SQL Object Search

It has been quiet around SQL Object Search for a while now... I've spent quite a bit of time working on the licensing model and found that the components I had planned to use were way too restrictive for my taste and imposed too much on the customer. This means that I had to completely revise that part of the plan and write the licensing code myself. This won't be as elaborate as I had initially envisioned, but then again, as the customer, that's the one part of the code that you care the least about.

With the coding for the licensing in work now, the time line has been extended and I hope to have the product ready for deployment by early April. In the meantime, the software is still used on a daily basis by about 40 beta tester and runs rock solid.

I'll keep everyone posted on the progress

The time since the last BLOG here was spent getting the code release ready as well as creating the website for the product and get the payment services setup. We are going to offer PayPal and Google Checkout payment services which can be used from our website. The software also allows you to purchase a license directly from within the software.

I expect the new website design to be ready and available by mid October, hopefully even before that. The release of the software will follow shortly after that. The beta team is currently testing the feature complete version with only the registration, purchase, and activation pieces missing.

Here is a preview of what the web site will look like:

As promised, here is a screenshot of the latest version of SQL Object Search.
Click to see the full size image.

Hi there,

Let me introduce myself. My name is Marcel Isler. I'm a software engineer and I have been in this field for nearly 25 years now. I started writing software when I was 15 years old and it has been my occupation and my passion ever since then.

I've been using many different programming languages and C# 2.0 has become my current favorite. I've also been working with many different SQL databases in the course of my career and I'm currently working on projects that use Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and 2005.

I started writing SQL Object Search about 5 months ago when I had to do some investigation on SQL code usage in fairly large databases with around 2000 stored procedures per server. Not being able to easily find references to other stored procedures, tables, views and functions was very frustrating and there were barely tools available to do the job and the ones that I could find didn't work the way I was envisioning how the process should work.

I am now at the point where I have a small group of beta testers using the software on a daily basis and the feedback has been very positive. I plan to have the final release version ready by early September 2006.

Here are a few highlights of SQL Object Search:

• Search for text inside of table definitions, view definitions, stored procedures, functions and triggers inside of all the databases of a server instance.
• Fast searches, usually within 2 seconds.
• Four search modes allow the user to search for very specific patters, i.e. contains, starts with, ends with and exact matches. This is done case insensitive and on a word basis.
• Intuitive Windows User Interface, with features similar to Visual Studio 2005, i.e. docking of the different window components, persistence of the window layout between sessions and so on.
• SQL Syntax coloring of the source code just like in Query Analyzer.
• Search result window with sorting and filter capability.
• Connect to Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and 2005 using Windows or SQL authentication.
• No code needs to be installed on the SQL Server itself.

Well, I think that's it for today... I'm going to take some screenshots and post them in the next few days.

Thanks for reading and I hope you are just about as excited about this tool as I am :)