Installation and a review of some new features

Installation

The program [EA2 download -Early Adapter] can be downloaded from the following URL. In the present case the Windows option that comes with JDK1.5.0_06 bundled was used. The downloaded ZIP file, sqldeveloper-5073 (100MB) can be unzipped to any suitable location and from within the sqldeveloper folder you can immediately start using the program. The program can be started by double clicking the executable which has an unambiguous fat green arrow.

Review of features

Adjustable Look and Feel

The look and feel is adjustable. You can choose between ‘Windows’ and ‘Oracle’. After choosing ‘oracle’ you can choose a variety of themes. The one shown is for ‘Desert Yellow’.

The View Menu

The View menu is better organized as shown compared to the previous version.

Tools Menu

Tools menu is beefed up as well as shown.

External Tools

The External Tools sub menu item can find existing tools (browsers, notepad, mdb files) and also using a 4 step wizard allows you to create tools, provided you know the details for accessing them.

Wizards

Diff Wizard allows comparing objects of same type between schema of source and destination as well update the destination based on source. Similarly the Copy Wizard allows you to copy objects from one database schema to another.

Versioning Support

Versioning support is another new feature in this version.SQL Developer provides integrated support for CVS [concurrent versions system] and Subversion in its source control. CVS allows repository creation on the local PC or, on a remote machine. Source files are held in folder modules. In the case of Subversion the access to the repository is by means of a connection and this is where the master copies are held, files are checked out to a local working folder.

Run menu item

The Run menu item also contains the debugging options as shown. In the previous version Run and Debug were two menus.

Migration Menu

The Microsoft Access Exporter can export from 97,2000,2002, and 2003 like in the previous version (1.2) and seems to be essentially the same as the previous version. This version can now create off line migration scripts to ASE 15 and Sybase 12 in addition to several versions of SQL Server 7,2000,2005 and MySQL (3.23,4,5)

Connecting to SQL 2005 databases

As described in the previous referenced articles at the beginning  you can establish a connection to the server by clicking on the Connection node (positive green sign) in the first figure. This opens New / Select Database Connection window where you will see only Oracle and Access. This is because, at this point no JDBC drivers have been specified for connecting to the other three servers, SQL Server, MySQL, and Sybase.

There are two ways you can register JDBC drivers for these databases. For SQL Servers you require the jtds.jar file from the SourceForge.com web site. In the first method you need to go through Tools|Preferences|Database|Third party JDBC Drivers| to find the path to the file as shown in the next figure and use the browse key to locate the driver and add it. The driver file should be in the correct path for the application to find.

In the other method that is used here, which in the opinion of the author is simpler, is to go through Help|Check Updates… This brings up the Step 1 of wizard as shown. Read the instructions in this window.

Now click Next. This takes you to the next window as shown.

The needed item is already checked. Click Next. The window that comes up next shows compatible drivers for the databases.

Choose items needed by placing check marks. In this tutorial both the SQL Server and MySQL drivers were chosen. Click Next.

In the window that shows up agree to the licensing[GNU Public] terms after reading the terms. Click on Next in the final window of Step 4.

When Step 5 “Download” windows opens the login window also opens. As these drivers are downloaded from the Oracle site, you will have to insert your Oracle login information. Step 5 screen shot is not shown.

You will be adding both the JDBC drivers on the final step. Click Finish. In order to install the updates you chose, the SQL Developer 1.5 needs to restart, and it restarts when you click on Yes in the Confirm Exit window.

Do you want to Migrate User Settings?  window shows up again. For this article it is a No again. The Oracle SQL Developer window gets displayed. Now you open the screen.  You will see all the five database tabs in the New / Select Database Connection with default connection to the Oracle 10G XE on the local machine[Screen shot not shown].