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From: Scott L. <sl...@sl...> - 2002-09-28 20:06:07
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Hi, I've been playing around with Squirrel SQL a bit. I'm hoping to use it in place of Oracle's stuff. First, I think current CVS is ready, as it's a definite improvement over the last released version for me. When I tried 0.9.6, it took a very long time to connect (I think it was trying to load all of the metadata right away, correct? I'm connecting over the Internet to a large Oracle database, so that's not a good idea.) It's better now. Also, I think the old one leaked cursors - I got maximum cursors exceeded messages when browsing metadata. That doesn't mean I think it's perfect, though. I've got some problems/interface comments/feature requests: - Typing "./squirrel-sql.sh" doesn't work for me right in the dist directory unless I set INSTALL_PATH=`pwd`. Was this supposed to be substituted in the ant file? If so, it didn't work. - Ideally, just a "java -jar squirrel-sql.jar" would work, so I wouldn't need the shell script/batch file at all. I think you can have classpaths in the meta-inf. If not, the other jars would have to be included in that one. This would be better because batch files/java pop up unnecessary terminal windows on Windows. Clicking on the jar file directly launches javaw, which doesn't have that problem. - It's slow when browsing metadata. It would be nice if it cached more (column-level information particularly) so looking at it a second time would be quick. - IMHO auto commit should be off by default. Or at least there should be a preference for it per-database alias, not per-session, so I don't need to toggle it every time I connect. - I'm glad to see it doesn't block waiting for a database response. This was what started me looking for an alternative to the Oracle 8i SQL Worksheet to begin with. Killing the program when I forgot a join condition was not pleasant. - The metadata views show a lot of useless columns. Ones that are consistently <null>: schema on PostgreSQL (even 7.3b1 - I guess they haven't updated their JDBC drivers), table_cat on Oracle. And some things not really intended for humans (data_type; the numbers mean nothing to me; I just want type_name). If these all went away, it would be easier to find what I'm looking for. - I loved the way it keeps around multiple resultsets in tabs, but I think it could be even better: * I tend to work with a couple queries at once and refine them. It'd be nice if a new tab replaced the current one unless I hit ctrl-T (as in Mozilla). This way, older versions of the current query would go away. * And also, if the SQL was per-tab as well, so I could refine a couple queries in parallel without doing as much copying and pasting. * I'd like to see each SQL tab go into the top-level tab bar instead of the one "SQL" one and subtabs of that. Maybe not conceptually quite as clean - "Objects" would be different from all the others then - but less clutter. - I hate the MDI interface/subwindows. I usually only work with one database at once - I only want that window up. Even when I do work with two databases, I'd prefer they be entirely separate windows. The connect stuff could be a dialog box that pops up when you first start the program and when you hit ctrl-N or something (new connection). - It would be nice if the statement division stuff was smarter. I'd like to be able to type in PL/SQL blocks without changing the statement seperator. If it could do everything as the Oracle SQL Worksheet 8i does (not the 9i; blank lines in "create table" commands confuse it; grr), I'd be really, really happy. - Feature request: Oracle query execution plans, like their "SQL Scratchpad" in the "Enterprise Manager Console" has. SQL Scratchpad really annoys me, but as is I've gotta use it occasionally. "explain plan for" dumps all this info into a table, but the SQL Scratchpad is the only thing I've seen that does a decent job of formatting it. (The only second is this utlxplp.sql thing that does text-based formatting.) Hope those are useful. If I'm feeling ambitious later and have time, I might try to implement some of my suggestions. No promises. Scott |
