Managing Frequently Used SQL

You may have a set of SQL statements that you use over and over to perform frequent tasks. You probably have them saved in script files that you can load into an SQL Commander, but DbVisualizer Bookmarks make it even easier to work with them. A Bookmark is a script visible in the Scripts tab in the navigation area.

You find your Bookmarks under the Scripts tab in the navigation area to the left in the main DbVisualizer window. The content of a Bookmark is one or more SQL statements. It may also be associated with a Connection, a Catalog and a Schema, to be used when executing the statements. This information is displayed, and can be edited, in the lower part of the Scripts tab, along with information about the file that holds the Bookmark. If you don't want to see these details, you can disable it with the Show Details toggle control in the right-click menu for a node.

Creating, Editing and Organizing Bookmarks

You can create a new Bookmark by selecting the Bookmarks node in the tree and clicking the Create File toolbar button. This adds a new node in the tree, with the default name selected so that you can replace it with the name you want to use. You can also rename the Bookmark later using the Rename right-click menu item.

A Bookmark can also be created from the current content in an SQL Editor. Click the Save File As toolbar button to open a file chooser dialog, and click the Bookmarks button in the file chooser dialog to go to the Bookmarks root directory. Enter a filename for the Bookmark and click Save.

To put some SQL statements in a new empty Bookmark or to edit the contents of an existing Bookmark, you need to open the Bookmark in an SQL Commander. Double-click the Bookmark node in the tree or click the corresponding toolbar button to open a new SQL Commander tab for the Bookmark, or activate the SQL Commander that already holds the Bookmark. When you are done with your edits, use the Save toolbar button in the SQL Editor to save them.

You can also add the content of a Bookmark to the current content of an SQL Commander editor. Select the Bookmark node, drag it with the mouse key depressed to the position in the editor where you want to add it, and drop it there by releasing the mouse button.

Folders can be used to organize your Bookmarks. Click the Create Folder toolbar button to create a new folder and give it the name you want. You can then drag an existing Bookmark node to the folder, and create new Bookmarks and subfolders in the folder by selecting it and clicking the Create File and Create Folder buttons.

Executing Bookmarks

With a Bookmark opened in an SQL Commander tab, you can of course execute its statements by clicking the Execute toolbar buttons as usual, but you can also open and execute a Bookmark directly by selecting it in the tree and using the Open in SQL Commander and Execute operations in the right-click menu.

Adding a Bookmark as a Favorite

If you are using a Bookmark very often, you may find it more convenient to add it to the Favorites area. You can drag and drop a Bookmark from the Scripts tab to the Favorites area, or via the Add to Favorites right-click menu operation.

Sharing Bookmarks

It's easy to share your Bookmarks with someone else because they are stored as regular files. The files are located in a subfolder of the DbVisualizer user preferences folder named Bookmarks. The user preferences folder is typically a subfolder named .dbvis in your home folder.

The main Bookmark content is stored in a file with exactly the same name as the node in the Scripts tab. The additional data associated with the Bookmark is stored in a file with the same name plus the .met extension.

To share some of your Bookmarks with someone, we recommend that you use DbVisualizer to create a separate Bookmarks subfolder for the shared Bookmarks.

You can share your Bookmarks in two ways:

1. use an external tool to create a file archive (e.g. a ZIP file) of the subfolder and send it to your friend or colleague. He or she can then extract the files into their local Bookmarks folder.
2. create a Linked Folder that points at a network resource shared by your colleagues. Notes:
   1. DbVisualizer will try to detect if a file was externally modified, but file locking and access permissions are subject to the server capabilities and controlled by the system administrator of the server.
   2. In order to create linked folders on Windows, you may have to enable "Developer Mode" in the Control Panel

Using Quick Load

An alternative to locating Bookmarks or Monitors from the Scripts tab and History entries from the History window is to use the Quick Load feature, by default bound to the Ctrl+Alt+O key combination. It is also available via a main toolbar button as well as in the File->Quick File Open menu.

The Quick Load feature locates files with partly matching names from the categories you have selected, as you type. You can use an asterisk ("*") as a wildcard in the search string.

When you see the file you're looking for, just select it and press Enter to load it into an SQL Commander editor. If the file is already loaded in an editor, that tab is made visible instead.

The number of matches is shown on the search panel as seen on the figure above. It the number of matches is big and you want to change the size, you can press Escape and change the number in the Max entries field that is shown. Go then to the Enter search text field and press arrow down. The result list shown will be limited to your set number for each category.