Show HN: SqlSmash, A productivity plugin for Sql Server Management Studio | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: SqlSmash, A productivity plugin for Sql Server Management Studio

sqlsmash.com

43 pointslatishsehgal36 comments

I really like the simple search (and useful keyboard shortcuts) to jump to an object, something that is fairly tedious in SSMS. (expand, expand, expand, pick folder, use filter or type dbo.stuff in a large group of objects, hope you didnt add a typo!)

The find all references is also useful, I really don't like either scripting sys.comments or using the find dependencies as they are both tedious. This may be specific to my use case, but finding the tree of dependencies n levels deep is something I find myself doing and it is a pain in the neck. (find references, now find references to those objects, now find references to those objects, pull apart this mess)

I like the quick info as well, though alt+f1 usually does this for me, if I can get the information without blowing out the result set or opening a new window, that's great.

Great feedback. Thank you!

I would love to try this out, but one thing that's stopping me is pricing.

What price point do you intend to set this at once it's out of beta?

Any plans on supporting older versions of SSMS (say 2008 r2)?

I haven't finalized the pricing yet, but it should not break the bank. I am going to start with SSMS 2012, and if there's a demand to support older versions, I'll do that. I am curious what you would consider as a reasonable price for this? Also, I think you can use SSMS 2012 to connect to older Sql Server Databases. Is there a reason for you to use the older SSMS?

I consult to a lot of different businesses and nobody is running SSMS 2012 -- it's all 2008 R2. I think if you want to target the most developers for SQL, you'll likely find that's by far the most common version. It's a very conservative market -- I probably won't see 2012 until long after the next version is out.

Is it possible to download the SSMS 2012 express version and use that?

Try the SSMS Tools Pack. The 2008 version is free. Doesn't do exactly what this demo does, but what it does is different and much more. It keeps your script history and has an execution plan analyzer.

http://www.ssmstoolspack.com/Download

This looks like a great plugin, but I couldn't help but think about the fact that I am grateful that I don't have to work in SQLSMS anymore.

Well, if you have any friends who are not that lucky, please do share it with them :).

What's wrong with SSMS? I use it daily at work, feel pretty productive in it, not sure what features I'm really missing out on.

This looks nice, I'll probably take a look at it as I spend an unfortunate amount of time in SQLSMS.

As an aside, I would have liked to be able to know a bit about the plugin's features without needing to watch a video (but I guess you'll certainly flesh out the website once the plugin is ready to be sold).

Thanks. Yes, the website will definitely be better in the future. I have been working on the tool by myself for a while and right now I just wanted to make sure that this is something people would use.

This looks great. Couple questions

1. How is your find all references different than the show dependencies function?

2. Your quick info function looks similar to just hitting Shift-F1 when highlighting an object. Yours maybe doesn't even do as much. Are you aware of the Shift F1 command?

Results wise, "Find all references" should show you a flattened list of the hierarchy that you see with show dependencies. Also, the idea was to make it keyboard friendly.

Quick Info might potentially involve to show more information (definition, references etc). If not, and if nobody sees value in it, I might take it out.

Sorry I meant Alt-F1 by the way.

After installing your product it has been sitting for several minutes grabbing all the schema or something... so I can't get even get quick info to work at this point when Alt-F1 works every time.

But very few people even know about hitting Alt-F1. Might make sense for your quick info just to call that same function so people even know how to do it.

Good point. I'll try to make the initial loading faster, and rethink the quick info feature.

So with Alt-F1 I can copy and paste the columns and stuff out of it. With your quick info I can't. Yours doesn't tell me the varchar lengths, nullable, etc etc like alt-f1 does. If I am using a certain database already your quick info shouldn't make my pick a database first either.

having a "find all references" feature is a god send. can't tell you how many time i've scripted the database to a new query window and did a manual search just to find out all the place a stored procedure is being used.

Awesome! Thanks for letting me know. I would have thought "Find References" and "Quick Info" would be the most underused features and maybe I should take them out.

"Find References" is definitely the feature that made me say "YES!" when I watched the demo!

This is a revelation for me. I'll definitely leave it in there now.

It's a convenient way to answer the common question of, "if I change ____, what else will break?"

It's of course possible to do this by looking through systables/information_schema/etc (I'm sure this is how you're doing it) but I always forget how. :)

I'll second the need for find references.

btw, what will the price be once its out of beta?

I haven't finalized the pricing yet.

RedGate also has a free SQL Search plugin for SSMS that can simplify this.

http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-search/

RedGate has a ton of amazing tools. RedGate SQL Prompt hugely improves query composition.

I use Toad for Oracle and you can execute the current statement with ctrl + Enter. Your execute current query feature is exactly what I have been looking for! I can't believe that SSMS has never implemented such a feature.

I probably need to rewatch the video but the summary feature will probabaly be nice because i deal with 2K line scripts

That's a lot of sql :), and the perfect scenario to use the summarize feature.

I also spend a lot of time in SQLSMS and would buy, or recommend my company to buy, a tool like this.

Awesome! Thanks!

The quick jump-to-object functionality is killer for me, seems like a great plugin!

Looking forward to playing with it

Good to hear. Thanks!

This is amazing! It's like ReSharper for SSMS. Just forwarded it to our entire dev group.

I am a huge R# fan myself. To be honest, that was the original inspiration to create this tool.

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