Migrating to PL/SQL Developer

[xxsawer]

Hi,
Until now, I am using SQL Developer, which is free tool from Oracle. The problem is that it is so buggy you wouldn't believe, so I would like to migrate to another free or payed tool.
I installed the trial version of PL/SQL developer, but I am little bit fighting with it. Here are my questions, notes...

1) First thing, new folder + new connection. Open the "Define connections" window, delete default folders and create a new one. When creating new folder, for what are there fields Username, Database, and Connect as?

2) New connection... Where can I fill SID and port? Database combo means what?

3) For the first look the design and icons are not much user friendly. For what somebody needs + and - buttons in Connections subwindow? That should mean add remove connection and not collapse expand. Icons are small not representing desired functionality. Renaming of folders only via connections dialogue...

 

[DoDo]

Are you sure that you are using PL/SQL Developer???

 

[xxsawer]

Pretty sure, you want some screenshots?

 

[Marco Kalter]

1) First thing, new folder + new connection. Open the "Define connections" window, delete default folders and create a new one. When creating new folder, for what are there fields Username, Database, and Connect as?

When you enter these fields for a folder they are search criteria to populate the folder. If, for example, you enter "chicago" in the database field of a folder and subsequently connect with an account to the chicago database, this connection (username, password, database) will automatically be added to the folder.

2) New connection... Where can I fill SID and port? Database combo means what?

PL/SQL Developer does not allow you to define logical databases by instance, port and host. Instead it relies on tnsnames.ora or whatever naming method you may prefer. If you are using EZCONNECT you can enter hostort/instance in the database field.

 

[xxsawer]

ad 1) Uf, is anybody using this? This is more confusing then useful...
ad 2) Another painful thing So how can I define new connection then? Do I need to edit the TNSNames.ora file manually and place it somewhere to PL/SQL Developer folder?

1) I thing it is a good habit to have Ok / Cancel buttons located in bottom right corner. Why is this everywhere in PL/SQL developer on the other side?

2) Another funny bug (or feature I noticed when browsing through preferences). When opening the preferences all sections are expanded. Some of them have the arrow down button pressed some of them not. Pressing a button which is not pressed of a section which is expanded, will just cause the button is pressed, but doesn't collapse the section.
On the other hand when you collapse all secitons and click some random section (to expand it). It will expand also another random section(s)

3) How can I get rid of the connect dialog when starting PL/SQL developer?

 

[William Robertson]

The Oracle Client installation includes a set of .ora files you can configure, or you can point to a shared one by setting TNS_ADMIN. These days larger sites tend to use LDAP, in which case the client simply has an ldap.ora that lists directory servers, and you don't configure individual connections yourself.

Regarding the connect dialog, you can specify 'noconnectionlist' on the command line / shortcut when invoking PL/SQL Developer (I also disable the 'Allow multiple connections' option in the preferences under Oracle > Connection as I like to keep things simple).

No idea what the folder thing is you mentioned, sorry. (Possibly that's because I have disabled multiple connections.)

 

[xxsawer]

By Oracle Client you mean what?
Currently I have only SQL Developer installed and now also PL/SQL Developer, nothing else...
I am connecting to dozens of Oracle DB servers, where our projects run on, and now I have more then hundert connections defined within SQL Developer. So I don't have any ldap.ora and really don't want to edit directly any file.

Regarding the noconnectionlist, I think this will not help. When runing with this parameter, I get the logon dialog on startup as well. Quick look into help sais:

noconnectionlist
Suppresses the connection list at startup and displays the old style logon dialog instead.