Default options

rbennet8

In the older versions of sql compare and data compare you could set the options one time and go about using them. With the new version, you have to set them for every project and it appears if you edit the project, they get set back to the original defaults. Is there a way to set the option defaults? I don't think it is an improvement, to always set the options when comparing a new database.

JonathanWatts

Hi there,

Any new projects will be created with the default settings, however project options will be persisted if you later edit the project's servers,databases, user details, etc.

Can you describe a scenario where the project's options are lost on editing the project?

Many thanks,

Jonathan

Tom Harris

Hi,

there is a workaround for the problem you describe that I have been using with SQL Compare/Data Compare 5.

1) Create a new project and set up the comparison options that you want to use for all projects.
2) Give this project a useful note - something like 'Master Copy'
3) Right click on the project and select 'Locate on disk'. Change the properties of the project file to read only. This will ensure that you cannot accidently change the master options that you have set up.
4) Now, when you want to create a new project use 'Clone' rather than 'New'

This technique allows you to avoid setting up a custom set of options every time and is just as quick

Thanks,

Tom Harris

Red Gate Software

thies

rbennet8 wrote:

In the older versions of sql compare and data compare you could set the options one time and go about using them. With the new version, you have to set them for every project and it appears if you edit the project, they get set back to the original defaults. Is there a way to set the option defaults? I don't think it is an improvement, to always set the options when comparing a new database.

I would have to agree here. I like the way I can see my older projects, but I do not like having to reset my options everytime I build a new project.

Jonathan, you describe that new projects will use 'default' options. How can I change these default being used so I no longer have to remember re-setting my prefered options?

JonathanWatts

The default options cannot be changed. We may change this in future versions, but at the current time Tom's workaround is the only way to do this.

Regards,

Jonathan

Dominick Reed

Is it possible you could give us an idea of which option defaults don't match what you typically need?

We had hoped that the defaults that we ship with the product are what most users typically need. If there are a few that aren't set sensibly, we should be able to get these changed for later maintenance releases, or at worst, allow for some way for the user to overide them.



Thanks !

Dom

mrichmon

It is more of a concern with SQLDataCompare than with SQLCompare, as there are more options that vary there.

I don't think you could have them "sensibly set" in a way that would meet each person's needs. Depending on the environment each person who uses your project will have their own settings they want.

I mentioned this during the Beta testing and several people who were also doing Beta testing agreed.

The clone is not very convinient workaround - it is clumsy in my opinion, but can be used until the product is fixed.

rbennet8

I would have to agree with mrichmon.
The defaults I chose are for our specific environment. We develop software and I am trying to keep a lab environment with multiple servers up to date with latest version of databases.
I check permissions, white space, user permision, force column order, statistics, and fill factor. But this is because of our environment and what we want to achieve with the synchronization.
While the clone method works, the older version was a much more friendly user experience with defaults.

Dominick Reed

Hmm...

We'll need to have a think about this. The intention was to encourage people to use projects as we found that a great many people we spoke to, never took advantage of the time they could save. We wanted to give flexibility in being able to set different options for different projects, and if you had a configured project, you could always duplicate it with the clone button.

Once you'd set up a project, you could still change your data sources if need be (as before) but that you were working with your own set of options.

It was expected that the user would then swap between a few projects they've configured and always work with those, even if they frequently changed the data sources within that project. If you're finding that you create a new project for every single comparison, then yes, I could see how the defaults could be troublesome.

But this has to be taken into context of the limitations of the old projects. There's plenty of time taken saving projects with meaningful names, having to open and save to locations on your machine and the lack of flexibility in only having one set of options at any one time.

I hope that goes someway to explain the reasoning behind them. The new way does require a slight rethink in how you work with projects and options, but it can give you greater flexibility and save some time.

:-)

Dom