Today I just want to give you 6 tips on how to use the Oracle SQL Deveoper more efficient. If you dive into the functions and menus you’ll find a lot of small functions which can really ease your developer life and makes coding much fast.
1) Show/Hide line numeration
For testing and error correction purpose you sometimes want to know the line numbers. You can easily show and hide them by just right clicking on the vertical white line on the very left hand side of the editor (better take a look at the screenshot). You then just click on the second entry of the context menu to switch it on or off.
2) The Model Tab
A useful new function from version 4.1 on is the model tab. This is available on all tables and shows the selected tables with all tables that have a foreign key relation with that table.
3) Resolve a SELECT * to all its columns
Sometimes it’s helpful if you could easily resolve a SELECT * to the column names of a table (also works for multiple tables). All you have to do is hover with the cursor on the * and wait for the popup. You then see all the columns that will be used instead of *. If you click on the popup the * is replaced by these columns.
4) Multi cursor editing
If you want to save time when copy and pasting the same stuff at several places you could use the feature multi cursor editing. You just press Ctrl+Shift and then you click where you need cursors. If you multiple tables starting with TBL_ and you want to remove that you would just place the cursor at the first TBL_ and then press Ctrl+Shift and place new cursors before all TBL_ Then you can just press delete to remove it and the action is done at all curors.
5) commenting on several lines at the same time
You can use comments to just deactivate single lines. You would normally do that with double minus and this comments the whole line. If you want to do that on multiple lines you can do it by marking the lines, then right click and then click comment rows on/off in the context menu. This automatically adds a double minus to each line. The standard shortcut is Ctrl + /
I hope you find these tips helpful. If you are interested in regular updates of my blog just subscribe my newsletter. All Subscribers receive my Analytical SQL Guide which helps you to use analytical SQL in your queries.
