The Connection Browser has a great feature called “Show favorites only”.
I work for quite a few customers and I can mark all connections related to one customer as “Favorite”. Then I can see the reduced list when this is checked. This feature is one of my favorites. However, I wish I could name several “favorite” groups, as “Customer A”, “Customer B” and so on. This way the same – or very similar – feature can be used to dynamically create the relevant list of connections, depending on the name of the customer (or any other grouping/naming that might be relevant)
Click the "Edit Custom Fields" button on the toolbar. You can create a field to add to the grid to use for whatever purpose you want, then group/sort by it as you can by any other field.
It is a nice feature, but a little cumbersome. I have tried using "Alias". Once grouped, it's removed from the grid, and each entry needs a separate "Edit" to add the value, before it's in the group. Alternatively, the group can be removed, then several entries can be edited directly in the grid, then group again. If "favorites" was a drop-down, life would be easier.
A thing I like about this grouping, is you can fold the tree. But if you choose a new sort - e.g. by Last connect - they all unfold. This is not needed with "Favorites" - which is why I still prefer, that favorites can be made into a list.
When you group by Alias or a custom field, yes it goes away automatically, but you can bring it back by clicking the button in the top-left corner of the grid, then re-checking the grouped column. Then you can change the grouped field value without having to ungroup/regroup everything.
By the way, I recommend you do this with a custom field, not alias. Depending on other settings in Toad, if you have multiple connections with the same alias you could easily get them mixed up because the alias could be shown instead of the connection info.
I don't understand the potential benefit of using the Favorites field for this. You'd still have to edit each row to put it in the desired group.
These are great tips. Thanks! I will use custom field.
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I think there is a little bug - or a feature, that I cannot find.
I've added a Custom Field "Group"
Then I wanted to drag the field back onto the grid. Accidentally, I dropped the icon over the grid, and not over the field names, so it became "hidden". That's fair enough.
However, I cannot seem to be able to display the field:
While checking/unchecking all standard field names adds or removes them from display, the custom field doesn't react the same way.
Hi Abe,
I tried to reproduce that. For me, it's working OK. When I check/uncheck "group", the field comes and goes from the grid.
Have you tried closing the login window, then re-opening it? That might give the grid enough of a reset to get it working again.
If not, you can right-click in the grid and choose "Reset columns". Then you'd have to re-hide the ones that you don't want to see, but I think "Group" will start behaving after that.
-John
I had tried closing and opening the window, and reset fields.
Now I also tried closing the program and restarting it.
I can get i back by deleting it and re-creating it, but then I lost the values stored in it. No biggy though 
I just figured this out. Just FYI incase it helps anyone. I'll fix it soon.
- Open login window
- Add a custom column (no need to put any data in it)
- Rt-click the new column and choose “Fix column”
- Drag the new column out of Toad
- Try to use the column selector widget to bring it back.
- Bug: it doesn’t come back
Workaround: Fix some other column. Then use the column selector widget again. You can then drag your custom column back off to the right-hand side of the "fixed" area.