Toad for Eclipse Plugin

You might not be aware, but there is a Toad plugin for Eclipse.  Yes Toad, (kokak) the world’s  favorite Tool for Oracle Application Developers.  This plugin is created by Quest Software themselves and is available as a FREE download from the Eclipse Market Place and from Quest Software http://www.quest.com/toad-extension-for-eclipse/

The Toad Extension for Eclipse plugin allows you to connect to your Oracle or PostgreSQL database from within Eclipse.  All you need to do is to switch into the Toad Extension perspective.  From the Toad Extension perspective you can easily browse data, develop complex PL/SQL and even edit data without the need of opening a separate IDE like Oracle SQL Developer.

TOAD EXTENSION FOR ECLIPSE FEATURES

Connections View		Displays configured database connections
Schema Browser		Browses through schema objects
Object Describe		Views detailed information about an object
SQL Worksheet		Edits and executes SQL statements
Projects and Toad Extension for Eclipse Nature		Adds additional functionality to new or existing projects
Syntax Check		Verifies SQL code on-the-fly
Deployment		Allows to deploy objects to database using default connection or selected connection
Object status		Shows status of object in default database
Export to HTML/XML/CSV		Outputs data to selected format
SQL Recall		Views a history of your executed SQL statements
SQL Monitor		Monitors all SQL coming from Toad Extensions
DBMS Output View*		Views DBMS_OUTPUT results
Stored Procedure Editor		Edits Stored Procedures, Views and Triggers
Search dialog		Searches through database source code
PL/Doc View*		Views column information comments
Outline View		Views the logical structure of a database object
Sessions View*		Monitors or kills sessions in the database
Parameters View*		Displays an overview of the database and session parameters

Eclipse Indigo Is Here!!!

Sorry if I’m 35 days late in announcing this but I felt a great sense of responsibility of testing Indigo first so that I can provide useful and reliable comments.   (Nah I was just busy with my day job).  Indigo is the annual release of Eclipse projects and was released last June 22, 2011.

Below I’ll try to comment on the top new features added to Indigo as mentioned on their site and based on my experience using Eclipse.

Highlights:

1.  EGit 1.0 provides tight integration with the Git version control system.
   “Unless you have been living under a rock for the past 5-6 years you should be familiar with Git.  Git is a very popular and powerful version control system, the development of Git was lead by no other than Linus Torvalds himself which is best known for having initiated the development of the Linux kernel.  Having support for Git is like a 13th month pay bonus for Eclipse users which uses Git for their version control.   Eclipse has supported CVS and Subversion for as far as I can remember, all I can say is ITS ABOUT TIME.”
2. WindowBuilder, a popular GUI builder for Eclipse developers, is now open source and part of Indigo.
   “Yes your eyes is not playing tricks on you it is now opensource and yes it is now part of Eclipse starting with this release.  For those GUI developers which is still not using WindowBuilder go check it out and thank me later actually thank the opensource community.  Yes it supports Swing code generation.  Yes it supports SWT code generation. Yes it supports GWT code generation it is a super GUI designer.  Yes you can now spend more time with your family and less time creating complex forms and yes there is a God thank him too for creating unselfish people and organizations which supported this project.“
3. Better integration with Maven, including starting Maven builds and maintaining pom files.
   “Since this is all about the good news that Indigo has brought to us Eclipse users and Java developers, I think Ill keep my previous experiences with Eclipse’s Maven integration to myself for now.  Ill probably spend my weekend testing this feature and post some updates if they finally nailed it, I still have  high hopes though. ”
4. Jubula provides automated functional GUI testing for Java and HTML.
5. Xtext 2.0 makes it even easier to create domain specific languages.

I will update you on items 4 and 5 maybe next weekend or at the end of the month after I have spent more time with Indigo.  Also I must admit that with regards to Xtext and Jubula, automated functional testing and the hobby of creating your own programming languages and domain-specific languages is really not my forte although automated testing is my first love since I started out as a Quality Assurance Engineer/Programmer when I was still a working student way back during my college days.

Thanks for reading and don’t forget “In opensource we trust“.