New Toad Search Replacement:
In place of what was the main toolbar’s Search dropdown is a new feature we’re calling “jump,” accessible with CTRL-J. Jump is a multi-faceted intra/extra product search/navigation tool. It covers the following categories:
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Windows - both Windows as well as most of the controls on all the major windows are covered. These are static targets, much like the Search in Toad Options. These Targets are contained in a file in the user application data directory named “JumpTargets.dat.” There are about 11,000 total Targets of this type available. The display shows the window they are on followed by the full path to them (which typically is the caption of the tabs they are on) followed by the name of the control itself - typically either its caption or hint. Included is an image of the type of control: button, label, groupbox and so on. (Improved images will come at a later date). When you activate a Target, sophisticated logic will do its best to “get you there.” This means it will attempt to navigate as closely as possible to your destination and then use the Windows Accessibility feature called “sonar” to “ping” your Target. Please bear in mind the limitations of this system: if the Target is on a connection-bound window and no connection is present you’ll be informed. If the Target is on, say, Step 3 of a wizard pane, it will take you to the control on step 3, even if this means the window is not in a useable state. (This was a deliberate design decision: It isn’t possible for us to tell if moving focus to a destination will leave you in a context not immediately available for your use. We chose to still take you there so you can find what you’re looking for rather than eliminate it completely as a jump target.) The “as you type” facility uses a priority-based search algorithm which examines the various components of the Target display string: the window, the path to the Target and the destination Target itself, and gives priority first to the control, next to the window and then to the path. In other words it will do its best to think for you. Let us know how well we’ve done.
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Options - all the control Targets on the Options window. This may or may not eliminate the need for the Search on the Options window. I doubt it, since that window is so complex, and modal. Let us know.
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Menus & Toolbars - All menu items and main form toolbar buttons. If you have customized them and taken an item off you are searching for, it will open the toolbar customization dialog to let you know it’s no longer there. In the future we’ll probably take the final step of actually moving to the item itself in the dialog.
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Files - These are dynamic targets. A variety of file paths are included in the set we search. Among them are: all Toad installation and application directories, all Toad MRU files and all filenames embedded in Actions. We anticipate some growth and change in this area, such as allowing you to specify additional paths in TOAD.INI as well as digging deeper into other places of interest. We pulled back a little in what we included, as it’s obviously dangerous to get too crazy and end up pointing to a network share or C Root. A right-click on these will show some - not all - of your Explorer Context Menu for the file type. We extract the file image icon according to the type and display it.
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Forums - The new ToadWorld forums are searched. Double-clicking on them takes you to them in the Forums window.
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Online - Provided for compatibility with what was there: Quest Knowledgebase and so forth. Double-click (or hit ) on the destination type to have it load a browser and continue the search. This is pretty much exactly as it worked before. Personally, I find Google far better than any of these.
As you jump to static Window Targets, the system remembers that you were interested in that Target, increments the count of visits you made to it and moves it up in the search algorithm for next time. After very brief use of the system you’ll find that the items you are most interested in become available with fewer & fewer keystrokes. This activity is stored in the Jump File and will be imported for future Toad upgrades into updated Jump Files, which will be provided per release.
For Window Targets, it will: a) open a window of that type if one isn’t already open, b) if one is open, bring it to the top, c) if multiple windows are open, use the topmost in the Z-Order, d) if multiple are open, you can right-click on the Target and choose which one to jump to.
It may be the case that some Target types are no longer visible to you, such as a grid column which you turned off last year and completely forgot about. Jump will turn the column back on for you and scroll it into view. Please note it may be possible some “developer-only” columns crept into our jump file. We’ll have to find and eliminate them over time. Or let users play around to look for them and treat them as an otherwise Easter Egg bereft Toad.
Team Coding:
Team Coding Code Collections added a Compare DB to VCS option. This will do a comparison between the Database Source and the version in the VCS for all objects. If any differneces exist then the Create Revision Dialog will display with the relevant objects listed. The user has an option to Create a New Revision for these objects.
The Create Revision Dialog also has added a ‘Compare Content…’ menu option for selected objects. This will call Team Coding diff viewer for the object.
Enhanced Team Coding Status Viewer:
Team Coding Status viewer has added Team Coding Status Handlers. The purpose of Team Coding Status Handlers, is to provide more meaningful information to the user and support when there is an issue with Team Coding and to help point the user to where the issue can be corrected. When Team Coding generates a handled warning or error message in the output window, the user can double click the message to open the Team Coding Status viewer, where additional information about the warning is available. Team Coding also attempts to provide a list of one or more solutions to address the issue. Once a solution is attempted the Team Coding Status Viewer is refreshed to update the status of Team Coding messages.
There are separate handlers for Team Coding and VCP configuration. In addition, the current Team Coding Session messages are also displayed in the Team Coding Status Message Viewer
Example Handlers Currently in Place
- Team Coding Version is installed in an earlier version than current version of Toad. This generates a warning in the output window. A Team Coding handler message is created in the Team Coding Status Viewer. The handler solution opens the Team Coding Configuration window, where the user can update Team Coding Objects
- Team Coding is set up to use Code Collections but no Code Collections are set up. The handler will open the Code Collections Dialog to set up collections.
- Team Coding is set up to use Code Collections but a collection has an invalid VCP Project. The handler will open the Code Collections Dialog to edit code collections.
Additional handlers for common Team Coding configuration issues are being currently being added.