Search results matching tags 'SQL Server 2012' and 'visual studio'

Connected development in SSDT versus SSMS

jamiet — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 16:28:00 GMT

When you install the database projects template of SSDT you get SQL Server Object Explorer (SSOX) installed as well. SSOX is a pane within Visual Studio and is the main enabler of the Connected Development experience that the SSDT team have attempted to provide.

SSOX provides some really cool capabilities that are not in SQL Server Management Studio (I hope to blog about them in the near future). In theory these capabilities make it possible for a database developer to spend all their time in SSDT (i.e. Visual Studio) thus making SSMS a pureplay DBA tool (this does of course depend on your definition of both a database developer and a DBA, but I’m not getting into that debate here).

With that in mind I have spent a few days trying to work without SSMS, preferring to live wholly inside Visual Studio instead. By and large I was able to do everything I needed to do from within Visual Studio however there were a few nuances about the experience that kept pushing me back to SSMS, I detail those nuances below.

Server groups

SSOX combines the functions of SSMS’s Object Explorer and Registered Servers pane. I don’t mind either way of working but it does mean that there is no ability to group servers in SSOX like you can in the Registered Servers pane

F6

In SSMS I regularly use the F6 keyboard shortcut to jump between the query, results & messages panes of a query window. No such keyboard shortcut exists in SSDT and they’ve already canned my request on Connect to get this fixed (even though it laughably has status “closed as fixed”).

UPDATE: See the comments below where Brett Gerhardi informed me of a different keyboard shortcut that does the same thing as F6. Actually its not quite the same, if you have multiple resultsets in your results pane then the behaviour is slightly different to F6 in SSMS - but that's not an issue you'll hot frequently.

Change Connection

The context menu in SSMS provides the ability to change a connection as well as connect and disconnect:

SSDT doesn’t have change connection and believe me, you don’t know how much you use a feature until its not there:

There’s also no hotkey to jump to “Connection” on the context menu like there is in SSMS (“C”) and I find that annoying too.

Those were the main annoyances that forced me back to SSMS. The lack of F6 was a major bugbear for me as I am a big keyboard shortcut junkie. If such things don’t bother you then you may be able to live in Visual Studio quite happily. If you have any similar experiences to share I’d be keen to read them.

@Jamiet

SQL Server 2012 : The Data Tools installer is now available

AaronBertrand — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:18:00 GMT

Last week when RC0 was released, the updated installer for "Juneau" (SQL Server Data Tools) was not available. Depending on how you tried to get it, you either ended up on a blank search page, or a page offering the CTP3 bits. Important note: the CTP3 Juneau bits are not compatible with SQL Server 2012 RC0.

If you already have Visual Studio 2010 installed (meaning Standard/Pro/Premium/Ultimate), you will need to install Service Pack 1 before continuing. You can get to the installer simply by opening Visual Studio, going to File > New > Project, and then choose the option "SQL Server" that appears under the "Other Languages" category (not the "SQL Server" option that appears under the "Database" category):

When you click OK, you will get another dialog that prompts you to install SQL Server Data Tools:

When you click Install, your web browser will be launched on the Data Tools "Get Started" page. There you will see a link to "Download SQL Server Data Tools" which will launch or download SSDTSetup.exe:

At this point I would close Visual Studio 2010, because you'll probably be prompted to close it anyway.

As usual you'll be prompted with a security warning:

Next you'll need to agree to the lengthy license terms and conditions:

Next it will download LoaclDB (the new dev/Express runtime) and install. For me on multiple installs the Installation Progress bar held at 99% for a noticeable amount of time:

With a little bit of luck you should end up at the "Success" screen:

Now you can open Visual Studio directly (or from the "SQL Server Data Tools" menu item under All Programs > Microsoft SQL Server 2012 RC0. Choose File > New > Project and again choose "SQL Server" under "Other Languages." The option depicted above has changed to "SQL Server Database Project":

Click OK. You will find a Toolbox and a familiar Object Explorer on the left, where you can easily create new objects:

And now you can go to town developing your project. I haven't tried upgrading a project from CTP3 or from a previous version of "Data Dude." You're on your own there, sorry.

As an aside the "other" SQL Server option under "Database" contains all the old project types that you may not want to use anymore. I hope they straighten this out and consolidate by RTM:

If you already had Juneau CTP3 installed, you should be able to install SQL Server Data Tools CTP4 as an upgrade by simply downloading the updated SSDTSetup.exe from the "Get Started" page. You may still need to install Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 prior to doing so. For what it's worth, I completely removed SQL Server 2012 CTP3 and Juneau CTP3 before attempting to install the updated bits. If you try an upgrade and come across any issues, please let me know.

You may be wondering why the versioning seems out of cadence - SQL Server is at RC0 while Juneau is at CTP4. This is because SQL Server is feature complete and an upgrade to RTM will now be supported. Juneau is not quite complete (there are still some pending changes before RTM); the naming remains CTP so that folks do not get the impression that an upgrade to RTM will be supported.

Confirmed: Juneau is in the next version of Visual Studio

jamiet — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:32:00 GMT

Its no great secret that Juneau, a collection of features in the forthcoming SQL Server codenamed Denali, will be in the next version of Visual Studio but its nice to have it confirmed all the same. I have installed the first publicly available drop of that next version (known as Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview, download from here) that was released at last week's BUILD event and sure enough the Juneau stuff is right there. Here’s some screenshots:

Note the presence of Juneau in the About dialog:

Here’s the new Juneau table designer:

OK, so this isn’t really news (unless you didn’t already know about it) however what is of interest is that this is the Express Edition of Visual Studio. This bodes well for full release – Juneau needs to be available to as many folks as possible which means not making it exclusive to the Ultimate Edition.

@jamiet