We have this feature in old school SQL Developer where you can have ‘important’ connections outlined with a color scheme…the connection name is also given this color. It ‘works’ I would say, but is it ideal? As we’re re-creating our SQL Developer world inside of VS Code, we know what works, we know what people like, we know what people NEED. But, does it makes sense to do a 1:1 lift-and-shift for every feature? This is one of those features that WILL get done, but the implementation may be different. For example, did you know you can ALREADY have fun with your connection names? Is this enough ..read more

Download ORDS ORDS 24.1 Release Notes I won’t read the release notes for you, but I will summarize. Consider this your TL;DR summary! Core ORDS By ‘core ORDS’ – I mean the basic ‘guts’ of the Oracle REST Data Services software. One of changes is significant. Metadata Caching enabled by default with a default timeout of 1 second This means heavy consumers of REST APIs, esp those of the AUTO variety, could see as much as 3x faster response times. That’s pretty cool. Note we’ve just changed the ‘DEFAULT’ behavior – you can always go into the config and turn this off, explicitely. Run ‘ords co ..read more

Kris and I met with around 230 of you yesterday for an hour to talk about all things SQL Developer, it’s future, and specifically our VS Code Extension. Missed that webinar? No worries, you can watch it on YouTube! Use this link to jump STRAIGHT to the live-demo portion. It’s an hour, with powerpoint, me talking, AND some live demo.Sneak Peek on what we’re working on In no specific order.. 1. Visual Explain Plans Look familiar, maybe? We built this first for SQL Developer Web 2. Filtering You’ll be able to filter both objects in the tree and also schemas (under Other Users), just like in the ..read more

With a general availability of Oracle Database 23c for all customers just around the corner, I thought I’d spotlight a minor new feature, via a REST API. Let’s create a dummy table. CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS HR.NEW_OLD_DEMO ( ID NUMBER GENERATED BY DEFAULT AS IDENTITY ( START WITH 1 CACHE 20 ) , NAME VARCHAR2 (50) , SALARY NUMBER ) LOGGING ; ALTER TABLE HR.NEW_OLD_DEMO ADD CONSTRAINT NEW_OLD_DEMO_PK PRIMARY KEY ( ID ) USING INDEX LOGGING ; And put some data in it. insert into NEW_OLD_DEMO (NAME, SALARY) values ('Smitty', 10), ('Kristopher', 20 ), ('Larry', 30); I’m actual ..read more

SQLcl is 9 years old , having made it’s introduction with SQL Developer version 4.1 back in 2015!!! We’ve added a ton of features in that period of time, and we’re continuing to build out even more! Our upcoming 24.1 release will be adding some task management features where you can execute things on a background process. Stay tuned or updates! But in today’s post, I wanted to just do a quick reminder of what you can do from your command-prompt, when working with your Oracle Database. What can it do? Basically, everything. First things first, requirements You only need SQLcl, and a copy of Jav ..read more

Snippets.. We ship some for you. You can see them on the bottom left panel under your connections, and they’re the same we have in SQL Developer desktop. VS Code is quite generous about matching these…maybe TOO generous? But the best suggestions are sorted to the top. What is you wanted to add some of your own? Now, I’ve always found code templates to be more interesting than code snippets. But in VS Code these two SQL Developer ideas have been merged into one, glorious animal. Old School – Ok…but what do those brackets do? And when you go to use these in SQL Developer – Wait Jeff, you HATE SE ..read more

We’ve just published our first update! Go get it! Big thanks to all of our early adopters who shared feedback, primarily on the Extension Marketplace Q&A and our Forums. Based on that feedback, we’ve identified and fixed a couple dozen bugs and opportunities for improvement. You can see the entire changelog here. But I want to call out a couple of the biggest ones. Fix #1: Default to Best Fit on the Grids Done! When you browse a table or run a query, we’ll apply a ‘best fit’ to the column sizing. Still pending: an extension preference to set your Default column sizing (Best Fit, To Header ..read more

For our new VS Code Extension, Peter asks – One thing I didn’t see requested in other reviews is hot key mapping. I’m used to having control-e mapped to the execute button instead of control-enter. Yes, you can do this! Keyboard shortcuts are all defined in one place, you won’t find them under the VS Code Extension preferences. Open VS Code’s Keyboard Shortcuts Right click in an editor and open the Command Palette, or use Ctrl+Shift+P Select, ‘Open Keyboard Shortcuts’ Search for SQL Developer and Run Click the Pencil/Edit Icon Note that Ctrl+E won’t work for me as there are already 3-4 OTHER ..read more

This is NOT a post where I will tell you there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ extensions for VS Code. I am here to say that there might be some extensions out there that can cause conflicts, thereby making our SQL Developer features…inaccessible. I’m still learning the in’s and out’s of VS Code, but one of the core concepts or features you’re going to want to get familiar with are Workspaces. But, more on this later. Problem: Why can’t I execute my .SQL files? I’ve gotten this question a few times, and my answer is, well of course you can! Simply pick your connection and hit the ‘Run’ button(s)! Like so ..read more

It’s fun to watch developers get into heated arguments over VI versus Emacs or what the best dark mode theme is in VS Code, but in database land there’s been a simmering debate over what’s best between GUI apps and the SQL prompt. Typing, mostly Point, click, type… You don’t have to pick one. For the first time we’re now directly integrating the command line experience provided by SQLcl directly into SQL Developer, via our new VS Code Extension. What does this mean? 1. No SQLcl install required It’s included WITH the Extension. So if you want a ‘single install’ to be up and running for Oracle ..read more