

Show HN: SqlSmash, A productivity plugin for Sql Server Management Studio - latishsehgal
http://www.sqlsmash.com/

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hobs
I really like the simple search (and useful keyboard shortcuts) to jump to an
object, something that is fairly tedious in SSMS. (expand, expand, expand,
pick folder, use filter or type dbo.stuff in a large group of objects, hope
you didnt add a typo!)

The find all references is also useful, I really don't like either scripting
sys.comments or using the find dependencies as they are both tedious. This may
be specific to my use case, but finding the tree of dependencies n levels deep
is something I find myself doing and it is a pain in the neck. (find
references, now find references to those objects, now find references to those
objects, pull apart this mess)

I like the quick info as well, though alt+f1 usually does this for me, if I
can get the information without blowing out the result set or opening a new
window, that's great.

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latishsehgal
Great feedback. Thank you!

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gregd
I would love to try this out, but one thing that's stopping me is pricing.

What price point do you intend to set this at once it's out of beta?

Any plans on supporting older versions of SSMS (say 2008 r2)?

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latishsehgal
I haven't finalized the pricing yet, but it should not break the bank. I am
going to start with SSMS 2012, and if there's a demand to support older
versions, I'll do that. I am curious what you would consider as a reasonable
price for this? Also, I think you can use SSMS 2012 to connect to older Sql
Server Databases. Is there a reason for you to use the older SSMS?

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wvenable
I consult to a lot of different businesses and nobody is running SSMS 2012 --
it's all 2008 R2. I think if you want to target the most developers for SQL,
you'll likely find that's by far the most common version. It's a very
conservative market -- I probably won't see 2012 until long after the next
version is out.

~~~
latishsehgal
Is it possible to download the SSMS 2012 express version and use that?

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untothebreach
This looks like a great plugin, but I couldn't help but think about the fact
that I am grateful that I don't have to work in SQLSMS anymore.

~~~
ZenoArrow
What's wrong with SSMS? I use it daily at work, feel pretty productive in it,
not sure what features I'm really missing out on.

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manuletroll
This looks nice, I'll probably take a look at it as I spend an unfortunate
amount of time in SQLSMS.

As an aside, I would have liked to be able to know a bit about the plugin's
features without needing to watch a video (but I guess you'll certainly flesh
out the website once the plugin is ready to be sold).

~~~
latishsehgal
Thanks. Yes, the website will definitely be better in the future. I have been
working on the tool by myself for a while and right now I just wanted to make
sure that this is something people would use.

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spo81rty
This looks great. Couple questions

1\. How is your find all references different than the show dependencies
function?

2\. Your quick info function looks similar to just hitting Shift-F1 when
highlighting an object. Yours maybe doesn't even do as much. Are you aware of
the Shift F1 command?

~~~
latishsehgal
Results wise, "Find all references" should show you a flattened list of the
hierarchy that you see with show dependencies. Also, the idea was to make it
keyboard friendly.

Quick Info might potentially involve to show more information (definition,
references etc). If not, and if nobody sees value in it, I might take it out.

~~~
spo81rty
Sorry I meant Alt-F1 by the way.

After installing your product it has been sitting for several minutes grabbing
all the schema or something... so I can't get even get quick info to work at
this point when Alt-F1 works every time.

But very few people even know about hitting Alt-F1. Might make sense for your
quick info just to call that same function so people even know how to do it.

~~~
latishsehgal
Good point. I'll try to make the initial loading faster, and rethink the quick
info feature.

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rip747
having a "find all references" feature is a god send. can't tell you how many
time i've scripted the database to a new query window and did a manual search
just to find out all the place a stored procedure is being used.

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latishsehgal
Awesome! Thanks for letting me know. I would have thought "Find References"
and "Quick Info" would be the most underused features and maybe I should take
them out.

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JohnBooty
"Find References" is definitely the feature that made me say "YES!" when I
watched the demo!

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latishsehgal
This is a revelation for me. I'll definitely leave it in there now.

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JohnBooty
It's a convenient way to answer the common question of, "if I change ____,
what else will break?"

It's of course possible to do this by looking through
systables/information_schema/etc (I'm sure this is how you're doing it) but I
always forget how. :)

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bigtex
I use Toad for Oracle and you can execute the current statement with ctrl +
Enter. Your execute current query feature is exactly what I have been looking
for! I can't believe that SSMS has never implemented such a feature.

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chewmieser
The quick jump-to-object functionality is killer for me, seems like a great
plugin!

Looking forward to playing with it

~~~
latishsehgal
Good to hear. Thanks!

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wehadfun
I probably need to rewatch the video but the summary feature will probabaly be
nice because i deal with 2K line scripts

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latishsehgal
That's a lot of sql :), and the perfect scenario to use the summarize feature.

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iamthepieman
I also spend a lot of time in SQLSMS and would buy, or recommend my company to
buy, a tool like this.

~~~
latishsehgal
Awesome! Thanks!

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azurelogic
This is amazing! It's like ReSharper for SSMS. Just forwarded it to our entire
dev group.

~~~
latishsehgal
I am a huge R# fan myself. To be honest, that was the original inspiration to
create this tool.

