Adam Howitt's Blog

Dec 22
2004

Using Quantum Eclipse Plugin for SQL Server

At : 1:42 AM | Link | Eclipse, Coldfusion, SQL | Comments (5) | Send | 2689 Views |

I've installed and played around with Quantum and I have to say that while it works like a simple query analyzer it is missing quite a bit of functionality it could easily add.

The potential is there and some constructive feedback could help make this even better.

To install Quantum for Eclipse 3 to see for yourself, I've listed the steps to get you all the way to connect to a SQL Server.

  1. Download the latest build of Quantum from sourceforge (in my case quantum244_3.x.zip.
  2. Close Eclipse
  3. Extract the contents of the plugins directory into your Eclipse 3 plugins directory (in my case C:\Program Files\Eclipse\plugins
  4. Open Eclipse and select Window > Open Perspective > Other > Quantum DB and you see the default 3 panel setup.
  5. Download Microsoft SQL Server JDBC Drivers but remember that they can't be redistributed except within a single corporation by their terms and conditions.
  6. Run the setup.exe and choose custom setup if you want to place the drivers anywhere other than C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Driver for JDBC\
  7. Switch back to Eclipse and in the "Database Bookmarks" panel right click and select "New Bookmark"
  8. There is a default ODBC Driver installed but if you got this far you are trying to get to SQL Server so click "Add Driver"
  9. Click "Add External Jar" 3 times to add each of the three Drivers from the location you used above (C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Driver for JDBC\ by default on Windows). You should see
    • msbase.jar
    • mssqlserver.jar
    • msutil.jar
  10. Click Browse and pick the entry labelled "com.microsoft.jdbc.sqlserver.SQLServerDriver"
  11. Select Type "Microsoft SQL Server" and then click Finish
  12. Click Next and then enter your userid and password for the datbase you are connecting to
  13. For the JDBC URL you will use the following template:
    jdbc:microsoft:sqlserver://{server_name}:{port};databaseName={db_name} replacing server_name, port and db_name with your settings. By default SQL Server runs on port 1433 in case you are unsure.
  14. Click Next and enter the friendly name you want to use for your bookmark
  15. Click Next if you want to select a schema to display or Finish if you want to show them all
  16. If all is well you should see the new bookmark in the left hand panel. Right click the bookmark and select connect to retrieve the database information.
I'd like to see updateable resultsets for tables queries, table columns and properties. There appears to be only one script generation operation presently to Drop an item - what script as SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE?

The quick list is a nice feature if your schema has lots of tables and the recent SQL statements saves using a large undo buffer.

Even better is the Quantum SQL Log which records each SQL statement it attempts.

This is one of several posts you'll see this week as I join the Eclipse bandwagon.

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  1. Have to try this Quantum thing out also but thus far I've been really happy with Aqua Data Studio (http://www.aquafold.com/). Very good general purpose query and administration tool.

    Posted By Erki Esken : Posted At 12/22/04 4:55 AM
  2. I just took a quick look at the feature list of Aqua Data Studio and Quantum just doesn't hold up at this point. That said, as an Eclipse plugin it has the capacity to improve fairly quickly.

    Posted By Adam Howitt : Posted At 12/22/04 8:45 AM
  3. Oh, another wishlist feature - edit .sql files and save the editor!

    Posted By Adam Howitt : Posted At 12/22/04 11:06 AM
  4. This actually came up recently on a thread on the CFEclipse mailing list. I also found Quantum plugin limited and drew up a list of items which I was considering implementing myself:

    No copy and paste No Undo No ability to abort long running queries No shortcut key to execute the last query No drag and drop of table names etc. from schema tree No context table/column related help such as in Aquadata studio

    Some other recommendations were SQLExplorer (which I'm currently using) and DBEdit.

    Posted By Kola Oyedeji : Posted At 12/23/04 5:01 AM
  5. Wow! Just installed SQLExplorer and it rocks. Exactly what Quantum isn't!

    Posted By Adam Howitt : Posted At 12/23/04 10:35 AM
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