Hallelujah. Finally SQL Server Management Studio has caught up with the rest of the world and started offering intellisense within SQL Server Management Studio. Here's some screen shots:
CTRL-J brings up a list of all available objects for a FROM clause
Specifying part of a fully-qualified name (which you all use, right?) followed by a period displays all available objects
Functions are available
Intellisense is also supported in the SELECT clause when you type an alias followed by a period.
... and in the WHERE clause too
Parameters in functions and stored procedures is supported although I have to say the experience here hasn't been quite so good. CTRL-J doesn't seem to do anything and the sequence of events that leads to the parameter list displaying is completely arbitrary. I simply cannot get the parameter list to appear on demand. In fact, I don't even have a screen shot for you because I cannot get the parameter list to appear but I know its there somewhere, I saw it yesterday. I've posted to Connect about this and you can comment here.
OK, you get the idea by now. I've been playing around with this for a few days now and am fairly pleased with it. It seems less obtrusive then Redgate's SQL Prompt which I ended up switching off even though initially I was rather enamored with it. I'd like to see the following enhancements though:
- The candidate list can cover up a lot of the rest of the SQL statement as you can see in some of the screen shots above. I'd like to have the option to make the candidate list translucent. I've posted to Connect about this and you can comment here.
- The support for common-table expressions (CTEs) is non-existent. When I say non-existent I really mean it because it doesn't support intellisense either from inside the WITH block or when you are using the CTE in another query. I guess the reason for the latter is that intellisense works using the metadata within the system catalog and CTE definitions are not in that catalog; regardless, I'm disappointed that CTEs are not supported. I've posted to Connect about this and you can comment here. UPDATE: I ask, they listen. CTE support is coming in CTP6. great news!
There's a few other features as well and syntax highlighting is probably the main one. Observe.
I reckon this one is going to save me a lot of time. How often do you make a syntax error and not notice until after you execute? Happens to me constantly.
The last thing I want to point out is support for regions. .Net developers will be familiar with the #region...#endregion construct but in SSMS its a little different because regions are defined by batches of code. Below are before and after shots using regions:
OK, that's a pretty good run-through of some of the new features coming in SSMS. Any questions, let me know or better still head to Buck Woody's blog and tell him.
-Jamie
This screen shot was taken from an interim build between CTP4 and CTP5