Free Add-in for SSMS 2008 / 2012: Connection Management, Quick code navigation & more !

Question

Hi, we have created add-in for SSMS and have upgraded it recently to work with all editions of SSMS2012 (it also works with SSMS 2008/R2).

Add-in has full-featured free community mode.

Download and full list of features can be found at add-in home page.

Reading forums here I have discovered that nearly every developer has a "dream" - a small improvement to SSMS, that will let him work more effeciently. For example I have found out that some want to see document name and connection information in SSMS Window title - and we have implemented it. Also there was a request for "sessions like in firefox" - it is also implemented now. I can not promise to implement any feature, but I promise that we will do our best and will try to implement all useful ideas. So - you are welcome to download SSMSBoost add-in, use it and post your comments in this thread or at our newly-created discussion forum.

I appreciate your feedback.

P.S. Some more already implemented features:

 - Script object located at cursor position directly from SQL Editor. Shortcut:[F2]
 - Locate object: quickly find object located at cursor position in object explorer. Shortcut:[Ctrl-F2]
 - QuickConnection Switch drop-down on toolbar allows switching connection in SQLEditor between Servers
 - Locate current database in ObjectExplorer
 - Search for objects using wildcards
 - Preferred connections management: "remember" frequently used server/databases, quickly swith between them
 - Shortcuts editor - feature, that is missing in SSMS2008, but is coming in SSMS2012
 - Define macros with existing commands
 - Auto replacements
 - Connection coloring - in more useful way
 - Server aliases in quick connection switch combobox

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SSMSBoost - ssms add-in adds quick source code navigation to SSMS, quick connection management & switching, shortcuts, auto replacements and object search. www.ssmsboost.com

Answer 1

Is it also possible to implement nice formatting similar to http://www.dpriver.com/pp/sqlformat.htm directly from SSMS?

I've been using SSMS Tools Pack  - does your add-on have similar functionality?

Thanks again.

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For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Becker's Law


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Answer 2

Concerning tools pack: I know this add-in and it is nice. As far as it is already used by thousands of developers we do not re-implement functionality that it has: we add new functionality to our add-in. So if you install SSMSBoost you will get additional features (just check the list obove or have a glance at overview). The only feature that is similar is connection coloring. But - tools pack adds own coloring bar and we re-use built-in in SSMS.

It would be interesting to hear you oppinion: I see ssms tools pack as add in that targets C# developers, that sometimes need SSMS to generate queries to be added into C# code. I have developed Big SQL databases in T-SQL for last 10 years and found only a few features from tools pack that could help me. That is why I decided to create SSMSBoost add-in: it targets T-SQL Developers and administrators, that spend most of time coding and navigating in T-SQL.

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SSMSBoost - ssms add-in adds quick source code navigation to SSMS, quick connection management & switching, shortcuts, auto replacements and object search. www.ssmsboost.com

Answer 3

Today we have released new version with SQL Formatting.

Have fun !

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SSMSBoost - ssms add-in adds quick source code navigation to SSMS, quick connection management & switching, shortcuts, auto replacements and object search. www.ssmsboost.com

Answer 4

v 2.5 released !!
NOTE: if you update to v2.5 from v2.3 you have to uninstall v2.3 first !
-Improvement: Added progress indication for ResultsGrid scripter operations
-Improvement: Added possibility to jump to settings direct from ResultsGrid
 Visualizers and ResultsGrid scripter menue.
-Improvement: SSMSBoost functionality worked previously only for files with .sql
extensions. Now it works for all extensions, configured to be edited with
Query Editor (SSMS Tools->Settings->Text Editor)
-Improvement: Preferred connections settings: added up/down buttons allowing
to sort connections
-Improvement: Settings editor has now "duplicate" function for 
Preferred Connections and ResultsGrid scripting templates
-Improvement: Added possibility to set width of "Important Database" alert tooltip
-Fix: Autoreplacements triggering sometimes ignored whitespace
-Fix: Shortcuts with special keys did not work on International versions of SSMS 
-Fix: Newly created objects were not visible to "locate" and "script" commands
-Fix: Sorting in Objects Search dialogue. Click on column sorts results now
-Fix: Preferred connections settings: It is possible to set "Datatabse"
property to empty, enabling alerter and "connection color" feature to work
for all databases on the specified server.
-Fix: In SSMS2012 user can drag-n-drop columns in grid, changing their order.
SSMSBoost previously did not recognize changed order and scripted data from
other columns if order was changed. 
-Fix: If SSMSBoost Settings.xml file is corrupt it will be re-created using
default settings

2.4
-NEW FEATURE: ResultsGrid scripter. Allows to script Results grid contents using
user defined templates. After scripting is done results can be placed to clipboard, 
saved to file or saved to file&opened by specified application. For example, to
open results grid contents in Excel you only need a few clicks: Select desired rows
or Ctrl-A (select all) -> right click grid selection -> "Copy Data as" -> 
-> "XML (Excel tweak)" -> "Save & Open". Done. Templates can be customized & added
by user. Feature is shipped with 7 pre-defeined templates

*[XML (Excel tweak)] - saves results in XML format, that can be opened by Excel
*[INSERT INTO #tmp exec sp_name] - generates CREATE/INSERT EXEC script for results
of Stored Procedure execution. 
*[WHERE] - selected values are copied as  'WHERE (ColumnName=Value) OR ...'
allowing to generate WHERE filters by selecting required column values
*[HTML <table>] - results are saved as HTML Table
*[Property:Value] - copies results as ColumnName:Value
*[XML (pure)] - results are saved as pure XML
*[SELECT] - scripts results as SELECT VALUES. You can run generated SQL script  and
get same results once again

LIMITATIONS: We wanted to give you the power of this feature as soon as possible,
so we decided to publish it now, though, there are some things that will be improved
in next release: In current release there is no possibility to work with
data formatting. For example, if your scripted text values will contain some special
characters and data will be scripted as XML it will get broken. In next version we 
will add datatype-based formatting which will allow you to make additional
post-processing of scripted values, most probably with regex. If you like this
featue and see improvement possibilities - please write us your proposals.

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SSMSBoost - ssms add-in adds quick source code navigation to SSMS, quick connection management & switching, shortcuts, auto replacements and object search. www.ssmsboost.com