What do you like best about dbForge Studio for SQL Server?
* I tried many similar products and decided on this one because it had the best features for this price point.
* The IDE is similar to Visual Studio, which makes it comfortable.
* Good control over SQL-formatting
* Supports DB backups and restores
* Straightforward tools for editing DB objects, including generation of "create" or "alter" statements to carry out the changes
* Data and Object comparison tools
* Good query tool, including some nice options for how the output from queries is viewed. For example, you can execute several Select statements at once and have the output for each one in its own tab. Likewise, it's nice to be able to view the output in a split view (with the SQL) or by itself to view more rows. I also like that I can execute Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
What do you dislike about dbForge Studio for SQL Server?
* Error and Output logs are common to all open tabs. In other words, if have many SQL tabs open and execute many different statements from those tabs, the output and errors are all in a common log. This makes it much more work to quickly see the output or errors from a particular SQL statement that execute. The output and error logs should be part of each open tab (just like the "Data" and "Text" areas are.
* I wish I could pick a SQL Formatting profile from the toolbar and format my SQL based on that profile. You can have multiple profiles in dbForge Studio, but you have to change which one is the default before you can apply it to your current SQL. That's more work than it should be.
* PL/SQL Developer, a tool I used for years with Oracle, had many features that I wish dbForge Studio had (see below):
* I wish there was a simple way to execute a long script, one statement at a time. In other words it would start with the first statement, then pause for you to click to have it execute the next one. This would allow me to test it out (slowly) and stop as soon as the first error occurs. Then potentially address the issue and resume where it left off.
* I wish I could right-click on a row or cell from the output of a query and quickly open a new SQL window to look at data in a related table, based on a value in that row and a foreign key relationship that exists. For example, I want to know what a particular numeric value represents in a lookup table, or I want to look at all the rows in a child table that match a particular value I'm clicking on. This would be way more useful and simple than the Master-Detail Browser in dbForge Studio (which has to be manually set up and saved for every scenario that you're interested in).
* I have lots of saved SQL statements that I use. I wish they could be linked to a table in the Database Explorer, as a quick way of accessing them. For example, right-click on a table and have a submenu for templates that have been linked to that table. This would be a better way of organizing useful queries rather than having to store all of them in the file system. There would need to be flexible ways to relate them. For example, I have many databases that are the same, and it would be nice if a SQL template could be related by table name, so I could right click on that table in any of the databases and access the SQL templates I've saved. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
