Written by: Bert
Monday, November 02, 2009 12:32 PM 

I want to start by thanking everyone who participated in the free TOAD book contest by submitting new feature ideas or enhancement requests. I received numerous good ideas. I also received about a third that were already in TOAD – and have been for a long time.  I actually can benefit from those emails too, since Quest can probably better expose and/or offer training on those issues. Remember too this was an entirely subjective contest – i.e. I collected and judged the winners. That does not mean that they are necessarily the best ideas or that they will get onto the product roadmap. I’m pretty sure that all the ideas will be reviewed by the TOAD dev team and judged differently. However for just the purpose of simply allocating some free books – here are the entries with the winners in bold. I will be contacting the winners for shipping addresses so I can send them their TOAD book.

Note: Five of the winners are simply minor but useful enhancements to existing features (i.e. productivity enhancers), only one totally new feature in the winners list.

• TOAD Options to offer support for DROP TABLE options (cascade and purge) in addition to the pop-up.
   
• FIND NEXT DIFFERENCE function in any grid.
   
• FIND NEXT DIFFERENCE function in the COMPARE DATA window.
   
• A way to export all blobs in a table to discrete files in a directory where each blob file would get a unique filename based upon attributes in the record.
   
• It would be nice if Toad could handle setting up and managing/administering a Data Guard environment.
   
• All of Quest’s insight into optimizing Oracle for virtualized environments in the Health Check and the Create Database wizards.
   
• TOAD as an application in Oracle Application Express (APEX), so that we could run TOAD from anywhere.
   
• Ability to natively install and run the latest & greatest TOAD commercial (e.g. 10.1) on Mac OS and/or Linux.
   
• Offer 64-bit Windows OS support such that one can use the 64-bit Oracle home/client install (currently requires using 32-bt client even on a 64-bit OS).
   
• Code generators for languages such as PHP or JAVA to create web-pages or forms in the language taken from a table. It should include master-detail support.
   
• For the Script Manager to come with more pre-built libraries of useful scripts, such as one for EBS – and a mechanism for the community support and/or make additions to them (e.g. ala open source type movement).
   
• Session Browser add an icon or some other visual indication for which sessions have trace enabled (those enabled via TOAD and if possible any/all others).
   
• For CONTROL-Space keystroke in the editor to perform an auto-complete when the prefix matches just a single value from the list.
   
• For the replace string feature to permit more complex substitution patters like the code snippets such that something like BEGIN would result in BEGIN followed by a blank line and END, with the cursor in the blank line.
   
• TOAD to offer APEX support – such as browser, editor with language support and ability to run and/or debug APEX applications.
   
• Support for XML-DB – also with feature to generate a table or XST from the other.
   
• TOAD to offer plug-ins or optional modules to mirror the Oracle Database options, such as Active Data Guard, Advanced Compression, etc.
   
• TOAD Xpert edition to support complete and robust code and/or object impact analysis – with both normal and exception type reports.
   
• For database long operations (LONG_OPS) a complete and all-in-one dashboard for what’s occurring in that long running process – rather than the spread out info in the session browser.
   
• Compare and Sync should offer the ability to select multiple schemas for a single connection – so one compare connection can handle multiple schemas as one run.
   
• Making all TOAD functions use the same wildcards, instead of ‘%’ in some places and ‘*’ in others – so both should work in all cases.
   
• Print in the editor to offer an option to include matching line connectors as shown live in the editor within TOAD. Currently have to manually draw the lines after the print.
   
• Editor to include bottom sub-tab like DBMS_OUTPUT but for HTF, HTP, OWA calls in the editor’s code.
   
• On the connection screen, the ability to indicate “Save Password” at the individual connection level so that can save for development and test – but not for production.
   
• In the editor, more advanced split screen support – such as being able to scroll and edit both portions of the split code (i.e. treat the two splits as two separate and live windows into a single instance of the code).
   
• Augment the schema browser’s quick navigate/jump capability to work backwards and forwards in terms of offering Shift-F4 on both source and target, to add IE like back and forth toolbar icons, and maybe to replace the sundial icon with something more meaningful or related to what it does – navigation history.
   
• Add an audible single (e.g. ribbit) for when a query or query thread completes.
   
• Restrict Object Palette included Functions/Procedure/Packages from the selected schema to only those that the user has permission to execute.
   
• Editor’s ability to automatically recognize user defined variable prefix as indicating a substitution variable (e.g. so prefix_variable treated same as :variable and &variable).
   
• Editor’s ability to perform a “save” query/script with the variable substitution characters replaced by their last execution value – so you can ship a completed query/script to someone.
   
• Editor ability to provide feedback (e.g. balloon help and/or status bar message) so that user selected identifier displays its length – very useful for keeping under 30 or 32 character length limits.
   
• Editor double-click enhancements:
  • Double clicking on white space selects all the white space between non white space characters. Consider end of line as not white space.
  • Double clicking on the characters ( [ { selects all the characters from the opening ( [ { forward to the matching closing ) ] }, but not the parens, brackets, or braces.
  • Double clicking on the characters ( [ { selects all the characters from the opening ( [ { forward to the matching closing ) ] }, but not the parens, brackets, or braces.
  • Double clicking on either character in the /* pair selects forward to the matching */, but don't select the /* */ pairs.
  • Double clicking on either character in the */ pair selects back to a matching /*.
  • Double clicking on a non word character which is proceeded by and/or followed by that character, should select from the first to last character. I.e. in the line, '***** is a place holder.', double clicking on an asterisk should select all 5 asterisks.
  • Double clicking on a non word character should select that character, not just move the cursor. Single click should move the cursor.

Finally note that one request that about a dozen people asked for was the ability to have some TOAD screens or the product in general to offer an auto-refresh capability such that TOAD can be left “running for extended periods of time” without a database connection timeout error occurring. We cannot do that. In today’s world of security and compliance, no tool should circumvent protections placed by systems and/or database administrators.

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