Introduction
Have you ever opened Toad and wondered what the 'little blue book' button on Toad's main toolbar was for? Or why this blank 'Project Manager'
docked panel took up so much room on your Toad desktop? This tutorial will show you how to take this enigma of a Toad screen and transform
it into your most indispensable Toad time-saving tool. Toad's Project Manager represents a paradigm shift in the development of new windows and functionality in Toad. Instead of providing the user
a new GUI interface for an Oracle operation, the Project Manager (PM) intends to deliver to the user a centralized screen to manage their
most frequently related objects. The effort to enhance the productivity of Toad has since been followed up with the
Action Palete
and the Action Console.
Most IT professionals do not live exclusively in the Oracle database. Instead, they are using the power of the Oracle database to provide information to their custom web pages, applications, batch jobs, and much more. So someone using Toad to access the database is most likely also using spreadsheet, web development, word processing, and other applications. Toad's Project Manager provides a centralized area for the user to manage ALL of the items for a given application, task, or YES - a project. This could be a collection of tables, stored procedures, database jobs, ftp folders, web pages, documents, etc.
For example, I have a project labeled TOADSOFT. I can use the PM to manage everything I need for http://www.toadsoft.com's content.
Each open project file will have its own project 'tab' visible at the top of the PM window. This
picture shows 2 project files open and the Database Connections tab. The database connections tab allows you to fire of PM commands
without needing to add objects associated with that connection to a particular project.
What Can I Put in a Project?
A project is only as powerful as the project items you have added. Here is a list of all the available node types for a project:
| Node | Label | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Project Folder |
| The overlaying organizational unit. This can contain other project folders, other types of folders, or other content. You can also add a 'sub-project' to a project. The subproject information will be stored in the main project file. |
| File Folder |
| Represents a folder on a local or network disk. |
| File |
 *
| Represents a file on a local or network disk |
| FTP Folder |
| Represents a folder on an ftp server. Contains FTP files. |
| FTP File |
 *
| Represents a file on an FTP server. |
| DB Schema |
| Represents a connection to a schema on a database. Can contain database objects. |
| DB Object |
 *
| Represents an object residing on a database. Must be contained in a DB Schema node. |
| URL |
| Represents an URL and can act like a shortcut to that site. |
| To-Do List |
| Allows you to track assignments for a project, includes reminders. |
| Named SQL Statement |
| Allows you to manage your most frequently used SQL statements by name. |
* This icon will vary depending on the file association or db object type. The icons shown are the default for file and the icon for db objects of type table.
How do I Add Something to a Project?
There are two basic methods of adding objects to a project. You can find a database object in Toad and add it to your project from there, or you can manually specify the object to be added from the Project Manager itself.
Adding a Database ObjectIf you have already found your database object using Toad, you can easily add it to your project. You can mouse-right-click on the object in the Schema Browser and choose 'Add to Project Manager.' You can also add objects from Toad's Object Search dialog. It's important to remember that you can select MULTIPLE database objects and add them to a project simultaneously. If you have more than one project open, Toad will prompt you to choose the project you want to add the object(s) to.
Adding Other Types of ObjectsIf you want to add a particular database connection, or a To-Do list, simply:
- Select your project
- Click on the 'Add Item' button drop-down
- Select your project node type
- Supply the required information.
Now that you know what can be included in a project, let's take a look at fun things we can do with them.
Project Manager Operations
To see just how powerful the Project Manager really is, bring up the options dialog by pushing the options button
Let's go further down the list to "Index-> File Folder Item". Here you have the option of sending the object DDL script to the file,
or doing a Toad Object Compare.
Toad will allow you to compare the DDL of the stored DB Object against a file that contains the DDL for the object. This gives a
programmer or DBA an easy way to ensure that their stored DB objects match what they have in the DDL 'libraries'. Remember, you could
do this against a local or FTP folder file!
Another powerful Drag-N-Drop operation is on a "Schema -> Schema" operation. You can configure the PM to automatically do
a Compare Schemas on a simple Drag-N-Drop. You only need setup the Compare Schemas options once. This might be helpful for DBAs
who are responsible for keeping Development and Production environments synched.
Here we have a portion of the Double-Click option permutations. For example, look at the options you have for what happens when
double-clicking on a Schema node. Perhaps a Report Writer frequently works with the Query Builder. By simply double-clicking
on a Schema Node, the PM will automatically open the Query Builder. If no current connection is present for that schema, the PM
will automatically establish a connection to the appropriate database.
For file folder items, the default is to Load the file to its default associated program. You can tell what this program
is by looking at the file icon to the left of the file folder item. In options under the "Associations" tab, you can specify
what program(s) you want to be available for files based on their file extension. This seems fairly straightforward for file folder
items, but this functionality is ALSO available for FTP folder items. By double-clicking on a HTML file in a FTP Folder, the PM will
automatically download the file to a temp directory and open it for you in the given program - in my case Textpad. Here we have a portion of the Pop-Up Menu (what's available on a Right-Click operation of a node in the PM) option permutations. Another powerful aspect of the PM is its integrated Source Control functionality. For file items you will be able to do normal SCC
operations, assuming that the given file resides in a defined workspace for your project. Team Coding operations will be available for many
schema node types. Another nice feature the PM provides is a pre-defined list of "Open With..." programs for given file types. Windows can take forever to
compile a list of programs to open a file with. The PM will only list those programs you've added for the given file types in the
"Associations" options group. One final note regarding Right-Click Operations on Schema Nodes - all of the Right-Click operations available from within the
Schema Browser are also made available in the Project Manager. Managing Toad ConnectionsDid you know that
many members of the Toad development team use the Project Manager to help develop, document, QA,
and maintain Toad? In fact, the PM is probably the most popular window in the Toad Shoppe. One reason for this perhaps is the ability
of the PM to manage your Oracle connections. Once defined in the PM you can choose skip the Toad login screen when starting Toad.
Here's how:
Schema Connection Icons
You can always easily connect and disconnect a schema by doing a R-Click operation on the Schema Node. And if you ever request an operation on a Schema Child Node, the PM will establish the connection for you if necessary! The Connection TabSoon after the Project Manager debuted as a new feature in version 7.5 of Toad, we realized that the Project Manager not only was consolidating existing features from other parts of Toad, but it was also INTRODUCING new features found only in the Project Manager. This was not really a problem, but something that nagged the developers was the fear that no one would bother to take the time to add database specific nodes to a project to see which features were available. To address this, the 'Connection Tab' was introduced. This tab displays all of your active connections. So now, as long as you have at least one active connection open in Toad, you can ALWAYS take advantage of the Project Manager's feature set. Let' take a quick look at what you can do here. 
In the above graphic, you can see for my session of Toad, I have three connections open. These are listed on the 'Connection Tab' of the Project Manager. I can now issue commands against these connections using the Project Manager. My personal favorites are:
Tips & TricksHere are some additional pointers and ideas on how to fully exploit the Project Manager:
|
on the PM window. In the PM, we can configure what happens on
Double-Clicks, R-Clicks|PopUps, and Drag-N-Drops. Let's look at Drag-N-Drop's first.
- to arrange your Project
Child nodes in any order you want.