So, I haven't really updated the blog a lot. At all. But I have been busy.

When Atlantis initially started, one of the long term goals was to wrap all the Atlantis tools into a single IDE which brought the tools together seamlessly. That would have really hit the 'be integrated' part of the strap-line.

Well, now they are. I'm pleased to announce that Schema Inspector, Data Inspector, Data Surf, Schema Surf and Data Space Analyzer (now with a z :-) ) are available as DBA xPress from Pragmatic Works. Currently DBA xPress is available as part of BI xPress Pro.

Most of you in the community will already know that I started working with Pragmatic Works at the beginning of the year. They were interested in acquiring the functionality provided by the Atlantis tools - but also interested by the look and feel of the Atlantis applications as they wanted to improve on the look and feel of their products. So, for the last 10 months I have been working on creating an IDE for Pragmatic Works which had very similar goals to my own long-term goals for the Atlantis toolset.

I'm really happy that this step has finally come to the announcement stage - so please check out DBA xPress here.

A few weeks back, I decided to open source Schema Engine, which is the core of the Atlantis product set. I was really hoping that I would get some good feedback on where to take it, see it used in some new and interesting ways and get some good ideas for features.

One person in particular, Justin Dearing (blog | twitter) has come up with some excellent ideas. He sent me an email saying he had some ideas for features, and I thought he was talking about the 'change the formatting of this DDL' level of feature. I was surprised (pleasantly, I might add) to see that he had thought about it at a much higher level - and some of his thoughts mirror where I had it going anyway (for example, Postgres support was something I had always wanted to do). But some of his other ideas are really cool - so check out his blog post on them, and leave feedback.

I have to say, I thought more people would have been interested in this release, and I am sure there are a fair few SQL people out there who could make use of this sort of functionality. Hopefully, Justin's input will start to give the project the impetus that it would need to achieve the future goals that he has outlined. So do, please, hop on over to his blog, check out his ideas, leave your feedback. Or, if you're looking at using the Schema Engine yourself - leave some feedback here, let me know what you think it's good at, let me know what you think it's bad at.

Schema Engine will be appearing on a more standard on-line forge - most likely CodePlex, in the not too distant future. I need to re-organise the code a bit first, so that it doesn't totally bork all the Atlantis products, while not including huge amounts of non-related code - the structure of the libraries in the Atlantis source tree is a little different, including all sorts of non-Schema Engine related stuff. But, right now, I'm busy preparing my session for SQL Bits 8, and hopefully I will meet some of you there...

Ok, so you now no longer need to purchase the 0 rated licenses for the Atlantis applications... This is just a short announcement to that effect - the previously paid-for applications, SQL Everywhere, Schema Inspector and Data Inspector now have no licensing code present - meaning they start faster and are more convenient. The other changes in the applications are as follows:

SQL Everywhere - v2.1.173

• Removal of licensing system
• Added script as exec for procs (assembly & normal)
• Added script as select for tables, views and table functions (all four kinds)
• Auto query analysis now shows undeclared variables
• Added function differentiation for some context-based functions (e.g. OBJECT_ID)
• Updated code completion
• Changed F5 to only execute when code window focused
• Modified the way some context-only keywords are identified (e.g. SOURCE, TARGET)
• Added support for WITH termination on ALTER DATABASE
• Fixed issue with scalar function parameter info showing the return parameter
• Fixed issue where insert list could show up in the wrong scope
• Fixed some memory issues
• Fixed issue whereby read-only files passed on the command line would not be read
• Fixed issue with double clicking error messages after a syntax check
• Fixed issue with renaming sub queries

Schema Inspector - v2.1.15

• Removal of licensing system
• Added tooltips to important function buttons to clarify their use
• Fixed issue with timestamp columns and data restoration during table alteration

Data Inspector - v2.1.23

• Removal of licensing system
• Added tooltips to important function buttons to clarify their use
• Fixed issue with selecting columns with incompatible types when comparing

Enjoy!

So, it's been a couple of weeks since the Atlantis tools went 'fully free'. And no, I haven't updated the website yet!

But, here's a follow up that may prove useful to you if you work with schemas a lot, in that I am releasing the source code to SchemaEngine - which is the backbone of our SQL Server products (except for Data Space Analyser, which doesn't really use it). You can do quite a lot with SchemaEngine - you can make schema synchronisation apps, you could implement code completion of your own, make dependency tree viewers. All that sort of stuff.

The API documentation is pretty good - most things in there are fully XML commented, so included in the package is the API reference. This also includes references for all of the internal and private members of the library, too.

Even so, it's not something you'd be able to use straight away without some help - so over the next few weeks I will be doing some posts about how to use SchemaEngine, both in terms of comparing and navigating schemas, how to use the filters (which are fully awesome) and how to generate differencing scripts etc.

I have packaged up the code so that you only have to include one library, and there isn't any extraneous stuff (e.g. common classes that SchemaEngine doesn't make use of).

Before you ask:

• Yes this is the same code that the Atlantis apps run
• Yes it's totally free
• Yes I will keep it up to date (as far as I can)
• Yes, you do have to use it at your own risk
• No it's not GPL
• No I won't be offering any guarantee of support - I will help you if/when I can
• No it doesn't support Azure
• No it's not going to support Azure
• Yes I would love to hear about what you do with it

So, without any further ado - here's the download: Atlantis.SchemaEngine.1.0.4116.zip.

Enjoy - and please feel free to ask questions / leave feedback / spread the word!

Just a short post this time - but after a hugely enjoyable exercise, all of the Atlantis applications now play nicely with SQL Server 2011 Denali CTP1.

SELECT ProductName, LatestVersionNumber, DownloadLink FROM DenaliCompatibleTools

Returns:

Data Space Analyser has not been updated, as it is (in the main) already compatible with Denali. The object browser will require a re-build, and this will appear in the next week or so...

Enjoy!

Four of our SQL tools, namely SQL Everywhere, Schema Inspector, Data Inspector and Data Space Analyser have received updates this week.

Here is a full list of the updates:

SQL Everywhere - 1.6.157

• Major Features
  • Refactoring additions
    • Script layout engine now preserves comments, presents more options
    • Expand wildcards refactoring menu items now expand all wildcards
    • Auto-alias all identifiers
    • Smart rename for parameters
    • Show variable references
    • Rename temp table
    • Rename CTE
    • Extract as CTE
  • Result grid comparison
    • Uses dual grid, like Data Inspector
    • Shows missing rows on either side, changed rows, and a change overview map
  • Integrated Data Surf
    • Data surf from the object browser or from any table name in the query editor
    • Save surfs to later be loaded in the Data Surf application
• Minor Features
  • Added ability to take Schema Inspector snapshots
  • Code completion and language engine update
    • Full support for CROSS/OUTER APPLY (fn) fn_name (col_list)
    • Support for 2008 row constructors
    • Support for inserted / deleted virtual tables
    • Support for PIVOT / UNPIVOT
    • Support for OUTPUT clauses
    • Enhanced support for merge statement
    • Removed ambiguous column detection for left hand values of SET clauses
    • Quick info tips for assembly class method external name declarations
  • Added word wrap mode
  • Support for VS-style keyboard chords
    • Ctrl+K, C - Comment lines
    • Ctrl+K, U - Uncomment lines
    • Ctrl+K, D - Auto format all
    • Ctrl+K, F - Auto format selection
    • Ctrl+K, X - Insert snippet
    • Ctrl+K, S - Insert surrounds with snippet
    • Ctrl+K, W - Show complete word
    • Ctrl+K, L - Show member list
    • Ctrl+K, I - Show quick info
    • Ctrl+K, P - Show parameter info
    • Ctrl+R, R - Rename identifier
    • Ctrl+W, E - Show errors
    • Ctrl+W, O - Show first grid
    • Ctrl+W, M - Show messages
    • Ctrl+W, J - Object browser
    • Ctrl+B, B - Toggle bookmark
    • Ctrl+B, T - Toggle bookmark
    • Ctrl+B, P - Previous bookmark
    • Ctrl+B, N - Next bookmark
    • Ctrl+B, C - Clear bookmarks
    • Ctrl+E, C - Comment lines
    • Ctrl+E, U - Uncomment lines
    • Ctrl+R, I - Extract CTE
    • Ctrl+R, O - Extract Explicit CTE
  • Added tooltips for the objects in the object tree views
  • Improved auto-scoping
  • Added column name level matching for JOIN expansion
• Changes
  • Keyword expansion now includes built in functions
  • Quick hover tips and tab hover previews are now hidden when typing begins
  • Added text format detection for detection various different text formats
  • Improved load speed by 32%
  • Changed data display in grid viewer to remove line break characters while retaining original formatting for copy
  • Execution plans now only displayed graphically if the option is enabled in the toolbar
  • Ambiguous columns now underlined in blue, rather than red
• Bug Fixes
  • Fixed issue with function call parameter info on CLR methods
  • Fixed issue with insert target columns lists being incorrectly identified
  • Fixed issue with auto-aliasing for column names in SET clauses
  • Fixed issue with auto-aliasing in sub queries
  • Fixed issue with object browser not sizing correctly at startup
  • Fixed some memory management issues
  • Assembly methods and properties are now delimited when necessary
  • Static assembly properties are now recognised correctly

Schema Inspector - 1.1.109

• Minor features
  • Added difference viewer overview bar
  • Added ability to search action list using text filter
  • Added markup tooltip to action list viewer
  • Added ability to ignore encrypted object differences and principal logins
  • Added new and more accurate dependency scanning
  • Added disabling / enabling of DML triggers around table restores
  • Added warning to output script while trying to script encrypted objects
  • Added more aggressive matching bracket removal during comparison
  • Added ability to correct the name of signature matched constraints
• Changes
  • Changed the way that counting is done to avoid non-comparable objects
  • Changed default naming for comparison scenarios to be more intelligent
• Bug Fixes
  • Fixed column set syntax
  • Fixed issue with creation scripts for database roles
  • Fixed issue whereby order of INCLUDE columns in relational indices were treated as differences
  • Fixed issues with syncing whereby an altered object needed to be dropped and re-created because one of its dependencies was dropped and re-created
  • Fixed issue with re-creation of triggers on views which were being altered through the dependency tree
  • Fixed issue with reading of some permissions under 2005 / 2008
  • Fixed issue with creation of full text stop lists in transactable mode
  • Fixed object presence checks to include the schema of the checked object
  • Fixed issue with marking filegroups as read only
  • Fixed issue with full text stop lists containing the same word in multiple languages
  • Fixed scripting of event notifications

Data Space Analyser - 1.0.318

• Minor Features
  • Refresh button to refresh the underlying data model and re-display the current report
  • View -> Reset Projection (also Ctrl+Right click) - Sets 3D view back to orthogonal
• Bug Fixes
  • Fix for reading heap tables from SQL Server 2000 databases

Data Inspector - 1.0.882

• Bug Fixes
  • When you have made a selection of tables, then you refresh, it now remembers your selection
  • Fixed issue where a grid could not be shown unless a data sync type was ticked
  • Fixed issue with syncing strings with \ at then end of a line

Click on the following links to download the updated versions of SQL Everywhere, Schema Inspector, Data Inspector and Data Space Analyser.