How to best work with mutliple projects and autosave desktop?

[Bernhard S]

By default PL/SQL Developer (PSD) always opens the last project opened. This is convenient when you mostly work with one project and chances are high, that you wanna continue next time in the project you had last opened.
However if you most times open several projects at the same time, the default behaviour is only nice for the first project you open, but rather annoying for the other projects you open, especially when your last project opened was a huge one with a lot of items in your windows list, that all need to be opened first, before you can close the project and open the one you really want to open.

I would like PSD by default to not open the same project again, if there's already a PSD open with this project, but instead come up with the dialog to ask me, which project project I want to open now.

So what is the recommended way here? How do other PSD users deal with this issue?

 

[Marco Kalter]

The best method in this case is probably to use the Desktop= parameter. For example, if you work with 2 projects you can create 2 shortcuts for PL/SQL Developer:

"C:\Program Files\PLSQL Developer\PlSqlDev.exe" Dektop=ProjectA

"C:\Program Files\PLSQL Developer\PlSqlDev.exe" Dektop=ProjectB

Each shortcut will save and restore the desktop configuration under its own name.

 

[Bernhard S]

"Dektop" or "Desktop" is not a valid command line parameter according to the PSD help.
I guess you mean command line parameter "Project":

"C:\Program Files\PLSQL Developer\PlSqlDev.exe" Project=ProjectA.prj

"C:\Program Files\PLSQL Developer\PlSqlDev.exe" Project=ProjectB.prj

That's not an elegant solution for working with a larger number of projects either.

I guess as a workaround for now I can just create a dummy project without anything and use the "Project" command line parameter to open this one, with the intention to open the project I really want from there then.
In order not to get asked for a connection, as I will reconnect anyway with the new project, it makes sense to add the "nologon" command line parameter.

Another alternative would be to directly double-click the relevant project *.prj file, that I want to open with PSD in my project folder. However since the *.dsk files are stored there as well, it looks rather messy in this folder.

I'd suggest however to introduce a command line parameter, which makes PSD to start without the default last opened project and instead opens up the project dialog so you can select which project you want.

 

[Marco Kalter]

No, I meant the "Desktop" parameter. It saves the desktop configuration under the given name.

 

[Bernhard S]

"Desktop" is not a documented command line parameter and it doesn't seem to work for me. If I specify a "Deskop" command line parameter with an exiting desktop file, PSD behaves the same as if I don't specify one,
which means, it loads the last project, that I opened before, again.

"Project" however is documented and actually works as expected.

It would be great if PSD had a command line parameter like "HELP" or something, which shows all valid command line parameters together with a short description.