Oracle Open Source: SQLTools

I guess I must have been sleeping all this time… how did I miss this wonderful tool? If you raise your eyebrows now, you either disagree with this statement or you haven’t tried it yourself.

The starting point to find Open Source Projects related to Oracle has always been the Open Source Projects for Oracle, but it’s not listed here.
How did I find it? I don’t know and frankly I don’t care. I’m just glad I did. Just so you don’t have to go through the hassle of trying to find it: SourceForge: SQLTools and the SQLTools homepage

Why is it a great tool? Because it has a lot to offer.
From the powerful SQL editor which you can customize any way you like, to the Object Browser to get an overview of what’s in the database. As well as the templates, which you can adept to your liking. A Table Transformation Helper, which does what it says.
Being “keyboard-shortcut-happy”, almost all menu items have keyboard shortcuts.
The query results can be exported into Excel or a browser with a mere push of a button. All these features and more, it’s almost too much to name it all.

What I really like, when you execute a long running query you get a Server Process modal pop-up window. Even though it “locks up” SQLTools, you can do something else in the mean time (like reading the Amis Technology Blog 😉). And when it’s done, you’ll know. The modal pop-up window will disappear. This pop-up also allows you to cancel the query. This comes in handy when you accidently run that long-running query…

Another thing I like is the ability to execute a highlighted query, this comes in handy when you have a nested query and you want to see the results of that. For instance when you’re using an Analytical Function in your query and you need to see the results of the innermost query. It’s easy to highlight it and execute it. No need to copy it out of there and paste it into another SQL-window to see the results.

The Object List Window provides a list of database objects, however Java stored in the database is not shown. Using this Object List it’s easy to generate any object DDL definition. You can do this individually or lots of things together.

Could this be the perfect tool for a SQL and PL/SQL developer? I think it will certainly be in the Top-Ten.
Although there are some things that could make it even more attractive to use. Like a code assistant for instance. Or maybe a plug-in for the version control software you use, like Visual Source safe or ClearCase. Perhaps a Code Formatter…
According to SourceForge, this tool was created using C++ and PL/SQL distibuted under GNU general public license.
I think Aleksey Kochetov, Tomasz Drzewiecki and Ken Clubok did a great job! I certainly hope they will continue developing and expanding this great tool.