t2 on t1.id = t2.t1_id
It would be great in this case if once you hit the period after the alias a list of fields would come up and behave just like Visual Studio so that you can start typing it and once it is found just hit tab or enter.
Other cases that I think would work rather well is when you start typing a statement and you type FROM and then space. I think it would be great to bring up a list of the tables and views that are in your current database. With the WHERE you could bring up a list of the current fields, unless there is an alias then you would have to wait for them to type the alias or bring up a list of all the fields. Either way. A lot of intellisense could be done this way with the obvious exception of the SELECT since you dont know what table you are selecting from at that point.
#2
It would be *awesome* to have a Find feature that would search your dataset. This might be a strange request but I often find myself trying to locate a specific piece of data that all I know is in some field in my dataset. Currently SQL Buddy provides a little better interface to this by exporting the data to an XML file and then I search through that. But anything in-line is a lot less painful process (ofcourse in-line editing of the data would be great too!)
#3
When I do an update statement I really need to know how many records were affected. I use it to make sure that I updated the same amount that I was expecting to update. This is a *huge* deal to me. If my update # is different then I need to go back and find out what I did wrong, it can help to find issues before they become a bigger issue.
#4
Auto size the width of a column. Or at least give me the capability of selecting all the rows by click on the top left hand corner of the grid and then double click on one of the column borders to size them all (similar to excel). Enterprise manager currently does this. It saves a lot of time and annoyances when you are working with larger fields.
#5
Have a more visible splitter control. It doesnt look like there is one there at all until you move your mouse to the right area.
#6
Name documents with their server/database for easy access. Currently when I have more than 1 document open its just New Document 1, New Document 2, etc. So I dont really know which one is the database Im looking for. I have to move through each one to find out unless I remember which document # it is.
#7
Relating to the last one when I have documents open between different databases and I have my view on Database Explorer when I switch back and forth between them there is a very noticeable pause because its refreshing the list of tables within that database. Maybe some type of a cache could be used for this?
#8
A louder running indicator. Many times after I had hit F5 to run my query I thought it wasnt running yet. Something as simple as clearing the grid when you hit F5 would be fine, something more obtrusive would be great J Also the amount of time that it has been running it a great thing in query analyzer. It lets me know if maybe I should cancel my query and re-write it a different way to get better results.
#9
I dont like how once my query finishes it bring it to the foreground. When Im working it really messes me up. Id rather have it flash the document or something that lets me know but is un-obtrusive.
#10
Have an indicator like () if all the data isnt being shown in the datagrid. This killed me a couple of times when I didnt realize my complete data wasnt being shown.
#11
Being able to select multiple lines of text by clicking in one place holding down shift and then clicking in another. This is a strange oddity in the text editor.
#12
Im expecting both an Edit Menu (For Copy/Paste functionality) and a standard Cut/Copy/Paste on the right click menu.
#13
The change database dropdown Is in a really odd spot. Id suggest to move it down to where its showing the current database since that is what it is modifying anyway
#14
Have a cancel button if you accidentally hit close on the program. This happened to me once and since I had already hit Cancel I had to get all the way out and back in.
Here are a couple of bugs I had, there isnt a lot of information its more for your information. I can provide some more information about them if you like.
Bugs
When my clipboard collection is full I get an exception. If I clear my clipboard everything is fine.
When using the scroll wheel to scroll it only scrolls a very small amount then stops.
Overall though SQL Buddy is a great implementation and I think it has great potential. As it is right now Query Analyzer is going to stay my primary. But Im keeping SQL Buddy installed mainly for that XML export.
Keep up the good work!
Nathan Palmer
Regarding number 4, autosizing of columns...
This is something you actually CAN do, you just get the resizing arraw when hoovering over the split of columns and then you double click the left mouse button...
I know you don't resize all columns that way, but at least it solves part of your problem...