Database Development

Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+D (Cmd+Shift+D on macOS)

The Database Development perspective is a workbench for browsing and working with database objects. It lists the database connections defined in your project metadata and lets you explore their catalogs, schemas, tables, views and synonyms, preview data, inspect table layouts, and write and run SQL — all without leaving Deem Integrator.

Layout

The perspective is split into three areas:

• Navigator (left) — a search box, a toolbar and a tree of your database connections.
• Workbench (right) — a tabbed editor area where connection summaries, database objects and SQL editors open.
• Output (bottom) — a Results tab showing query and preview output, and a Messages tab showing status and execution details.

Navigator

The navigator tree is organised under a Connections root. Each connection expands lazily — its objects are only loaded the first time you expand it:

• If the database exposes catalogs or schemas, these appear first, each containing Tables, Views and Synonyms folders.
• Otherwise the Tables, Views and Synonyms folders appear directly under the connection.

Use the search box at the top to filter the list of connections by name or database type. All the words you type must match, accents are ignored, and close-enough spellings still find a connection.

The catalog a connection itself points at is shown in bold, as is its preferred schema when one is set — useful on a server that lists dozens of databases.

Navigator toolbar

Button	Action
Refresh	Reload the list of saved database connections (F5). Connections come back collapsed; expand one to read its objects again.
Expand all	Expand every connection node (Ctrl+Shift++).
Collapse all	Collapse every connection node (Ctrl+Shift+-).
Add database connection	Create a new database connection.
Edit database connection	Edit the selected connection (F3).
New SQL editor	Open a new SQL editor for the selected connection.
Query settings	Set the preview row limit and the query timeout.

Note

Add and Edit database connection open the standard database connection editor in the Metadata perspective. Connections you create or change there appear in the navigator after a refresh.

Right-click menu

The context menu adapts to what you select:

• On the Connections root: Add database connection.
• On a connection: Edit database connection, Open connection summary, New SQL Editor, Refresh connection metadata.
• On a table, view or synonym: Open object details, Preview first rows, Show layout, Show row count, Open SQL for object, and — for tables — Truncate table…. Delete… appears for tables, views and synonyms.

Caution

Truncate table… and Delete… run immediately after you confirm. Truncate empties a table; Delete drops the object itself. Both name the object and the connection in the confirmation, and neither can be undone.

Working with database objects

Double-click a database object (or choose Open object details) to open it in a tab with three sub-tabs:

• Basic — the object’s layout: column number, name, data type, length and precision.
• Data — a preview of the first rows. Use the Quick filter box to add a SQL WHERE condition, or right-click a cell to build a filter from its value (equals, contains, starts with, is not null, or remove the filter). Click Preview Data to reload.
• Query — a SQL editor pre-filled with a SELECT for the object. Buttons let you generate common statements — Select *, Select fields, Truncate table, Drop table and Generate DDL — then Execute the query or Clear the editor. These generate SQL into the editor; nothing runs until you press Execute. They apply to tables only, since a view has no table definition to generate.

Selecting a connection and choosing Open connection summary opens a tab describing that connection.

SQL editor

Opening a SQL editor (from the toolbar, the object Query tab, or Open SQL for object) gives you a full editor with syntax highlighting for the connection’s SQL dialect.

• Execute runs the highlighted selection, or the whole script when nothing is selected.
• Clear empties the editor.
• The row limit next to Execute caps how many rows are fetched: 100, 1000 or 10000. Each editor keeps its own setting, and the last one you pick becomes the default for editors you open later.
• Results appear in a grid in the editor itself. The Messages pane at the bottom reports how many rows came back and how many statements ran.

Tip

Row limits keep the perspective responsive on large tables. Previews default to 100 rows and SQL results to 1000; change the preview limit and the query timeout under Query settings in the navigator toolbar, and a SQL editor’s own limit next to its Execute button. Add a WHERE condition to narrow results further.

Note

Apart from expanding a connection, database work runs without a progress dialog and cannot be cancelled — Deem Integrator waits for the database. A slow query is not a hang; it ends when the query returns or the query timeout expires (20 seconds by default, 0 disables it).