Oracle 7.3 - Oracle 23ai 20+ years of experience Version (Released: )

KeepTool Release Notes

KeepTool 16.2.1

15 Nov 2024

  • Compatibilty update for patched Oracle 19 and higher in direct TCP/IP mode.
  • Improvements for different DPI settings on used high resolution monitors.
  • Up to version 16.2.0, you could use UPPERCASE, lowercase and InitCap editor formatting commands for regular selections only.
    Now these formatting commands have been implemented to work in block selection mode as well (ALT + mouse or Shift + ALT+ Cursor).
  • The setup installs Wibu CodeMeter runtime version 8.20. It is strictly recommended to update the CodeMeter runtime, especially on your network license server. Download the runtime setup from https://www.wibu.com/support/user/user-software.html .

KeepTool 16.2

05 Sep 2024

  • KeepTool 16.2 now protects your stored database connection passwords from unauthorized access by using AES-256 encryption.
    • To create the password store, you will be prompted to enter your new personal master password.
    • The next time you start the application, KeepTool will ask you to enter the master password for verification, unless the “Remember password” option has been selected. There is a button on the settings dialog to make KeepTool forget the saved master password.
      Another button allows you to change the master password.
    • Please keep a copy of your password in a safe place. You may need it later to unlock the password store on another computer.
    • The password store is part of the file %appdata%\KeepTool16\Projects\KTProjects.XML .
      KeepTool 16.2 upgrades the XML file automatically into the new format and keeps a backup copy of the original.
      For security reasons, please consider deleting copies of KTProjects.XML that are belonging to prior KeepTool versions, i.e. version 15 and earlier.
  • There is a new menu item Schema | Purge recycle bin.
    If you are connected as SYS, the menu item purges the DBA recyclebin, in all other cases the user recyclebin.
    Emptying the DBA recycle bin can significantly improve SQL performance for Data Dictionary queries on dba_freespace and subsequently on Hora’s tablespace overview page, especially for Oracle 19 patch level 18 and later.
  • When you create a FastReport from either Data Content or SQL Query resultset, Hora now embedds the SQL query into the report. You can add more embedded detail queries on your own.
    If you save the report into a FR3 file, all queries are saved within that file.
  • For your convenience, both Data Content and SQL Query resultset pages now show
    • Built-in navigator buttons on the record view similar to the overview grid.
    • A scrollbar at the bottom of the recordview for record navigation.
  • Hora‘s File|Open menu item allows you to select multiple files. Each file will be opened on its own tab.
  • When using automatic code completion in the SQL editor, Hora 16.1 added automatically a table alias to the table name.
    In KeepTool 16.2, we added a new combobox ‘Table reference’ to the ‘Automatic Code Completion’ section of the Settings | SQL page tab.
    There is a choice of 3 options now:

    • ‘by Table Alias’
      This implements a logic similar to Hora 16.1. When using automatic code completion within a JOIN clause, Hora automatically suggests a table alias and supports you to continue building up the ON clause using the suggested table alias.
    • ‘by Table Name’
      When using automatic code completion in a JOIN clause, Hora automatically suggests references using the table name rather than an alias.
    • ‘None’
      When using automatic code completion in a JOIN clause, Hora adds the table name only. There is no support for completing the FROM clause any further.
      This is very similar to Hora 16.0 and before.
  • The integrated editor component has been enabled for per monitor DPI scaling.
  • The „create INSERT script” dialog now shows an additional option for bulk INSERT ALL. If the number of records in the dataset is below a given minimum, Hora generates single INSERT statements rather than bulk INSERT ALL.
  • Up to version 16.1, Hora queried SQL parameters on the SQL page only for the “execute query” command, i.e. when executing a single SQL query.
    Hora 16.2 now introduces parameter substitution for the “execute script” command according to these rules:

    • You can initialize SQL parameters using SQL*Plus-like syntax:
      VAR DEPARTMENT_ID=100
    • Before executing any SQL statement within the script, Hora queries any unknown SQL parameters, i.e. parameter values that have not yet been initialized by either
      • a VAR command, or
      • any previous query for that parameter value within the same script execution.
  • For the in-memory grid mode, the formatting of numeric aggregates in the footers of both data content and SQL query resultset grids have been improved.
  • The setup installs Wibu CodeMeter runtime version 8.10b. It is strictly recommended to update the CodeMeter runtime, especially on your network license server. Download the runtime setup from https://www.wibu.com/support/user/user-software.html . See also Wibu Security Advisories.

KeepTool 16.1.0

23 Apr 2024

  • In Hora, both data content and SQL query data grids are now hiding the filter row for an empty resultset.
    This is to avoid users from entering new data into the filter row rather than the data grid.
    Once there is at least one data row, the filter becomes visible.
  • Data content menu items for INSERT, UPDATE, MERGE and DELETE script generation now display an options dialog. It allows you to preview and customize your settings.
    There are two action buttons “Save to file” and “Copy to clipboard” to perform script generation in either way.
    You can also tell the dialog to save your current settings as default for later use. Defaults can be changed in the settings dialog as well.
  • If you select a column name in the  “Change column order” dialog, it focuses the appropriate column in the underlying data content grid.
    In KeepTool 16.1.0, the column gets highligtes as well. That makes it much easier to find a specific column by name.
  • Support for BOOLEAN data type in Oracle 23ai.
  • Several improvements on the PL/SQL Types page:
    • The types overview grid shows additional checkbox columns and include supertype information.
    • There is a new menu item on the overview page that allows you to change properties such as ‘final’ and ‘instantiable’.
    • The attributes grid now shows data type information similar to the tables | columns grid including data type icons.
    • New context menu items have been added to the attributes grid. Now you can add, modify and delete type attributes.
    • The source code window now shows the DB object browser, similar to the PL/SQL page.
  • For direct TCP/IP connections, the default IP type has been changed from ‘IP V.4’ to ‘IP V.4 / V.6’, i.e. both.
    You can revert the setting to IP V.4 if you want to retain the prior logic.
  • As you may remember, there is a ‘Copy Query by key values’ button on the tables | constraint exceptions dialog. It copies a SELECT statement and a WHERE condition based on key values put into an IN (..) clause.
    In this version, we added another button ‘Copy Analysis SQL’. It copies the SQL that fills the data grid.
    If you are a developer, you can pass that query to your customer’s system. If necessary, it can be executed there by either Hora Free or any other Oracle SQL client software.
  • The context menu of the list of tables on the left side of the data content browser has got two new menu items that duplicate the logic of the table’s page
    • “Truncate” opens a modal dialog to truncate the table, i.e. delete all data without using rollback segment.
    • “Show DDL” opens a modal dialog that shows the DDL of the table, view or synonym, respectively.
  • On the sessions page, the ‘Lock wait graph’ tab has been renamed to ‘Blocking sessions’.
    The tab now displays a multi-column tree view and shows more information for blocked sessions.
  • On the SQL page,
    • The button ‘New resultset window’ has been renamed to ‘Execute query in new window’.
      The button both executes the query and displays the resultset in a new data grid.
    • If you have more than one resultset window, a green icon indicates the active data grid, i.e. the resultset from the most recent ‘Execute query’ command.
    • The new context menu item “Format | Create UUID” inserts a Universally Unique Identifier or Windows GUID, respectively,  (e.g. {0D927531-AB4E-4E0E-9801-2EE2002CD662} at the current cursor position.
      You can also use the shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Shift+U.
  • The tree view in our new Flat detail data browser now shows the foreign key name for detail tables having more than one foreign key reference to the same master table.
  • Tables page
    • The “move tablespace” context menu item for the tables|overview grid has been renamed to “move”.
      In the modal ‘move’ dialog, the tablespace isn’t mandatory any more for Oracle 12c Release 2 and later.
      There are several new options such as “move online”, “update indexes”, “compression” and “logging”.
    • Similar to the data content browser, the tables | columns data grid now uses a blue font for required columns. Both primary key and unique columns use a bold font.
    • As you may remember, the “Key” column in the left of the tables | columns grid shows a ‘key’ icon for columns that are part of a primary key or unique constraint.
      Now you can see there a small orange dot for other indexed columns. That allows you to see at a glance which columns are indexed and which are not.
    • All dialogs that allow you to add a constraint now default to ‘deferrable, initially immediate’. That allows you to temporarily defer them using SET CONSTRAINTS ALL DEFERRED. Insert/update/merge scripts generated from the data content grid now contain this statement as an alternative to temporarily disabling constraints.
    • In the master/detail view, you can now click the lower right corner to flag or unflag the table.
    • The new menu item “DDL for PostgreSQL” works similar to the “Show DDL” menu item. It shows you a DDL that has been adapted for PostgreSQL databases. If you are working with PostgreSQL databases as well as with Oracle databases, this may help you to copy your table structures from Oracle DB to PostgreSQL. The DDL includes tables, indexes, constraints, foreign keys and comments. Furthermore, it does a first step for converting triggers. As required in PostgreSQL, it creates a pair of a trigger and a function. You have to complete the function coding based on the generated template on your own.
  • The following data grids now allow vertical row sizing by dragging the divider in the row indicator area:
    • Data content
    • SQL query resultset
    • Query parameter input.
  • The Rebuild index dialog now allows you to switch logging on or off.
    As a rule, logging is not needed in most cases. The index can be rebuilt anytime and the nologging option speeds up the process.
  • If you are selecting spatial data in the data content grid, you can use the context menu item ‘show geometry’ to open the SDO Geometry viewer.
    In KeepTool 16.1.0 the map view works also for 3-dimensional data by using a 2-dimensional projection to the 2-dimensional surface.
  • There is a new tab “SYSAUX Occupants” on the tablespace page. It shows you all occupants of the SYSAUX tablespace sorted by used space and the name of the move procedure (if applicable).
  • Both “Pipes” and “Outlines” pages have been moved to “DBA” group because of required privileges.
  • For traditional dbms_jobs, there is a new context menu item “Convert to Scheduler DDL …”.
    Similar to “Show DDL” it produces code to create a dbms_scheduler job. Optionally, the traditional job can be dropped.
    The menu item has been enabled for multi-select, i.e. you can convert multiple jobs at once.
  • There are several improvements on Hora’s Tables – Master/detail tab:
    • On the right side of the master/detail diagram, there is a new data grid. It displays column names and data types of the currently selected table.
      If the mouse cursor moves over a table in the diagram, the data grid displays the appropriate columns.
    • For your convenience, the context menu has some new items for the mouse-over table.
      Each menu item duplicates an existing context menu item of the tables overview grid, but uses the context of the mouse-over table:

      • Show DDL
      • Browser Data Content
      • Copy SELECT statement
  • The ORDS | Clients page now displays granted privileges and roles for each client.
    The context menu shows menu items to grant a role to an ORDS client and revoke, respecitively.
  • The ER Diagrammer now displays rectangular rather than direct diagonal connections.
  • The setup installs Wibu CodeMeter runtime version 8.00a. It is strictly recommended to update the CodeMeter runtime, especially on your network license server. Download the runtime setup from https://www.wibu.com/support/user/user-software.html . See also Wibu Security Advisories.

KeepTool 16.0.0

18 Sep 2023

  • The visual appearance of KeepTool has been modernized. There are less visible lines cluttering the user interface.
    The new Light Style rendering option allows you to display all supported controls without double or thick borders, extra outlines, and other visual noise. Light Style enables extra cell and header paddings, as well as lightweight borders in a control.
    When Light Style has been disabled by unchecking the appropriate checkbox in Extras | Settings | Behavior, Data Grids look visually overloaded but fit more data.
  • You can now establish secure direct TCP/IP connections. In expanded view, the connect dialog now allows you to select a secure connection type:
    • Direct TCP/IP connection
      The connect dialog establishes a regular direct TCP/IP connection without enhanced security.
    • Direct SSL connection
      This is the recommended type in case a secure connection is needed.
    • Direct SSH connection
  • There is an entire new page for Oracle Rest Data Services (ORDS). You will find the appropriate button on the “Additional” sheet.
    On the bottom of the page is an always-visible data grid for ORDS schemas. Here you can enable ORDS for your schema.
    The main area contains the following tabs:
    Overview ORDS Modules

    • ORDS Templates
    • ORDS Handlers
    • ORDS Privileges and associated mappings, roles and modules
    • ORDS Roles and associated roles and web service mappings
    • ORDS Objects and members
    • ORDS Clients
    • ORDS Approvals
  • SQL page
    • Now displays the last file change timestamp in the header. Similar to the standalone SQL editor, it is displayed right of the file name.
    • Recently changed SQL files are now highlighted in green. As time goes by, the green tone fades to the regular white background in three steps.
      It is same same logic that has been introduced to database objects in prior versions.
      The settings | Other page has an option “Highlight recently changed database objects and SQL files” that controls this behavior.
    • The tree view displays a slightly changed icon for the currently selected item. It shows a pen in-front of the document symbol.
    • For large SQL scripts (+10K lines), the “Execute Script” menu item now allows you to optionally disable visual feedback and dbms_output logging.
      in order to boost script execution performance.
  • Tables page
    • On the tables overview grid, there is a new submenu item ‘Copy to clipboard | truncate statement.’
      Similar to the already existing submenu items, it copies a TRUNCATE statement to the clipboard. The template provides some options in comments.
    • The modal dialog “Truncate table” has got a new “cascade” option.
    • On the Constraints tab, both menu items “Enable constraint” and “Disable constraint” have been enabled for multi-select.
    • There are two new context menu items for indexes. Both are enabled for multi-select:
      • Make Unusable – makes the index unusable. You may consider dropping indexes or at least switching them unusable before inserting mass data.
      • Rebuild Online – reverses the unusable operation.
  • Data Content
    • Create INSERT script now creates bulk INSERT ALL statements. You can change the number of records collected into one statement in the settings dialog.
      You can set bulk size to “1” to enforce the creation of traditional non-bulk statements.
    • INSERT scripts are now split in multiple files if the size exceeds a value that can be changed in the settings dialog.
    • INSERT scripts may use direct path operations, if the appropriate checkbox in the settings dialog has been enabled.
      It adds the /*+append*/ hint to INSERT statements and a COMMIT after each.
    • Script file writing performance has been improved by using buffered streaming technology.
    • The new dialog “Flat detail data browser” is available from the context menu of the data contents grid.
      It opens a tree view that contains the current table and all detail tables according to foreign key relations. Depending on your foreign key hierarchy, a table may appear on more than one node.
      The root node shows the same data as the data content browser. It is a good idea to keep the amount of root data small.
      You can go down the hierarchy of detail tables and display subordinate data in a flat view that bypasses foreign key relations, i.e. shows all subdetail data of the root node.
      That means, you can see all detail data of a subordinate table in a flat view without grouping by master tables.
      The main purpose is creating INSERT scripts from a master table and all relating detail tables.
  • Both Data Content and SQL query result grids as well as the record views show data type icons next to each field caption.
  • The PL/SQL call interface now lists procedure and function names in mixed case as defined in the source code rather than upper case as queried from the ALL_ARGUMENTS data dictionary view.
    This feature can be disabled by unchecking the checkbox “Mixed case procedure names in PL/SQL call interface” on the Settings | Behavior tab.
  • Synonyms page:
    • New menu items “Compile” an “Rename”
    • The existing “Properties” menu item now drops and re-creates the synonym with changed properties.
  • Scheduler detail information is now displayed below the master grid rather than inplace.
    This results in better performance and improves usability.
  • The database link properties dialog now gives you more space for entering data.
    You can click the button next to the password field to copy the username into the password field. Nevertheless, in most cases this is not recommended for security reasons.
  • There is a new “Flags” tab on the settings dialog. It allows you to customize the captions of the color tags.
    As you may remember, color tags can be assigned to several database objects using the image combo box in the overview data grid.
  • Tablespaces page
    • Data file grids on both tablespaces and database pages now display a percentile usage of the auto-extensible range, similar to the display on the tablespace overview grid.
    • In version 15, there have been two inplace detail grids within the Tablespace | datafiles grid. A “+” button on the left of each data row opened a detail level for showing information about free space fragmentation and segments stored in the datafile.
      Now both detail grids are displayed below the datafiles grid, separated by a slider. Besides some SQL optimization, this results in a better overall performance.
      Nevertheless, queries on both DBA_FREESPACE and DBA_EXTENTS dictionary views may be slow on some databases. Purging the recycle bin may help in some situations.
      See Queries on DBA_FREE_SPACE are Slow (Doc ID 271169.1) for more information.
    • The “add datafile” dialog now comes up with new default values:
      The filename is a copy of the currently selected datafile including ‘_new’ suffix.
      Both ‘initial’ and ‘next’ size parameters are derived from the ‘next’ size of the currently selected datafile.
      “Max’ size is assumed to be unlimited.
    • Sizes are displayed in GByte, if the size represents an integer Gigabyte value
    • The DDL for tablespace creation now contains the ‘MAXSIZE UNLIMITED’ clause if the size equals the actual maximum datafile size of your database
      Unlimited datafile size is assumed for a maxsize of 4194302 * <db_block_size> in case of small data files and 4294967293 * <db_block_size> in case of big data files.
      In a trailing comment, you still can see the appropriate numeric value.
  • You can see tablespace quota on three Hora pages in different contexts: Tablespaces | Utilization by User, Users | Tablespace utilization and Schema | Summary.
    The display has been improved and unified as follows:

    • Quota and current usage are displayed together in one grid. The tab caption is now “Utilization by User” or “Tablespace utilization”, respectively
    • Unlimited quota is displayed as ‘UNLIMITED’ rather than the internal dictionary representation of ‘-1’
    • There is a new checkbox that indicates if the user has been granted the UNLIMITED TABLESPACE system privilege that allows bypassing any restrictions given by quota.
    • The Schema – Summary page now displays tablespace utilization and, if available, quota.
      Prior Hora versions did not list tablespaces without quota, e.g. if the unlimited tablespace privilege was been used.
  • On the CDB page,
    • there is a new option to open a PDB in restricted mode,
    • The Create PDB dialog has got two new optional parameters:
      • PDB max size
      • Path prefix
  • The database page now displays the time zone file version from v$timestamp_file on a prominent place. This may help you to avoid ORA-39405: ‘Oracle Data Pump does not support importing from a source database with TSTZ version XX into a target database with TSTZ version YY.’ For more information, look at the DST_ prefixed database properties that are displayed in the data grid on the right.
  • The SGA page now
    • Shows component size info from V$SGA_INFO rather than V$SGA.
      For backward compatibility, the prior information is still available on the last “deprecated” tab.
    • Unit of measurement has been changed to MBytes.
  • The ‘Default Roles’ dialog on the user’s page now evaluates SYS.USER$.DEFROLE and displays the result in a radio group with items NONE, ALL, and selection.
    If you change default roles, the selected default roles will be applied if the radio group entry ‘selected’ is active.
    For the remaining radio group items NONE and ALL the appropriate attribute will be passed to the ALTER USER statement.
    In case the current user has no privileges to query SYS.USER$ table you must select a radio item on your own.
  • The setup installs Wibu CodeMeter runtime version 7.60c. It is strictly recommended to update the CodeMeter runtime, espacially on your network license server. Download the runtime setup from https://www.wibu.com/support/user/user-software.html . See also Wibu Security Advisories. The minimum allowed CodeMeter runtime version has been changed to 7.20.
    KeepTool 16.0.0.4 updates Wibu CodeMeter runtime to version 7.60d that fixes two security issues in third-party libraries.

KeepTool 15

KeepTool 15.0.4

19 Apr 2023

  • KeepTool 15.0.4 comes with support for Oracle 23c free developer edition.
  • For Oracle 12 and later, the ‘Grant object privileges’ dialog now allows you to grant READ privileges to tables and views.
    As you may remember, it grants read only access without lock privilege on the object.

KeepTool 15.0.3

20 Feb 2023

  • KeepTool 15.0.3 comes with improvements for the “Create table by file import” dialog.
    • A new checkbox “All Fields as String” allows you to import all columns in VARCHAR2 format.
    • The data type mapping dialog now allows you to change data type mapping.
      Hora automatically determines data types by data analysis.
      Now you can overwrite recognized data types and choose a string format for example.
    • For Oracle 12c Release 2 and later, column names are now truncated to a length of 128 characters rather than 30 characters.
  • The query that populates the Tables|Indexes data grid is now compatible with Oracle 21c.
    Instead of the v$object_usage data dictionary view, for Oracle 21c and later Hora now queries dba_object_usage (or user_object_usage, repectively).
  • We added a new checkbox “Show background sessions on sessions overview page” to the “Other” page of the settings dialog.
    When checked, the sessions overview data grid includes also background sessions. The default (unchecked) lists – as before – only user sessions.

KeepTool 15.0.2

18 Aug 2022

  • KeepTool 15.0.2 now supports Oracle 21c JSON data types
    You can now create tables using the new Oracle 21c JSON data type.
  • Oracle 21c BLOCKCHAIN tables and IMMUTABLE tables
    You can now create blockchain tables and immutable tables.
    Reverse DB and ShowDDL command create the appropriate DDL
  • New: Oracle Optimizer Environment
  • Both the data content browser as well as the DB object browser on the right side of the SQL editor window show tooltips for
    • Describing column headers
    • Looking up foreign key values
    • Showing the entire data record in an instant record view.
  • Some tooltips now display an icon, for example to visualize the data type of the column.
    There are new icons for both numeric and character data types as well as PL/SQL Boolean and %ROWTYPE parameters.
  • Changes to the Hora database page:
    • Below the Alert log data grid is an new tab control. For better query performance, it allows server-side filtering of the queried time horizon: Last hour, Today, Last 24 hours, Last 7 days, or All.
    • There is a new tab “Trace files“. It can be used for Oracle 12c release 2 and later.
    • The data grid on the left shows recent trace files including timestamps. The tab control below allows server-side filtering similar to the Alert log page: Last hour, Today, Last 24 hours, Last 7 days, or All. The data grid on the right displays the content of the currently selected trace file. This gives you the opportunity to view trace files without logging on to the server operating system.
      As of now, the trace file viewer is classified as ‘experimental’. This is because unfortunately, on some databases query performance on both V$DIAG_TRACE_FILE and V$DIAG_TRACE_FILE_CONTENTS dictionary views may lag behind your expectations.
  • We made some enhancements to the “locks” tab on the sessions page as follows:
    • New column “time” displays the locking time in seconds
    • Red highlighting of blocking locks
    • Yellow highlighting of
      • User locks held by a blocking session
      • Requested user locks
      • Possibly remote blocking locks in a RAC environment
    • Gray highlighting of system locks
  • If the data contents option “Show CLOB and XML content in grid” has been enabled, both data content and SQL query resultset grids show the LOB content in an embedded LOB edit field. The initial size of the popup window that displays the LOB content now has been enlarged significantly. Depending on the position of the LOB edit field in the grid, the popup initially occupies up to 7/8 of the width respectively height of the data grid. That makes it much more easy to assess LOB content on a first glance.
  • The DB Compare options dialog gives you two new choices:
    • The checkbox “Hide identical objects” is checked by default. When unchecked, DB Compare also lists objects that are identical in both databases.
    • A new memo box “Include objects like” has been added. It works similar to the existing “Exclude objects like” memo.
      That allows you to speed up analysis in case you want to compare a small bunch of objects only.
      Object names in the include list are put together by OR, whereas exclude objects are using AND.
  • The setup installs Wibu CodeMeter runtime version 7.50. It is strictly recommended to update the CodeMeter runtime on your network license server as well
    Therefore, download the runtime setup from https://www.wibu.com/support/user/user-software.html

KeepTool 15.0.1

02 May 2022

  • KeepTool 15.0.1 adds a new tab ‘wallets’ to the database page that displays Oracle encryption wallets.
    Wallets are part of the Oracle Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) option.
  • We added a new button to the code snippets panel (SQL editor windows) that allows you to rename existing code snippet tree items.
  • When trying to establish an SQL*Net connection using a password that has been expired or is within the grace period, Hora prompts you to mandatory respectively optionally change the password. If the password has been stored in the connect dialog it becomes the (not readable) initial value of the password box. That allows you to continue using the existing password if allowed by the password policy of the database.
  • Every time you generate a SELECT statement using the context menu or drag and drop operations, Hora displays a modal dialog to select a subset of columns to be included in the generated SELECT statement. Besides the existing buttons “Check all” and “Uncheck all” columns, we added a new button “Check required”. It checks all NOT NULL columns and unchecks NULLable columns.
  • The CDB page now contains additionally columns, especially for refreshable plugable databases.
    New context menu item to clone a remote PDB via database link and set refresh options.
  • A couple of context menu items on the overview grid of both the “Jobs” and “Scheduler jobs” pages have been enabled for multi-selection.
  • The schema summary page now shows 2 additional data grids that display the following statistics:
    • Number of materialized views grouped by refresh mode and staleness.
    • Number of jobs grouped by type (scheduler/dbms_job), enabled flag, “system” property.
  • As you may remember, there is a shortcut “F9” for the “Create or replace” context menu items available on the PL/SQL, Triggers and PL/SQL Types pages.
    Now we added another (invisible) shortcut “Ctrl+S”.
  • For PL/SQL objects, there is a new menu item “Show wrapped DDL”. It works similar to “Show DDL”, besides it wrappes the PL/SQL code before display.
    This allows you to produce scripts for wrapped code for distribution without prior wrapping the code in your development database.
  • New security features have been implemented:
    • Data Execution Prevention (DEP) compatibility
    • Address space layout randomization (ASLR)
    • High entropy ASLR (for 64-bit applications)
  • Applications are now Terminal server aware (TSAWARE option).
  • When Windows power management goes into suspension mode, for example when you are closing the lid of your notebook, KeepTool applications now automatically commit any open transaction.
    That prevents data records from accidentally being locked beyond your working time. You can change this behavior in the settings to either “rollback” or “keep transaction alive”. The latter copies the logic of prior versions..
  • Hora‘s MDI interface has been replaced by a tabbed layout. It comes with a similar user experience as before but eliminates deprecated MDI technology.
  • Various improvements for High DPI displays and remote desktop sessions.
  • There is a new Hora menu item “Help | Check for new KeepTool version”. It triggers the same check that regularly runs once every third day.
    The check runs as a background task and displays the result in a tray message.
  • After setup, the SQL page shows two sample root entries “Personal SQL” and “Team SQL”
    The context menu item “Add new root entry” allows you to plug-in another repository root located anywhere on your network. This menu item now has been renamed to “Register new root entry”.
    As of Hora 15.0.0, the “Delete” context menu item could be used to unplug a selected root entry.
    KeepTool 15.0.1 disables the “Delete” menu item for root entries.
    There is a new item “Unregister root entry” to unplug a root directory. It unregisters the root entry from Hora and retains all referenced files.
  • The setup installs Wibu CodeMeter runtime version 7.40b. It is strictly recommended to update the CodeMeter runtime on your network license server as well
    Therefore, download the runtime setup from https://www.wibu.com/support/user/user-software.html .

KeepTool 15.0.0

06 Dec 2021

  • KeepTool 15.0.0 now supports Oracle 21c Database as well as Microsoft Windows 11.
  • Database object flagging
    • Both on Hora‘s tables/views and PL/SQL overview grids as well as on the data content browser, query builder,sequences and PL/SQL types overview grids you can now flag individual database objects. A combo box in the new “Flag” column allows you to select a symbol such as a colored bullet, a warning mark, etc. Use the built-in filter technologies to filter objects by symbol.
    • The data object browser in the right of the editor window displays the symbols as well, but you cannot change them there. Press F5 to refresh.
    • Hora‘s master/detail view displays the symbols within the shape that represents the table.
    • ER diagrammer displays the symbols in both listboxes for selected and remaining tables.
      Two new buttons for each listbox allow you to select flagged or unflagged tables.
  • The connect dialog now allows you to star connections as favorite.
    The list of recent connections shows the ‘favorite’ property as first column.
    Use build-in filter technologies to filter favorite connections.
  • The embedded SQL editor component allows you to drag and drop code snippets from a tree view into the code window. Up to KeepTool 14, the data source was a text file CodeSnip.txt located in
    %programdata%\KeepTool14\Templates .
    Now we moved to XML in order to support multi-line snippets. The data source has been relocated to
    %appdata%\KeepTool15\Templates\CodeSnip.xml and can be changed using the settings dialog.
    You can now add, change and remove Code snippets interactively. Press the “save” button to persist changes. Use the “refresh” button to reload changes made in another instance of Hora.
  • Hora‘s data content browser now shows a tooltip hint for the caption of the detail table view.
    The hint displays the table comment of the detail table, similar to the existing behavior of the master table.
  • The header of Hora‘s Java overview page now shows the concatenated package path for the currently displayed Java object.
  • Hora‘s data content browser page allows you to display a detail view of a page that has no foreign key relation to the master table.
    Now you can add multiple free detail tables. After one detail table has been added, there appears a new tab for adding the next detail.
    If you quit the “select detail table” dialog using the Cancel button, the tab is deleted, besides it is the last tab.
  • Hora‘s data content grids and record views now display a ‘key’ icon in each key column header.
  • Hora‘s Tables | Master/Detail diagram now displays the table’s comment as a tooltip.
  • For Oracle 11g an later, Hora‘s session | open cursors page
    • Displays an additional column “User”
    • Shows records in gray if
      • The cursor type column does not contain “OPEN”, or
      • The optimizer column is null, or
      • The new user name column does not match either the “User” or “Schema” column displayed in the sessions overview data grid.
  • There is an additional tab “Network client” on the sessions page.
    It shows network adapters that have been loaded. That may indicate that encrypted network communication (SQLNET.ENCRYPTION) has been enabled as well as active data integrity options (SQLNET.CRYPTO_CHECKSUM). Furthermore, it lists more client information such a OCI client version and client character set.
    The overview grid displays two new columns “Encryption” and “Checksum” in the “Client machine” group that summarizes the most relevant information regarding encryption and checksumming.
  • There is a new “Direct TCP/IP” options tab on the settings dialog. The existing combobox to select the “IP version” has been moved there.
    Two new combo boxes “Encryption” and “Crypto checksum” implement a behavior similar to the sqlnet.ora levels ACCEPTED and REQUIRED for both SQLNET.ENCRYPTION_CLIENT and SQLNET.CRYPTO_CHECKSUM_CLIENT entries.
    Default value for both is “Accepted”. Change to “Required” mode to enforce security. “Requested” mode is not yet implemented.
  • Hora‘s schema dependencies diagram has been moved from the database page to users page.
    Double-click a schema to navigate to the appropriate user in the overview grid.
  • Hora’s Container database overview page now shows
    • NLS character set and NLS language
    • Another detail grid that displays recent PDB plugin violations.
  • Hora‘s create DB link dialog now shows a combobox for the referenced service name. In case of a SQL*Net connection, it lists the TNS aliases from the client. Make sure the selected alias has been configured on the server as well. Maybe you want to share one tnsnames.ora include file with all machines.
  • For PL/SQL object types, Hora now shows a new context menu item “Generate XML schema”. It creates a XSD file using Oracle’s dbms_xmlschema package and shows it in a popup window.
  • Several improvements for XML schemas and XML_TYPE tables and columns
    • New options added to the create “XML schema” dialog
    • All XML DB pages now are filtered by the current schema, similar to other Hora pages.
    • XML elements page shows the element’s XSD part as a detail information to the tree view.
    • New XML columns sheet.
    • Added dependecies tab.
    • Improved DDL generation for XML_TYPE tables and columns
    • Reverse DB generates code to register XML schemas.
    • DB Compare considers XML schemas.
  • Hora‘s refresh group data grid on the Material Views page
    • Shows an additional column that counts the number of refresh children in the group.
      That allows you to identify non-trivial refresh groups on a single glance.
    • Both Show DDL and Destroy menu items are enabled for multi-selection now.
    • There is a new context menu item ‘change’ to modify a refresh group.
    • For non-trivial refresh groups, the ‘DDL’ creates an empty refresh group and then adds material views one by one.
      That makes your manual changes easier to perform.
    • MAKE() is followed by a CHANGE() to make sure both NEXT_DATE and INTERVAL parameters are set.
  • SQL query builder now uses bold font for primary key columns.
  • ER Diagrammer has got a new context menu item for entity/table shapes.
    “Copy table name” allows you to copy the table name to the clipboard.
  • DB Compare now includes Oracle Contexts, as far as the user has select privileges on DBA_CONTEXTS.
    There are no ALL_ and USER_ views for contexts.
  • DB Compare logic for creating schema consolidation script has been improved:
    • The DB object treeview now has got a root item “Schema”. If this “Schema” item is been focused, the schema consolidation script processes all changed objects.
      Unchecked objects are excluded.
    • If a DB object type node such as “Tables” is focused, the schema consolidation script processes all changed objects of the appropriate object type..
      Unchecked objects are excluded.
    • If a DB object node such as “EMPLOYEES” is focused, the schema consolidation script considers the focused DB object only.
  • The SQL Editor now shows additional elements for the bread crumb bar that shows the file path:
    • Buttons to navigate the history
    • Combobox button
    • Refresh button
    • Explorer-like search box
  • Form painting on resize has been improved resulting in a smoother experience.
  • The setup 15.0.0.0 installs Wibu CodeMeter runtime version 7.30a. KeepTool 15.0.0.1 comes with the most recent CodeMeter version 7.40
    It is strictly recommended to update the CodeMeter runtime on your network license server as well.
    Therefore, download the runtime setup from https://www.wibu.com/support/user/user-software.html .
  • A new option “Settings | Data Content | Single-line INSERT statements in script” has been added in version 15.0.0.2.
    It allows you to put each INSERT statement within an INSERT script into one single line.
    When unchecked (default), both the VALUES clause and LOB handling appear on separate lines below the INSERT INTO line.
    In each case, Hora keeps inserting a line break after a hyphen at EOL to avoid SQL*Plus from interpreting it as continuation character.

KeepTool 14

KeepTool 14.2.3

14 Jul 2021

  • In KeepTool 14.2.3, the Schema | Policies page has got two new menu items to enable respectively disable an Oracle policy.
  • For Oracle 18c and later, Hora now displays the database version including patch levels such as 19.10.0.0.0 by querying another Oracle data dictionary column.
  • KeepTool now includes FastReports 2021 reporting system that introduces several new features:
    • New digital signature object and digital signature support for PDF Export
    • Support of vector SVG format in TfrxPictureView object
    • Export report to SVG file
    • Two-Track Pharmacode barcode
  • The Tables | “Create table by file import” dialog
    • Now has a new option “Keep leading zeros” for XLSX, XLS and ASCII file import.
      If the checkbox has been activated, columns containing numerical values with leading zeros are imported into VARCHAR2 columns instead of NUMBER columns.
    • You can now change data in the preview grid or delete entire data records prior to import.
  • We added a new checkbox “User must change password on first connect” to Hora’s create user dialog
    If the option is checked, Hora creates the user and expires the password. As a result, the user must change the password on first connect.
  • The header of Hora’s Explain Plan dialog now also shows the NLS_SORT session parameter, since this setting may influence the execution plan.
  • On Hora’s Types page,
    • There is now a toggle switch “Show all columns”. It works similar to the PL/SQL and other pages and allows you to temporarily hide the PL/SQL object settings column group for better performance.
    • If you switch from collection types to object types, Hora automatically navigates to the collection’s elements object type (i.e. a record type) if it is defined in the same schema.
    • The DB object browser on te right side of the SQL editor has got a new tab for types.
      As of now, it lists types and allows you to drag and drop the type name as well as the DDL of the PL/SQL type into the editor window.
  • There are two improvements for database links
    • Reverse DB now scripts public database links only if there is a depencency on the current schema
    • Hora’s DB link page now shows a new ‘dependencies’ tab that lists objects depending on the Oracle database link.
  • For Remote desktop connections, Hora does not automatically deactivate active tooltips in data grids and editor windows any more. This had been introduced years ago where poor remote network connections where common. Now it depends only on the setting “Show active tooltips in grid view”.
  • The SQL Editor now remembers both its form size and the positions of DB object browser splitter and the splitter for the list of Oracle PL/SQL procedures.
  • The dropdown list of the user name combobox on the login dialog now shows all known user names of the database that could be found in the list of recent connections, plus SYS, SYSTEM and your Windows user name.
  • In KeepTool 14.2.3, a new installer option integrates the SQL editor into the Windows Explorer.
    A shell extension adds a new context menu item “Open with KeepTool” to the Windows Explorer.
  • The setup of KeepTool 14.2.3.2 installs the latest Wibu CodeMeter runtime version 7.30
    It is strictly recommended to update the CodeMeter runtime on your network license server as well to fix two security issues hat have been fixed in this release
    Therefore, download the runtime setup from https://www.wibu.com/support/user/user-software.html .

KeepTool 14.2.2

19 Apr 2021

  • In KeepTool 14.2.2 the Filter Box for in-memory filtering data grids now supports a new token-based style. This style helps end-users easily differentiate between colorized filter items and modify or clear individual filter conditions. The new style is also available in built-in Filter Builder dialog.
  • The Schema | Policies data grid now shows detail information regarding security relevant columns.
  • Oracle 21c is now supported
  • Data fetch performance in direct mode has improved
  • LOB read/write performance has been improved
  • The column reorder dialog is now resizable to allow the column names listbox to expand.
    If you drag a column name near the top or bottom of the listbox, the content of the listbox now scrolls automatically up or down.
  • Both the integrated as well as the standalone SQL file editor allow you to visually compare two SQL files.
    Here we optimized the painting of the visualization bar on the right that highlights the relative position of each change within the compared files.
  • Because of an increase in the number of users running the tools over remote desktop during Covid there have been done some optimizations. Using the WTS API the handling of RDP session change notifications (WM_WTSSESSION_CHANGE) has been implemented to avoid flickering/repainting issues.
  • As you remember, maybe, the “Schema dependencies” tab on the “Schema” page displays a diagram that visualizes super- and subordinated dependencies of the current database schema to and from other schemas. In the left of the box that represents the current schema you can see all ‘master’ schemas the current schema is having by either a foreign key reference or an object dependency to the appropriate ‘master’ schema. In the right of the current schema you can see all ‘detail’ schemas having either a foreign key reference or an object dependency to the current schema.
    In KeepTool 14.2.2, we added a data grid to the right of the diagram. If you click any schema in the diagram, the data grid lists all objects of the selected schema having a foreign key reference or an object dependency to an object in another database schema. For the database object currently selected in the data grid, another data grid below shows all dependent objects from any other schema directly connected by a line.
    For more information, see our blog article “Oracle schema dependencies“.
  • If you download a file such as an XLSX workbook from the Internet, MS Windows marks the file as blocked because it may harm the computer. As a result, if you tried to import a blocked file using Hora’s data import wizard, imported data was scrambled. To process the file correctly, it should be unblocked before import either by marking a checkbox in the properties sheet of the Windows explorer or a Powershell command.
    In this KeepTool version, Hora’s data import wizard automatically detects blocked files and, after user confirmation, unblocks the file before opening it for reading.
  • Reverse DB now shows a new combobox that allows you to choose the encoding of the generated DDL script as well as subsequently where required generated data insert scripts.

KeepTool 14.2.1

23 Feb 2021

  • Access control lists are used to allow network communication from your PL/SQL code, sending emails for example.
    For managing access control lists using Horas database page, KeepTool 14.2.1 added the following privileges to both ‘Create ACL’ and ‘ACL privileges’ dialogs: http, http_proxy, smtp, jdwp.
  • As you may remember, the “Find PL/SQL” dialog shows a button that allows you to navigate the underlying PL/SQL page to the PL/SQL object selected in the find results grid.
    In this version, we added another button “Open all” that opens all PL/SQL objects found, each in its own editor window.
  • In version 14.0.2 we added a new option “Grid scrollbars always visible” to the “Behavior” page. The option is now turned off by default, i.e. the scrollbar thumb is initially hidden now for a clearer view. It appears when the user hovers the mouse pointer over the grid or scrolls through its content. Hovering the mouse pointer over the scrollbar thumb or its movement path transforms the thumb to a traditional scrollbar. Moving the mouse pointer away from the scrollbar reduces it back to the thumb. The thumb disappears if the mouse pointer is stationary or the control is not scrolled for some time.
  • This release adds smooth scrolling support to data grids, tree lists and other components, while using the in-memory grid mode.
  • The column filtering popup within data grid column headers now has got a new Excel-inspired appearance.
  • The connect dialog now shows below the grid that displays recent connections a find panel. Here you can search for a string in all columns including groups. The data grid highlights all matches.
  • A new option “Data content | Use timestamp literals for date values in script” allows you to use TIMESTAMP literals for DATE values in INSERT, UPDATE and MERGE scripts. The benefit is, you don’t have to bother here with date/time format settings any more. Nevertheless, you can disable the option to continue using string literals that will be converted by TO_DATE().
  • In generated insert scripts, the VALUES clause now appears on a new line in order to make it easier to find corresponding field names and values while reviewing or editing the script.
  • On the database | parameters page as well as the other database parameter grids on farther pages that show a dedicated subset of parameters, we added a new menu item ‘Backup SPFile to PFile’. It is available on the CDB root databse only.
    We recommend to backup the SPFile before changing any SPfile parameter. In the unexpected case the database does not come up properly after a SPfile parameter change and subsequent database restart, it gives you the option to alternatively restart the database using the saved PFile. See our February 2021 blog entry for an example.
  • The setup installs the latest Wibu CodeMeter runtime version 7.20.
    It is recommended to update the CodeMeter runtime on your network license server as well. Therefore, download the runtime setup from https://www.wibu.com/support/user/user-software.html .
  • The license manager has been updated and now lets you borrow licenses offline by transferring encoded files. The feature allows you to get our tools run temporarily over a 3rd-party network, especially if no direct license server connection can be established. Hence you never need to work without the help of our tools while installing or maintaining commercial or technical software on your customers sites.

KeepTool 14.2.0

03 Dec 2020

  • KeepTool 14.2 adds Oracle 20c support
  • The following dialogs now show a “reveal password” button inside the password box. It displays the password as clear text for the time the button is pressed.
    • Create User
    • Create Role
    • Change Password
    • Password Expiration
  • The new option “Data content | Escape control characters in script” introduced in KeepTool14.1.6 now additionally takes into account multi-byte Unicode control characters.
    They are scripted by their Unicode equivalent using the UNISTR(..) function.
  • Another similar option “Data content | Escape non-ASCII characters in script” forces all non-ASCII characters (either ANSI or Unicode) to be replaced by their Unicode equivalent using the UNISTR(..) function.
    Unicode control characters are escaped when either option is checked, since the domains of both options are overlapping.
  • In recent version KeepTool 14.1.4 we added a new “DbDoc Table ..” submenu item to for Hora’s “Tables” context menu item. It has been enabled to work for views now as well.
  • In KeepTool 14.2 there are some enhancements to the in-memory grid mode of Hora’s data content page.
    • When in-memory mode has been enabled, you can use the find box to search for a string in all columns of the data grid. The data grid highlights all matches.
      The search box has been moved now to the top-right of the datagrid, in-line with the group-by box on its right side. That saves some space to show more data.
      The position of search finds is highlighted within the scrollbar using yellow tags. A cyan tag highlights the currently selected data row.
    • Data Grid controls now allow users to calculate filter operands using formulas written as string expressions. By pressing the f(x) button in the filter builder, you can now utilize the expression editor (with auto-complete support) to customize formulas.
  • Optimized text measurement mechanism for single-line cells in grid views makes the UI more responsive and accelerates Best Fit grid column calculations – they are up to four times faster than in previous versions.
  • The setup installs the latest Wibu CodeMeter runtime version 7.10b.
    It is recommended to update the CodeMeter runtime on your network license server as well. Therefore, download the runtime setup from https://www.wibu.com/support/user/user-software.html .
    CodeMeter 7.10b includes a couple of security fixes and Wibu strictly recommends updating the runtime on all your systems including older KeepTool versions. See https://www.wibu.com/support/security-advisories.html for further information.
  • The Oracle container database (CDB) overview grid now shows the overall sum of opened PDB sizes in the footer area.
  • Please remember, on the SQL page, you can define bind variables as well as lexical SQL parameters using an identifier preceded by a colon (:) respectively ampersand sign (&). Hora queries and substitutes the parameters before execution. As of now, the input area automatically expands up to visible 6 lines and shows a vertical scrollbar for more lines. That allows you to enter multi-line parameters by pressing Ctrl+RETURN.
    Press either TAB or the post button (checkmark below the grid) to enforce line expansion while editing.
  • Support for Memoptimized Rowstore has been added for Oracle 18c and later:
    • The SGA page shows the new database parameter MEMOPTIMIZE_POOL_SIZE. On the CDB root, set it to a minimum size of 100M and restart the database to enable memoptimized rowstore.
    • The Tables overview grid shows two new columns Memoptimize Read and Memoptimize Write.
      A new context menu item “Mem Optimize …” allows you to change both flags.
    • Reverse DB adds the appropriate ALTER TABLE statement after constraints have been added, since an existing primary key is required for this option.
  • Support for shadow lost write protection has been added for Oracle 18c and later:
    • The “Create tablespace” dialog shows a new property LOST WRITE PROTECTION with the Contents dropdown list. Since this tablespace has to be a bigfile tablespace, the appropriate “bigfile” checkbox is marked automatically.
      This allows you to create a shadow tablespace that will contain the SCN numbers for tracked data files.
    • Both tablespaces grid view and datafiles grid view show a new checkbox column “lost write protection”.
      The configuration of this option will be part of a future release.
  • The “Show DDL dialog has got a new button “Open in SQL editor“. It copies the generated DDL into a new SQL editor on its own s tab sheet.
  • The popup menu that appears when you drag an object name from the DB object browser into the SQL code window, now contains a new “DDL (Create object) .. ” menu item.
    It works similar to the “Show DDL” menu items on the appropriate object overview dialogs.
  • A new checkbox option “SQL Page | Show non-printable characters” allows you to highlight the following non-printable characters using a gray font:
    Line break: ¶, non-breakable space (0xA0): _, soft line break: ¬, space:·, tab: ›.
    For example, that may help you to detect non-breakable spaces that are not allowed as spaces within SQL, e.g. when copying text from a web page.
  • The SQL filter comboboxes in both data content browser and tables|data content page show a dropdownlist of most recently used conditions.
    As of now, the dropdownlist is incrementally filtered by input search text.
    Furthermore, all column names of the database table are automatically added to the dropdownlist. That may allow you adding new filter conditions faster.
  • Up to now, the data content context menu item “copy to clipboard” copies the grid data to the Windows clipboard.
    The existing menu item has been moved to a submenu item. A new submenu sibling copies the SQL of the underlying query to clipboard.
  • Since KeepTool 14.2, the PL/SQL page | Call interface page generates an anonymous PL/SQL block for the selected procedure or function.
    All input variables are now initialized using a :PARAM parameter. When executed, Hora prompts you for parameter values.
    The similar feature on the SQL page that produces a call interface by drag/dropping a procedure or function from the DB object browser into the code window is unchanged, i.e. input variables are initialized as NULL values.
  • For Oracle 10g Release 2 and later, the Sessions | Open cursors page now displays
    • Another column group showing a summary of the SQL execution plan as retrieved from the V$SQL_PLAN view.
      The new columns may be null if the cursor has been swapped out of the library cache.
    • The execution plan below the SQL text, provided the cursor has not been swapped out of the the library cache.
      The new presentation is very similar to the existing “AWR” | “SQL history” view.
  • For further analysis, in KeepTool 14.2 both sessions overview and open cursors pages display the SQL_ID of the displayed SQL statement.
  • Syntax highlighting support for Oracle 20c PL/SQL keywords.

KeepTool 14.1.6

14 Aug 2020

  • KeepTool 14.1.6 can now be installed using the new Windows Package Manager.
  • You can now specify the character set, when saving CLob data to a file.
  • There is a new menu item ‘Set Attributes …’ on the Oracle scheduler jobs data grid. It allows you to change selected job attributes.
  • Improved Oracle PL/SQL profiler dialog appearance.
  • Search dialogs that can be called by Tables | Search column names, Search constraint names, etc now show
    • A data type icon (for either table or view, constraint type, etc.) in the first column
    • A filter row
  • The data content commands “Create INSERT script”, “Create UPDATE script” and “Create MERGE script” commands now all include
    • A “set sqlblanklines on” SQL*Plus command to allow blank lines within SQL
    • A “set define off” SQL*Plus command to prevent substitution of ampersand prefixed variables.
    • An uncommentable command to disable and re-enable all triggers
    • Another set of uncommentable commands to disable and re-enable foreign key constraints of detail tables
  • The SQL editor menu item “Query | Retrieve SQL from execution history” is now also available below Hora’s “Extras” main menu item.
    The caption of the menu item changed to “SQL execution history”.
    The SQL retrieved from history is now copied to the Windows clipboard rather than copied right into the editor window.
  • A new option “Data content | Escape control characters in script” forces INSERT, UPDATE and MERGE scripts created from data content to replace control characters by their numeric equivalent such as CHR(13) for carriage return (CR) or CHR(10) for line feed (LF).
  • The “Database | Alert log” grid displays a “host address” column instead of “instance ID” for compatibility with Oracle 19c.
  • You can delegate SQL command execution to Oracle SQL*Plus by using the “SQL*Plus” button on the SQL page.
    KeepTool 14.1.6 now introduces a SQL*Plus login script that will be executed right before executing the selected SQL text.
    The file SqlPlusLogin.sql is located in KeepTool’s templates directory and can be changed in “Settings | Other | Templates and code snippets directory”.
    The new feature especially is intended for users running Hora on a terminal server that cannot use SQL*Plus build-in login.sql script logic.
  • On Hora’s PL/SQL page, the “Show DB object cache” toggle switch has been renamed to “Show all columns” similar to Hora’s tables page.
    For performance optimization, the switch now toggles visibility of both column bands

    • DB object cache (requires select privileges on v$db_object_cache dictionary view), and
    • PL/SQL object settings.
  • The setup installs the latest Wibu CodeMeter runtime version 7.10
    It is recommended to update the CodeMeter runtime on your network license server as well. Therefore, download the runtime setup from https://www.wibu.com/support/user/user-software.html .

KeepTool 14.1.5

28 May 2020

  • The SQL editor menu item “Query | Recall SQL from command history” allows you to retrieve a SQL statement from the history of up to 1,000 most recently executed SQL commands. As of KeepTool 14.1.5, the history includes both SQL statements executed explicitly on the SQL page, as well as SQL statements executed implicitly by Hora’s context menu dialogs. As a rule, all commands that can be displayed in the SQL preview dialog are now collected in the SQL history, additionally.
  • The SQL page comes up with a couple of configurable SQL root entries from different file locations including network folders, maybe. Up to now, an unavailable network location could take some time until the operating system responds, delaying the startup of the SQL page. The latest KeepTool release initializes now each root entry in its own thread thus showing the SQL page much faster.
  • Application CPU usage has been optimized.
  • KeepTool 14.1.5 setup installs the latest Wibu CodeMeter runtime version 7.00b
    It is recommended to update the CodeMeter runtime on your network license server as well. Therefore, download the runtime setup from https://www.wibu.com/support/user/user-software.html .

KeepTool 14.1.4

24 Feb 2020

  • An new ‘Hostname’ tab on the connect dialog provides access grouped by both hostname and servicename as remembered from last login.
    To avoid confusions, the hitherto ‘Server’ tab sheet has been renamed to ‘Database’.
    Both ‘Database’ and ‘Hostname’ group captions include the Oracle database version number that as remembered from last login.
    Repeatedly connect again to your databases to subsequently update hostnames in your KTProjects.XML file.
  • Hora: Added a new “DbDoc for Table ..” submenu item to the “Tables” context menu item.
    It opens DbDoc for the subset of selected tables. You can multi-select as many tables as the DbDoc command line length does not exceed the Windows limit of 8192 characters.
  • There are two new menu items on the Container DB page to create a new PDB based on seed or clone an existing PDB.
  • There is a new DB compare option that allows you to exclude the NLS length semantics predicate in table column definitions from being compared.
  • More PDF/A options are available in the PDF export from integrated FastReport component.
  • When the dabatase connection has been lost, the data content browser saves the current workset in a temporary XML file below %APPADATA%\KeepTool14\Worksets.
    After restart, the data content browser restores the workset and deletes the XML file.
  • Two new option have been added to the extras | settings dialog:
    – SQL Page tab: New checkbox “Select search results” added.
    If checked, the editor component automatically selects search results from “Find” dialog.
    If unchecked (default) search results are highlighted, but not selected.
    – Behavior tab: New checkbox “Show tray notifications” added.
    It allows you to disable notifications that appear in the lower right of the form.
  • The MERGE script that can be created from the Data Content context menu, now asks you to select key columns from primary or unique constraints, similar to the UPDATE script.
  • The setup installs the latest Wibu CodeMeter runtime version 7.00
    It is recommended to update the CodeMeter runtime on your network license server as well. Therefore download the runtime setup from https://www.wibu.com/de/support/anwendersoftware/anwendersoftware.html

KeepTool 14.1.3

09 Dec 2019

  • On the AWR SQL history page, Hora now displays the SQL execution plan in the code window right below the SQL text.
  • The DB object browser on the right of the SQL editor window now allows incremental search. Just make sure the tree view is focused and start typing. Additionally, a new search box below the browser allows you to filter items by a search string.
  • The popup menu that appears when you drag a PL/SQL procedure or function name from the DB object browser into the code window, now contains three “PL/SQL call” items. Whereas the hitherto item is predicated “single-line”, one new “multi-line” item generates each argument on its own line including preceding “=>” argument names. Another new “select from dual” item generates a function call from a SQL statement rather than a PL/SQL block.
  • A new menu item “Selected object” | “Rewrite Oracle proprietary joins to ANSI SQL complient joins …”. has been added to both embedded editor windows as well as the standalone SQL editor.
    The dialog converts all Oracle proprietary joins to ANSI SQL compliant joins and shows a preview of the result. Compound queries containing more than one SELECT such as nested subselects, WITH, or UNION are not yet supported. Convert parts separately.
  • For identity columns, the Tables | columns view now shows a new identity generation type column (ALWAYS, BY DEFAULT) that replaces the identity checkbox.
  • We added a “New resultset window” button (and a menu item as well) to the SQL page.
    It creates a new empty SQL result set window that will be used incipiently by the next SQL execution. The hitherto used result set window keeps active including its data content until you close it manually. As a result, you can now keep multiple SQL result sets alive at the same time. The result set of subsequent SQL executions is always displayed in the most recently created result set window.
  • We added a new button “flush data” to Hora’s PL/SQL profiler dialog. It allows you to update statistics and refresh grid data without stopping the profiling utility.
  • There are two new options in DBDoc that allow you to exclude either constraint or index definitions from the database documentation. We added two new buttons to the right of the checkboxes that allow you to select or unselect all checkbox options at once.
  • DbDoc language option now defaults to your Windows language setting.
  • There are also some minor improvement on the layout of the DbDoc generated document, such as required columns are marked “X” instead of “NOT NULL”. Byte semantics is excluded from character column definition if it meets the session default.
  • ER Diagrammer has been furnished up with a toolbar. Menu items got icons matching the toolbar buttons.
  • ER Diagrammer: Added a new “DbDoc for Diagram ..” submenu item to the “Diagram” main menu item. It opens DbDoc for the subset of tables defined by the current ER diagram.
  • ER Diagrammer’s auto-layout is now a separate menu item. “Modify diagram” does not trigger the auto-layout any more.

KeepTool 14.1.2

24 Oct 2019

  • New context menu item ‘Cancel SQL’ on sessions overview page for Oracle 18c and later.
  • New Oracle 19c reserved words added to syntax highlighting.
  • If you drag-drop a procedure or function name from the DB object browser into the code editor window, a pop-up menu item allows you to insert an anonymous PL/SQL block that includes parameter declaration, procedure or function call, and print-out of the results. This call interface can be used for testing your PL/SQL code. Now we added another similar menu item that adds the procedure call including arguments only without the overhead of an anonymous PL/SQL block. This can be used to add a procedure or function call to your existing PL/SQL implementation.
  • DB Compare, Reverse DB and Hora’s “Show DDL” menu item now support the special syntax of Oracle CTX indexes.
  • In the connect dialog, the logic of the context menu item to remove a connection from the grid view is now also available as a button. You can find it below the data grid.
  • New “Refresh” button on DB object browser in code editor windows.
  • New “Show DDL” menu item on tables | triggers grid context menu.
  • Hora’s Show DDL command and both Reverse DB and DB Compare ignore DBMS_JOB$_<nn> jobs that have been generated implicitly by Oracle for classic non-scheduler jobs.
  • The setup installs the latest Wibu CodeMeter runtime version 6.90b. It is recommended to update the CodeMeter runtime on your network license server as well. Therefore download the runtime setup from https://www.wibu.com/de/support/anwendersoftware/anwendersoftware.html . Minimum OS requirements are either Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2.

KeepTool 14.1.1

14 Aug 2019

  • The data content menu item/button “change column order” is now also available for the SQL query result set on the SQL page.
  • Two new sub-menu items added to the  “Selected object” context menu of the SQL page:
    • “Expand View name to SQL definition” replaces a selected view name by the SQL text of the view definition.
      The same menu item has been added to the menu that pops up when you drag-drop a view item from the DB object browser into the SQL editor.
      This feature makes it easy, to analyze a view definition.”Expand View name to SQL definition” replaces a selected view name by the SQL text of the view definition.
    • “Add dbms_output.put_line(..)” adds the mentioned call to the next source code line to print out the selected variable.
  • The modal dialog that displays Oracle error messages has got a new “copy message” button that allows you to copy the Oracle error message to the Windows clipboard.
  • Deprecated PLSQL_DEBUG parameter on settings page, compile debug menu item and statusbar button have been replaced by PLSQL_OPTIMIZE_LEVEL.
  • Improved PDF/A output of integrated FastReport component
  • The number of skins provided be default has been reduced. We recommend using scalable vector skins such as “The Bezier”.
    Customize the %PROGRAMDATA%\KeepTool14\ExcludedSkins.txt file to show more skins.
    Mail your favorite skin names to our customer support as a suggestion to keep it enabled by default.

KeepTool 14.1.0

15 Jul 2019

  • KeepTool 14.1 installer now comes with a new visual appearance.
  • We added support for Oracle 19c database.
  • We added a combobox to the top of Hora’s Database | Alert log page to limit the time stamp range. Whereas the default keeps the last hour, you can enlarge the time span up to the whole log file. Furthermore, we added the following new grid columns: Module, Process ID and Container.
  • The new find panel on the alert log page allows you to highlight search text occurrences anywhere in the data grid.
  • KeepTool 14.1 ER Diagrammer now comes up without the two default pages “Entire diagram” and “Remaining tables”, to avoid producing a cluttered view for big schemas having a very large number of tables and foreign key relations. Rather you are prompted now to start with creating your first own diagram by selecting a reasonable subset of tables. The logic to identify remaining tables that are not covered by any diagram page is now available as a button in the diagram definition dialog.
  • A new vector skin Office2019Colorful has been added.
  • A new menu item “Schema | PL/SQL error backtrace analysis” allows you to paste the copy of an output of a DBMS_UTILITY.FORMAT_ERROR_BACKTRACE call.
    It analyzes the PL/SQL backtrace and allows you to browse related PL/SQL sources and open it on Hora’s PL/SQL page.
  • Implemented per monitor DPI awareness (Windows 10)

KeepTool 14.0.7

06 May 2019

  • In KeepTool 14.0.7, Reverse DB now allows you to export data as MERGE script as an alternative to the INSERT script. Use the radio group “statement type” to change.
    Furthermore, you can restrict the amount of data by entering a WHERE condition that can be applied to each selected table. For example, you can export records only that have been added or updated recently by entering a minimum value for the ORA_ROWSCN pseudo column that is available for each table. Reverse DB generates a sample WHERE condition based on ORA_ROWSCN and the system’s current SCN. Decrease the value to export more records. You can use the TIMESTAMP_TO_SCN( ) function to compute the SCN for a given timestamp within the recent past.
    Please remember, the ORA_ROWSCN pseudo column can be included in Hora’s data content views after both changing the “select ORA_ROWSCN” setting to either “automatic” or “always”, and unhiding the invisble ORA_ROWSCN column in the data content view.
    Create the table with ROWDEPENDENCIES clause for having ORA_ROWSCN associated on row level rather than block level.
  • Hora’s Sessions | Open cursors page shows in KeepTool 14.0.7 additional columns “last SQL active time” and “cursor type” (Oracle 11g and later).

KeepTool 14.0.6

15 Apr 2019

  • In KeepTool 14.0.6, Hora’s session overview page now shows both current and previous SQL, if both are available from the data dictionary.
  • The Sessions | locks page now shows below the locks grid both name and type of the locked object. In case the locked object is of TABLE type, the page displayse the ROWID and a button that allows you to copy to the clipboard a SELECT statement to query the locked row. Another button opens the SELECT statement in the SQL query resultset window, showing instantly the locked row data.
  • The “Find PLSQL” dialog is now a non-modal tool window that still stays on top, but allows navigating the underlying code window. It also shows a preview of the find results’s object source within the dialog.
  • The optional login script now allows you to use a :PARAMETER to enter a password or other sensitive information to avoid storing it within the script. If the parameter name either contains the substring PASSWORD or starts with the underscore character “_”, the input dialog displays a special character in place of any entered text. Use this for entering passwords, etc.
  • A new button in the expandable section of the login dialog allows you to open the login script in the SQL editor.
  • You can use shortcuts CTRL + and CTRL – from the decimal keyboard to temporarily increase editor font size, for example within a presentation.
  • There is a change of character encodings available in the editor component. You can now choose between any of:
    ANSI (compatible with Oracle SQL*Plus)
    UTF8 (without BOM, compatible with Oracle SQL*Plus)
    UTF8 BOM (with BOM, default encoding for MS-Windows)
    The default encoding for new files is UTF8 and can be changed in the settings dialog.
  • DbCompare has got a new ‘abstract’ comparable object type “Spatial Metadata” (USER_SDO_GEOM_METADATA) that allows you to compare spatial metadata such as bounding rectangle definition and SRID for spatial columns.
  • When using the SQL query builder from the SQL editor, you now will be asked whether to append the SQL at end of file or insert at cursor position. The choice can be changed later on at settings | SQL page | Query builder append at EOF.
  • In KeepTool 14.0.6, we added DBMS_LOCK_ALLOCATED dictionary view and AWR related views DBA_HIST_SYS_TIME_MODEL, dba_hist_database_instance, dba_hist_sqlstat, dba_hist_sqltext, DBA_HIST_BASELINE, V$OSSTAT, (and optionally uncomment DBMS_WORKLOAD_REPOSITORY package) to HORA_USER role.
  • Wibu CodeMeter runtime version 6.81 is included. Please update CodeMeter runtime on your license server to version 6.81 from https://www.wibu.com/de/support/anwendersoftware/anwendersoftware.html as well.

KeepTool 14.0.5

11 Feb 2019

  • KeepTool 14.0.5 implements improved trial license management.
  • Wibu CodeMeter runtime version 6.80 is included. Please update CodeMeter runtime on your license server to version 6.80 from WIBU-Website as well.
  • Enhanced right-to-left text support of several UI controls.
  • Improved performance of Hora’s DB object browser on SQL scratchpad for database schemas with tens of thousands of objects.
  • Improved performance on Java page.
  • The sessions | locks page now includes additional information for custom locks created by dbms_lock calls.
  • Removed “SQL” option from data export wizard. Use “Create INSERT script” context menu item instead.

KeepTool 14.0.4

17 Dec 2018

  • KeepTool 14.0.4 introduces Oracle 18 support
  • New context menu item for tables|columns: “Drop unused columns …”.
  • The tables|add column dialog now allows you to add invisble columns by marking a checkbox similar to the properties/alter dialog.
  • The PLSQL window now highlights
    • PLSQL errors (red)
    • PLSQL warnings (yellow)
    • Unused procedures and functions in package body (gray) based on ALL_IDENTIFIERS evaluation.
  • Both the gutter bullet and the color map next to the scrollbar now use the same colors as the error/warning list below the code window.
    You can disable highlighting of warnings or unused procedures in the settings/behavior dialog.
  • The SQLEditor now supports UTF8 file format without BOM. To be sure, you can now select the encoding from a combo box in the FileOpen dialog. If you choose the “default” setting, the file content will be analyzed for an educated guess of the encoding.
  • The data content browser allows you to save your workset as XML file for later reopening the same collection of tables. Now the schema name will be excluded from saving in case you are working on the current schema. That allows you to open the workset on another copy of the schema with a different schema name.
  • The clear schema procedure now temporarily disables the recycle bin for better performance, if you are granted the HORA_USER or SELECT_CATALOG role.
  • The integrated FastReport engine has been upgraded to the most recent version 6 that allows more complex reports and additional report objects such as maps and barcodes.
  • When closed in normal state (not maximized), Hora retains screen position and main window size for next startup.
    This can be disabled by unchecking the checkbox in settings / startup window / Remember main window position and size.
  • The SQL editor remembers the path of the integrated file explorer and restores it on next startup.

KeepTool 14.0.3

06 Nov 2018

  • In KeepTool 14.0.3, the Hora | database|NLS parameters data grid now has got both a new context menu item and speed button “Show ALTER SYSTEM script …’. It allows you to create a script that sets the current instance settings by ALTER SYSTEM statements. That makes it easy to transfer this settings to another machine.
  • Most data grids including data content and SQL query result grids got both a new button and menu item “copy to clipboard”. It copies the grid data into the Windows clipboard as a TAB delimited list. If the data set has less than 1000 records, the copy command places an additional HTML formatted copy into the clipboard. That allows you to either paste the data into a text editor as unformatted text or paste it as fully formatted table into applications such as MS Word or MS Outlook. There is no need any more to email screen shots of your data grids to your clients, send the data instead.
  • We added a new tab “NLS” to the “settings” dialog. It allows you to override national language support settings for use within KeepTool 14.0.3 for all database connections. You can keep some entries blank to use default settings (as before) defined by Oracle registry and environment variables. Two buttons allow you to initialize using default settings from your Oracle client as a start for further changes, and to clear all entries.

KeepTool 14.0.2

20 Sep 2018

  • In KeepTool 14.0.2 data grids, the scrollbar thumb is initially hidden now for a clearer view. It appears when the user hovers the mouse pointer over the grid or scrolls through its content. Hovering the mouse pointer over the scrollbar thumb or its movement path transforms the thumb to a traditional scrollbar. Moving the mouse pointer away from the scrollbar reduces it back to the thumb. The thumb disappears if the mouse pointer is stationary or the control is not scrolled for some time. You can disable the new feature in settings | Behavior | Grid Scrollbars Always Visible. For remote desktop connections, the feature is always disabled.
  • KeepTool 14.0.2 Improved data grid to excel export performance.
  • Changes to Excel export options:
    The existing checkbox “Data only Excel export keeps formatting” has been renamed to “Excel export retain grouping and calculated totals”. When checked, in-memory grid features such as column grouping and group/overall totals are retained as Excel formulas. When unchecked, the export retains more visual attributes such as background colors.
    A new checkbox “Excel export all cells formatted as text” allows you to export data as text that are not supported by Excel such as dates before 01-01-0100.
  • New skin “The Bezier” uses scalable vector graphics based on SVG images.
    It is the new default, when Hora is installed on a new machine.
  • Wibu CodeMeter runtime version 6.70 is included. It is recommended to update your network license server as well.
  • Settings dialog:
    AutoCommit option has been moved to the “Session” page.
    A new checkbox “Hide Trailing Time Zeros” on “Data Contents” page has been added. When checked, trailing zero seconds and zero times (00:00:00) are not displayed in data content and not exported to Excel.Manage Role privileges dialog:
    Data grids “available” and “grantable” privileges have been swapped. On the left side, you see now the granted privileges.
    “Contains” operator has been enabled for filter operator similar to other data grids.
  • The 5th button on the main toolbar allows you to gradually fade the green color of most recently changed objects. Its icon has been changed from a green checkmark to a green screen-painting-brush.
  • In KeepTool 14.0.2, the users page provides two context menu items to create a expdp/impdp template for Oracle datapump export/import. In this version, each datapump parameter is generated on its own continuation line.
  • A new Reverse DB checkbox “Wrapped PL/SQL” defaults to “True” and lets you decide weather to include wrapped PL/SQL code or skip those objects from reverse engineering.
  • The “arrange columns” menu item (data content) has been improved:
    Performance enhancements for tables having a very large number of columns.
    The dialog shows more column names at the same time using a multi-column layout.
    A new search box allows you to find columns names by entering a search string. All column names that do not match the search string are disabled and grayed, leaving the columns matching the search string in regular font.
  • The SQL Editor now remembers the width of the files-in-folder list on the left including the “hidden” status of the files panel.
  • DbDoc got 4 new checkboxes to optionally exclude technical content from the report, also available as command line options for batch reporting.
  • DbDoc report appearance has been enhanced using internal css styles.
  • System environment information dialog now shows installed anti virus products.

KeepTool 14.0.1

25 Jul 2018

  • In KeepTool 14.0.1, on Data Browser detail tab change, Hora now retains the splitter positions for each detail table separately.
  • Performance of data fetching in the Direct mode is improved.
  • When Hora has been idle for at least 15 Minutes, it executes now a dummy SQL statement to overcome any SQL*Net connection timeouts.
  • Performance enhancement for “Create table by file import” dialog when importing ASCII data. Configurable decimal and thousands separators.
  • In KeepTool 14.0.1 both data content and SQL result set grids are now able to pin rows to the top or bottom of the grid. First, click the check box to enable in memory grid mode. Now you can see a pushpin icon hot-tracking the current row. Right-click to open a context menu and pin it to either top or bottom of the grid.

KeepTool 14.0.0

25 Jun 2018

  • In KeepTool 14, internal file names of the executables have been consolidated with the application names as seen in the appropriate Window captions.
  • The new data-aware Excel export is optimized for subsequent analysis of grid data within Microsoft Excel. The following data shaping options that are applied within the grid control (when using the “in-memory mode”) are retained in the output XLS and XLSX documents.
    Data grouping – with the capability to collapse/expand groups within a worksheet
    Totals and group summaries – with the capability to modify/change formulas
  • Merged Column Grouping (when using the “in-memory mode”):
    This release introduces a new data grouping mode that enables you merge grouping columns, allowing for a more compact row list. Pressing and holding the Ctrl key while dropping a column header adjacent to another one located in the Group By box merges the two columns.
  • Editor syntax highlighting now supports new Oracle 12c Release 2 reserved words.
  • In-Memory table support. Added a new “In-Memory” band to the “tables overview” grid for Oracle 12c database. A new context menu item “In-Memory” allows you to enable in-memory table mode and change attributes. Both Hora’s show DDL menu item and Reverse DB engine output include appropriate code to enable in-memory table mode.
  • New page Additional | Editions.
  • Each filter row now allows you to select an operator such as “=” from a drop-down menu, depending on the data type of the column. This feature had been introduced earlier for data content and is now propagated to all grids having a filter row.
  • Database page now shows server platform name, database role and open mode from v$database.
  • More options for SELECT and CURSOR FOR LOOP SQL generation including ORDER BY option and optional BEGIN-END block encapsulation.
  • Added a search box to the “select columns” dialog. Now you can search for column names when creating a select, insert or update statement. Column items that do not fit the search mask are temporarily disabled.
  • Optionally, DB Compare now ignores
    Identity options for Oracle 12c identity columns.
    Scheduler start date
  • We added a new menu item “Open in SQL editor” to the SQL page. It allows you to open the current file in separate SQL editor while passing the current database connection.
  • The data content browser now supports master/detail views like the master/detail view on the data tables/data content view.
  • Added a “Show DDL” menu item to the access control lists (ACL) view on the database page.
  • Added a new filter row to the list of tables on the left side of the query builder dialog.
  • A new data grid on the Database page shows the content of the DATABASE_PARAMETERS view.
  • Added “rename” context menu items for sequences and table constraints;
  • Added two context menu items to the “Redo/Flashback | Redo log groups” page that allow you to add a new group or drop an existing group.
  • Support for PDB operations “save state” and “discard state” on Oracle 12c Release 2 databases. That allows you startup PDBs automatically.
  • Reverse DB now allows you to export table data as SQL scripts. In a subfolder you find an insert script for each selected table along with two scripts to disable and enable constraints and triggers before/after the data import.
  • DB compare now re-orders the columns of the table on the right in accordance to the order of the column names of the table on the left. As a result, different column order between tables is not displayed as a change any more.
  • Up to Oracle 12c release 1, the dialogs for adding a (virtual) column, check constraint and functional index now make sure the REGEXP_REPLACE function is not used although it is not deterministic (See Doc ID 20804063.8). Starting with Oracle 12c release 2, Oracle performs this check itself.
    • The connect dialog shows NLS_LANG parameter of the currently used Oracle Home in the expandable section of the dialog.
  • KeepTool 14 comes with a new set of program icons and splash screens.
  • The “File” and “Database” main menu items of Hora and SqlEditor have been consolidated.
  • For Oracle 12c databases, the list of database parameters shows a new column that indicates if the parameter is changeable for a PDB.
  • New “Compile Java” menu item and button.
  • KeepTool 14 comes with enhancements for high DPI monitors.
  • PL/SQL call interface generator now creates extra code for Boolean parameters that allows you to use substitute ‘Y’ and ‘N’ string values.
  • Filter by selection commands in both tables|data content and data content browser now add a N’ prefix to string literals when filtering NVARCHAR2 or NCHAR columns. That allows you to filter by Unicode literals.
  • Schema page now shows erroneous PL/SQL source line in conjunction with error message.
  • Direct TCP/IP mode now supports
    Oracle 12 Extended Data Types
    BFILEs
  • Hora’s Java page now shows methods including arguments and Oracle JVM properties.
  • New Hora menu item Tools | Oracle Client | Explore Oracle Home … runs a Windows explorer and opens the Oracle home directory of the Oracle client Hora is currently using.
  • In KeepTool 14, the XML Schema page now shows time stamps for XML schema objects.
  • New menu items XML Schemas | Register XML Schema and Delete XML Schema.
  • New detail sheet “XML Elements” on XML DB page shows XSD structure and mapped SQL names and data types.

KeepTool 12

KeepTool 12.2.0

31 May 2018

  • KeepTool 12.2 is a compatibility release that makes sure all database tools are now compatible with both KeepTool 12 and upcoming KeepTool 14 license container type.
  • For managing KeepTool 14 licenses, KeepTool 14 license management tools should be used.

KeepTool 12.1.8

01 Feb 2018

  • In KeepTool 12.1.8, the connect dialog now always lists TNS aliases in the combo box. Above all, it works now if an Oracle Instant Client is used. Therefore, you have to provide the location of a tnsnames.ora file in the TNS_ADMIN Windows environment variable.
  • As you may remember, there is an expandable section in the lower part of the connect dialog.  For instance, it shows the file path of the currently used Oracle Home. This information is now extended by a different [TNS_ADMIN] location, if defined using the TNS_ADMIN environment variable or the TNS_ADMIN registry entry. That path overrides the default location of the tnsnames.ora file in %oracle_home%\rdbms\admin.
  • Starting with Oracle 12c release 2, Oracle object names are no more restricted to a maximum of 30 characters. Therefore, the length check has been weakened to 128 characters for Oracle 12c release 2 databases.
  • In KeepTool 12.1.8 the order of Hora’s sidebar icons has been consolidated with the order of the corresponding main menu items.

KeepTool 12.1.7

04 Oct 2017

KeepTool 12.1.6

03 Jul 2017

  • In KeepTool 12.1.6, the new data-aware MS Excel export is optimized for subsequent analysis of grid data within Microsoft Excel. The following data shaping options applied to the grid control (when using the “in-memory mode”) are now retained in the XLS and XLSX document output:
    • Data grouping – with the capability to collapse/expand groups within a worksheet
    • Totals and group summaries – with the capability to modify/change formulas
  • Merged Column Grouping (when using Hora‘ s “in-memory mode”):
  • This release introduces a new data grouping mode that enables you merge grouping columns, allowing for a more compact row list. Pressing and holding the Ctrl key while dropping a column header adjacent to another one located in the Group By box merges the two columns.
  • In KeepTool 12.1.6, Direct TCP/IP connectivity supports Oracle 12c authentication.

KeepTool 12.1.5

13 Mar 2017

  • In KeepTool 12.1.5, a new menu item
    “Schema | Create BYTE to CHAR semantics conversion script …”
    helps you in KeepTool 12.1.5 to change nls_length_semantics of existing columns from BYTE to CHAR semantics. That can be performed best before changing from single to multi-byte character set, e.g. as a pre-migration task to Oracle 12c.
  • The SQL scratchpad now shows a slightly different icon for files that are stored on a network drive.
  • For better performance, Hora’s tables page now comes up with the most essential (identifying) columns only. A toggle switch “show all columns” forces the remaining columns to be shown as well.
  • Improved performance for tooltips shown in SQL editor window (Table comments.)
  • “Create table”, “Add column” and “column properties” dialogs now highlight most-often-used data types ‘NUMBER’, ‘VARCHAR2’ and ‘DATE’ in data type dropdown lists using a bold blue font.
  • A new set of buttons below data grids allow dataset navigation, including an info panel showing record index and count.
  • A new dialog “view comments wizard” allows you to selectively propagate table column comments to view column comments. That makes it much more easy to having column comments for views.
  • A new menu item “Show DDL” for table columns generates SQL for adding the appropriate column including single-column constraints and column comments.
  • For performance reasons, the column “Referenced constraints” has been removed from the tables | constraints grid. This information is still available as detail information for the currently selected constraint.

KeepTool 12.1.4

16 Jan 2017

  • Each filter row in DataContent grids now allows you to select an operator such as “=” from a drop-down menu, depending on the data type of the column.
  • New page Additional | Flashback archives for Oracle 11g and later
  • The SQL page shows root folders in red font if it is not found, for example when working offline. You do not have to confirm another message box for each non-existing folder any more.
  • In data content view, tooltip hints show a preview of the content of CLOB columns.
  • New search box on the PL/SQL page allows you to restrict the list of methods showing only items that contain the search string.
  • On ER Diagrammer, the “tidy up” button has been removed. The function is now called automatically each time an entity has been moved or resized.
  • ER diagrammer snaps entity shapes to grid on resize and move.
    Grid size can be configured.
  • For CLOB fields, both “create INSERT script” and “create UPDATE script” commands now pass VARCHAR2 chunks to dbms_lob instead of hexadecimal encoded strings. Besides that is better readable by human, it works independently from the character set of the database.

KeepTool 12.1.3

28 Nov 2016

  • Since version 12.1.1, the PL/SQL page allows you to navigate to another procedure or function implementation within the same package body by Ctrl-clicking a procedure call. Now we added two buttons ‘go back’ and ‘go forward’ to the tool bar that allow you to navigate back to the original editor position and vice versa.
  • Editor windows now supports SQL*Plus command EXEC
  • Both “Show DDL” context menu command for tables and Reverse DB generate an insert statement for spatial columns as defined in user_sdo_geom_metadata (bounding rectangle).
    Clear Schema menu item now deletes from user_sdo_geom_metadata.
  • New main menu item “Schema | Find VARCHAR2 columns with long BYTE length …” searches for VARCHAR2 columns that may cause problems when converting to a multi-byte character set such as UTF8:
    • Because the length exceeds 4000 bytes
    • Because columns using BYTE semantics will not fit the column length defined in bytes.
  • Use this dialog to check long VARCHAR2 columns before you migrate your database to a multi-byte character set such as UTF8.
  • Hora’s settings dialog allows you to define one or two startup windows. Some minor differences between window names and name order used in the dropdown lists of the settings dialog now have been reconciled with the captions and menu item sequence used in Hora’s toolbar. Please re-check your startup windows setting, because under some circumstances the stored index may now refer to another startup window.
  • When the build-in direct TCP/IP connection is used, you now have another option for entering the database connect string using service name:
    hostname:port/servicename
    This is an alternative to the existing syntax
    hostname:port:SN=servicename
    Oracle 12c database requires a connection by service name.
    For connection to Oracle11g or prior databases by SID, you can still use any of
    hostname:port:sid
    hostname:port:SID=sid
  • In both data content grid and sql query resultset views, all cell texts are now aligned to the top. In the past, only memo fields, that are capable to display multi-line text, had been aligned to the top, whereas all single-line controls had been vertically centered.
  • Besides tables and views, the data content browser now also shows local synonyms for tables and views.
  • The expandable section in the bottom of the connect dialog now allows you to enter an initialization script name. It is executed automatically each time after connect. You can use SQL and PL/SQL commands.
  • On the tables | columns page, all columns on band “column usage in WHERE predicates” have been moved over to the “statictics” tab. The band “column statistics”, has been removed from the columns tab, since the information is already shown on the statistics tab. This eliminates duplicate information and speeds up performance on the columns.

KeepTool 12.1.2

17 Oct 2016

  • DB Compare now generates UPDATE scripts that use ALTER TABLE commands instead of re-creating the table with changed structure.
  • DB Compare’s overview now shows an “Update Action” instead of the former “object change status”. This action describes how to consolidate the DB schemes rather than pointing out the difference between them.
  • A new checkbox option on Reverse/DB now allows you to check/uncheck whether CREATE TABLESPACE commands will be created.
  • Compile and Refresh menu items on Hora’s Materialized View page now have been enabled for multi-select.
  • Hora’s “Clear Schema” main menu item now truncates temporary tables before dropping to prevent ORA-14452 error.
  • The Reverse/DB tool now generates Oracle Contexts implemented by the DB schema, if the user has been granted select privileges on DBA_CONTEXT, granted by HORA_USER role, maybe.
  • Reverse/DB now orders the generation of views, materialized views, procedures, functions and packages by object dependency. As a result, there may be multiple sections for each object type, one for each level of dependency. By unchecking an option, you can get back to alphabetic order as before.
  • Scheduler jobs are now supported by Hora’s “show DDL” command, Reverse DB Engineer and DB Compare tool.
  • Support for Windows 10 Anniversary Update has been added. CodeMeter 6.30d runtime makes sure license are repaired, since the Anniversary update is actually a reinstallation of the operating system.

KeepTool 12.1.1

07 Sep 2016

  • On both PL/SQL and Tables | Triggers views, you can see red bullets in the gutter area for each error position. We added a view bar to the right of the editor window that visualizes the relative error positions within the source text by red markers. The part of source code currently visible in the editor is indicated by a gray bar that moves while scrolling the editor.
  • New page Database | ACLs for managing access control lists (ACLs).
  • In all editor windows, you can now use Shift+TAB as a shortcut to the block indent command (button and menu item).
  • On PL/SQL page, you can navigate to another procedure or function implementation within the same package body by Ctrl-clicking a procedure call.
  • Added new column “NLS length semantics” to the PLSQL overview page.
  • Added “PL/SQL object settings” band to the Types overview grid including “NLS length semantics” column and other columns known from PL/SQL page.
  • Added context menu items to DB-Compare’s object list for printing and Excel export.
  • Reverse/DDL now generates NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS setting.
  • DB Compare’s experimental update script now contains only changes to objects that are selected using the check box next to the object name.
  • CodeMeter 6.30b runtime. See wibu.com for change log.
  • Reverse/DDL now includes Java source.
  • Improved display of bullets to distinguish public from private methods on PL/SQL page.

KeepTool 12.1.0

05 Jul 2016

  • Now you can borrow/return a network license seat on your client. For a limited time, it allows you to use KeepTool offline. Therefore, either run “License Manager – Borrowing” from the Windows start menu, or “Help|License Management|License Manager / Borrowing” from Hora’s main menu. Options for borrowing can be configured on the license server using CodeMeter WebAdmin.
  • Please don’t forget to update your network license server to make sure it runs CodeMeter 6.20a or newer.
  • The modal dialog for creating and changing views now shows a toolbar with operations that had been available on the editor’s context menu only.
  • The source code window on the PL/SQL page now shows a red bullet near erroneous source code lines.
  • Main menu item “Help | License info“ now shows output captured from CodeMeter cmu32.exe utility.
  • On Oracle 10g database or later, the “resize datafile” dialog suggests purging the tablespace’s recycle bin before downsizing a data file.
  • The “synonym owner” dropdown list on the “create synonym” dialog now uses bold fonts for owners of existing synonyms or grants.
  • Added query builder and SQL*Plus execution buttons to separate SQL editor HEdit.exe. These actions formerly have been available as context menu items only.
  • Both DB object browser window and column selection dialog (that comes up for example when using the “Selected object | expand …” menu items) now use blue font for mandatory columns.
  • Tooltip hints for table comment and column description in DB object browser.
  • Dockable windows remember “undocked” status for next start.
  • Added a menu for “check all and “uncheck all” combo boxes to the confirmation dialog for operations on a multi-selection, such as “Drop user”.
  • A new Findpanel has been added to both Data content and SQL resultset grids. When memory mode is active, all occurrences of the search text in any column are highlighted in the grid view.
  • Hora’s SQL page now remembers the :parameter and &macro values for each database connection string beyond end of session.
  • There is a new option on the data content tab for including the ORA_ROWSCN pseudo column in the SELECT statement that populates the data grid. Oracle doesn’t allow this pseudo column to be used in conjunction with tables having a virtual private database policy. The new option lets you decide to select ORA_ROWSCN pseudo column always, never, or automatically if the table has no policy function. Whereas the latter choice is the most convenient, the other options perform better.
    Remember, both ROWID and ORA_ROWSCN columns are selected but invisible by default and can be showed using the column selection tool in the upper left of the data grid.
  • INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE/CURSOR FOR LOOP generators
    • On Tables page, menu “Copy to clipboard|XXX statement”
    • In editor windows, menu “Selected object, expand XXX statement”
    • In editor windows, DB object browser, drag-drop target menu, XXX statement
  • now share the same column pre-selection dialog and SQL generation engine.
  • For INSERT statements, there is a new option “default values” that adds rather default values or NULL values (for optional columns) to the VALUES clause than formal “:” variables, that are still used for mandatory non-default columns.
  • For the “execute script” command, the editor component now positions the input cursor to the SQL error position similar to “execute query”.
  • Information shown in tooltip hints for data grid headers, DB object browser and SELECT/INSERT/UPDATE SQL generators is now cached.

KeepTool 12.0.3

09 May 2016

  • A new option “Settings | SQL page | show active tooltips” allows you to disable context sensitive tooltips, especially when using a slow database connection.
  • Active tooltips on SQL page are cached now for better performance.
  • A new toggle switch “Sample binds” on the session page allows you to include sample binds on demand only.
  • Excel export now allows you to change file name. Export directory is stored as default for next call for both connection and database.

KeepTool 12.0.2

25 Apr 2016

  • Tablespaces using more than 95% [99%] of the maximum auto extensible space are highlighted yellow [red].
  • New skins Office2016Colorful and Office2016Dark.
  • Support for Materialized View Refresh groups
  • Connect dialog now allows you to use PNG and GIF images besides BMP and JPG. Improved image alignment when displayed in form header.
  • On the Schema | Spatial Columns page, the menu item “Comment spatial index table” has been replaced by “Comment all spatial index support tables …”. It batch-creates comments for all MDRT% and MDXT% tables in the current schema that are created implicitly by Oracle for spatial index support.
  • Wibu 6.20 license management runtime. It is recommended (but not required) to update the network license server as well.
  • Incremental search in data content filter box now can be disabled by settings.

KeepTool 12.0.1

04 Apr 2016

  • Several Materialized View refresh options including Oracle 12c out of place refresh.
  • Color tags for DB connection now can be modified using the settings dialog.
  • New Button “Delete saved passwords” on Settings | Startup window page to delete all passwords from ktprojects.xml file that have been saved in connect dialog.
  • You can add a Boolean registry entry HKLM\Software\KeepTool\12\DontSavePasswords to prevent the user from saving passwords in the connect dialog. Double-click registry file DontSavePasswords or DontSavePasswordsWow6432.reg on 32-bit subsystem to import an appropriate registry key.

KeepTool 12.0.0

01 Mar 2016

  • General
    • Windows 10 support
    • WIBU CodeMeter based licensing system
    • Default skin “DevExpress Style”
    • New set of material design inspired buttons
    • A new button in the connect dialog opens a Windows explorer in the folder where connections are stored as XML file.
    • The direct TCP connection mode now supports object types such as spatial data) XML types and cursor data type
  • Oracle 12c features
    • DEFAULT Values On Explicit NULLs clause support.
    • Improved support for invisible columns.
    • Support for identity columns.
  • Hora
    • Hora now shows the host name of the database and the service name (or SID) in the window caption
    • Improved docking performance of dbms_output and SQL query resultset windows.
    • Quick navigator buttons next to the overview grids that don’t match any data are now disabled. Remaining buttons show tooltips for first matches.
    • The schema selector in the footer of the main form now displays the logon schema, SYS, SYSTEM and PUBLIC in blue font. Oracle predefined schemas use italic font and schemas given grants to the logon user use bold font.
  • Schema page / Oracle Spatial
    • There are two new context menu items on Schema|Spatial columns page:
      • DROP spatial index
      • UPDATE all column data with NULL value helps developers to overcome an ORA-29858 error (ODCINDEXALTER error) after changing the SRS_ID by re-creating spatial index on the emptied column.
    • A new grid view on the spatial columns page shows all available coordinate systems from MDSYS.CS_SRS.
    • You can now update spatial column metadata using a modal dialog. Furthermore, the dialog allows you to copy metadata from another column.
    • A new menu item “Comment Spatial Index Table” creates comments for the MDRT_*$ table that are created by Oracle automatically for spatial index maintenance.
    • A new menu item “Change SRID (Coordinate System)” allows you to change the SRID metadata, converts spatial data into the new coordinate system and recreates the spatial index.
  • Tables page
    • New menu item “Tables | Copy to clipboard | Table API Package”
      creates a packages with member functions for insert/update/delete operations on tables
    • The “drop constraint” dialog allows you to drop the constraint including the supporting index.
    • You can now add comments for Materialized Views
  • Create table dialog
    • New option “Row Dependencies” to enable row-level dependency tracking. This Option is also included in generated DDL statements.
    • The “Add stamps” button in the create table dialog now can be configured. Click the “save as default” checkbox to save the current columns as default.
    • You can now change column order by drag/dropping the row indicator.
  • Data Content
    • The grid contains two invisible pseudo columns ROWID and ORA_ROWSCN. To make them visible, use the column selector in the upper left corner of grid.
    • Data Content shows headers of primary and unique key column using bold font. Headers of required columns are underlined as before.
    • Data content banner shows table comment as tooltip hint.
    • The new button next to “Apply Filter” showing a clock. Allows you to enter a “AS OF TIMESTAMP” expression for flashback query (Oracle 11g or later).
    • The context menu for spatial data allows you to shows them in an embedded OpenStreetMaps view.
    • There are two new menu items on the treeview page:
      • “Filter subtree” builds a SQL condition to select all tree nodes below the current node.
      • “Filter path to rot” builds a SQL condition to select all tree nodes from the root node up to the current node similar to a bread crumb path.
  • PL/SQL page
    • Method navigator moved to the left side of the editor
    • Procedure/function list now uses a solid bullet for public methods.
  • Editor
    • Context menu commands “Selected object | expand SELECT / INSERT / UPDATE / CURSOR-FOR-LOOP” show a checklist dialog that allows you to unselect columns for exclusion from DML generation.
    • New context menu command “Selected object | Expand SELECT records without details” creates a SELECT statement for the selected table name that returns all records of the master table that do not have any detail record.
    • New menu command “Format | Format Delphi Stringlist” replaces all ‘#$0D#$0A’ substrings by CRLF characters, eliminates duplicate apostrophes and removes the apostrophes at begin and end of each line. This helps Delphi developers formatting SQL text that has been captured from the debugger at runtime and changes it into pure SQL that can be executed in Hora.
    • Improved Explain Plan dialog
    • Both DB object browser and code snippet tool windows are now integral part of the SQL editor window. This allows a tighter integration of SQL code generation. You can drag/drop items into the code window and create SELECT statements, dbms_output clauses and much more. Double-click object names in either code window or object browser to highlight occurrences.
      There is also a button to open the SQL query builder.
    • Navigation buttons for prior and next diff in file compare dialog.
  • Sessions page
    • Whereas Hora 11’s session overview displays SQL statements for active sessions only, version 12 can also display SQL for sessions that got recently inactive.
    • For long running queries, you can see the last ‘long ops’ status message right on the overview screen. In most cases, this eliminates the need to open the long ops sheet. You will love it when monitoring sessions using the auto-refresh option.
    • The new “Status | Time” column shows how long the session is in the current status
    • New kill session option “immediate”
    • The sessions page displays captured bind parameter below the query. See Oracle documentation for details about bind capturing frequency.
    • A new checkbox “Multi-instance view” allows you to switch between a v$ view based single-instance page and a gv$ view based multi-instance view without changing KeepTool settings as was required in version 11.
  • Database page
    • New menu item “Reset system parameter”.
    • New tab sheet “Alert log” shows most recent entries (Oracle 12c)
  • Reverse DB engineer
    • You can now select grantees of object privileges.
    • The tool now remembers the output path for each connection.
    • DDL generation for Oracle 12c  features
  • Tablespaces
    • Below the tablespaces grid view you can now see a list of related initialization parameters and replaces the db_create_file_dest text box in the top-right corner of KeepTool-11.
  • Container DB
    • New container detail view shows history.
    • New container properties tab sheet.
  • Db Compare
    • New object name exclude list in DB Compare scan options.
    • DDL comparison comprises new Oracle 12c features

KeepTool 11

KeepTool 11.2.4

22 Oct 2015

  • Oracle home selection is now based on Oracle home names instead of OCI DLL path.
  • Added a new SQL*Plus inspired switch “Set Echo” to the settings | SQL page sheet. When activated, it logs executed SQL text to the dbms_output window.

KeepTool 11.2.3

03 Aug 2015

  • The Excel export directory can be changed now by settings. It defaults as before to the user’s temporary directory.
  • The “filter by selection” dialog now comes up with pre-selected filter value rather than selecting the entire filter condition. That makes it easier to change the value.
  • The “execute script” command on the SQL page now supports both Oracle SQL*Plus parameters TIME and ECHO in a similar way. Defaults can be set on settings page.

KeepTool 11.2.2

10 Jul 2015

  • ELM (CrypKey Enterprise License Manager) has been enabled for network license transfer

KeepTool 11.2.1

07 Apr 2015

  • New KeepTool launcher app to start all tools from a central place.

KeepTool 11.2.0

21 Jan 2015

  • The Network license is now based on TCP/IP. To upgrade, please uninstall version 11.0 and then install 11.2 on both server and all clients. See Installation and Licensing Guide for details.
  • Improved representation of chart views on data content and SQL query result pages.
  • Single sign on has been implemented for KeepTool applications started from Hora’s tools menu. Our tools (except DbCompare) will get passed Hora’s connect string.
  • Data grid content is now painted by the selected skin. This gives you a smoother look and feel. Use the unskinned interface to benefit from all available color highlightings.

KeepTool 11.0.8

24 Nov 2014

  • CrypKey network license server has been updated to version 7834. This eliminates some tweeks that occurred under rare conditions. You can either update your server using the setup procedure or stop the CrypKey Windows service temporarily and manually replace the crp32002.ngn file in the %PROGRAMDATA%\KeepTool11\License\ directory on the server. You find a copy of this file on your updated client (file date 11/11/2014).
  • The Network License Manager does not take its own network seat any more.
  • The network client configuration now allows you to configure an alternative network license server to failover when the default server is not available.
  • Schema | Spatial Columns | Copy INSERT script to clipboard menu item logic has been improved.

KeepTool 11.0.7

07 Oct 2014

  • Similar to tables, packages and other objects, the “users” page highlights recently created accounts using three graded shades of green.
  • User accounts having their password expired are highlighted yellow. Within grace period, highlighting starts with reduced intensity.
  • A new overview tab sheet on the schema page shows a summary of the status of various object categories.
  • Setup procedure is now digitally signed.
  • New last login timestamp column on “users” page for Oracle 12c DB.
  • Improved calculation of the “predefined” column on users and roles grids for Oracle 12c database.
  • New context menu item “Reset current password …” on users page to reset the existing password, e.g. when expiration within grace period.
  • Improved performance on database | roles page.
  • Network license now can be transferred to another machine.
  • You can now use different editions with different users simultaneously on the same machine, e.g. when using terminal services. See new chapter “Multi-user environment on a terminal server” in our installation and licensing guide for details.

KeepTool 11.0.6

12 Sep 2014

  • Schema | PLSQL errors page uses color highlighting similar to the error list below the code editor window.
  • The Recently changed objects list has been removed from the main menu item and integrated as a new tab sheet on the Schema page. Many minor improvements have been applied such as using timestamp column instead of last DDL column.
  • Introduced a new option SQL page | auto-show dbms_output window. When unchecked, dbms_output window is not automatically shown.
  • Hora’s main window caption now shows the Oracle edition (e.g. EE, SE, XE) next to the Oracle version number.
  • Direct TCP/IP connectivity now processes NLS_LANG environment variable.
  • A new RMan page has been added showing rman backup job details.
  • The object dependencies tab on the tables, PL/SQL and other pages now shows additional information about the dependent object such as “valid” and “has errors” flag and uses color highlighting to reflect these flags.
  • The green “confirm last DDL highlighting” buttons on Tables, PLSQL and Schema pages have been consolidated into one single button. You can find it in the main menu next to the commit/rollback/refresh buttons. It toggles between 4 states now when clicked without pausing. That allows you to reduce the intensity of highlighting down to zero and after that it returns back to full intensity. Next changes on objects are always highlighted again in full intensity. You can disable the feature by unchecking an option in the settings dialog
  • Added a new main menu group “Tools | Oracle Tools” with menu items “SQL Plus” and “RMan” to run the appropriate Oracle tools from the currently used Oracle home. They are not available for direct TCP/IP connections or when the appropriate tools are not found in the Oracle home.
  • Added a new main menu group “Tools | Database Server” with menu items “Remote Desktop Connection” and “Explore Shared Folders” and “Manage Windows Services” to run the appropriate Windows tools on the database server
  • INSERT/UPDATE/MERGE scripts created from data content now declare a PL/SQL variable for spatial data to avoid SQL array size restriction.
  • Recently changed synonyms and sequences are now highlighted similar to the highlighting of tables, views and PL/SQL objects.
  • The appearance of selected connections in query builder has been improved.

KeepTool 11.0.5

04 Aug 2014

  • The menu item Table | Column | Lob segment | Move tablespace is now also available from the tablespaces | segments data grid.
  • A new option allows you to configure the PL/SQL page to show procedures and functions on separate tabs.
  • Improved network license handling.
  • Data Content Browser now shows for each table a detail grid showing table columns.
  • A new tabsheet users | proxies shows proxy user relations the current user is related as proxy or as client.
  • New modal dialog to change refresh options of a materialized view.
  • A new button on the “Show exceptions” dialog copies a SQL statement to clipboard that selects all records with the appropriate constraint columns.

KeepTool 11.0.4

06 Jun 2014

  • On the SQL page you can use now the ESC key to close the (undocked) SQL result set window. A new setting controls this behavior.
  • Added a checkbox to the “search DB for string” dialog that allows you to search for a SQL expression rather than a fixed string. This allows you to find special characters by using the CHR() function.
  • Some minor enhancements to the licensing dialogs.

KeepTool 11.0.3

22 Apr 2014

  • Improved application startup performance.
  • DbCompare supports additional Oracle database objects.
  • Both data grids on Data Content and SQL Scratchpad hide their filter row for empty result sets to avoid accidently data input.
  • Added basic integration of TortoiseSVN version control to the SQL scratchpad repository. Either use the “run Windows Explorer” context menu item or the integrated File Explorer on the next tab sheet to access the full list of TortoiseSVN commands from the Explorer context menu.
  • A new menu item on the SQL scratchpad tree view opens the repository item on the integrated file explorer. Another menu items runs Windows explorer separately.
  • Create Insert/Update script commands now omit read only view columns from SQL generation.
  • File explorer on SQL page shows the location using a bread crumb editor.
  • Both Tables Data Content view and SQL query result set view show a bread crumb path together with the tree view. You can select the field the bread crumb view is based on from a combo box.
  • Standalone SQL editor shows bread crumb editor to navigate SQL file path.
  • DB Compare allows you to exclude tablespace and storage clause from comparison.

KeepTool 11.0.2

24 Mar 2014

  • The database page got a new tab sheet showing database contexts.
  • Both users and database|roles pages show a new checkbox “predefined”. It is checked for users and roles that are preinstalled with your Oracle database. Please report any missing user names and roles. Since there is no data dictionary information we manage our own list.
  • The users overview grid has 3 new context menu items that copy to the Windows clipboard either the list of selected usernames or an expdp / impdp command template for schema export/import.
  • On the tables page you will find a similar new context menu item to copy an expdp or impdp command template for table export/import to the Windows clipboard.
  • User account lock/unlock menu items have been enabled for multi-selection.
  • There is a new button on the database page next to the host name text box. It opens a Windows explorer showing shared folders on the server. This can be used to access the data pump directory or to read server log files. Another button opens a remote desktop on the server if it runs on MS Windows and allows RDP connections.
  • Most data grids now can be exported to MS Excel using Ctrl+Shift+E shortcut or context menu item.
  • Invalid Materialized Views are displayed in gray font on the Materialized Views overview sheet.
  • After a SQL snippets has been generated and copied to the Windows clipboard, a tooltip hint shows up in the lower right.
  • There is a new checkbox column on the tablespace page that is marked for permanent tablespaces containing application data, i.e. all permanent tablespaces except SYSTEM, SYSAUX and USERS. This allows you to filter your own tablespaces by a single mouse click.

KeepTool 11.0.1

10 Mar 2014

  • Both Reverse DDL and the Show DDL command on the “users” page now create DDL for schema triggers.
  • The data content grid view now use gray font for view columns that are read-only. It is based on information from ALL_TRIGGER_COLS for views that have instead-of-triggers and from ALL_UPDATABLE_COLUMNS else.
  • The Representation of AWR snapshots has been changed. For each snapshot you can see now “DB time” as well as the length of the snapshot interval. An embedded progress bar shows the ratio of DB time and interval length to measure database utilization. A pie diagram shows percentages of parsing schemas.
  • Archived Redo Log files are now grouped by day to show you the daily amount of disk space needed.
  • You can run now multiple instances of the network license server on the same machine supporting multiple editions. The network license manager allows you to switch between editions. The single edition procedure still works but is marked as deprecated.
  • DB Compare now allows you to select which object types it will compare. This may speed up work with very large databases with 10,000 objects and more.
  • The green color that has been introduced to highlight the last changed objects now uses 3 differently graduated hues for changes in the last recently 1, 3 and 10 days. The button to confirm last DDL changes accepts just one level. You may need 3 clicks to reset all 3 highlighting levels.

KeepTool 11.0.0

17 Feb 2014

  • KeepTool 11 is now available as a native 64 bit application.
  • Our new version is packaged in 3 editions:
    • Light Edition
      (contains HoraLight)
    • Professional Edition
      (contains Hora, SQL Editor, Reverse DB and HTML Doc)
    • Enterprise Edition
      (contains Hora, SQL Editor, Reverse DB, HTML Doc, ER Diagrammer, Debugger and new DB Compare)
  • We use a new licensing procedure that allows license transfer between workstations and a more flexible license management.
  • KeepTool 11 supports touch screen gestures.
  • Support for Oracle 12c database and 12c client software has been added.
  • Support for IP V.6 has been added to the direct TCP/IP connectivity. You can change between IPv4, IPv6 and IPBoth in the settings.
  • The Direct TCP/IP option now supports connections via service_name or instance by using a syntax like
    • hostname:port:sn=servicename
    • hostname:port:sid=instancename
  • Our new DB Compare tool allows you to compare databases
  • It shows a list of changed objects
  • For each changed object you can see syntax highlighted DDL statements side by side, whereas different background color indicate the added, removed and changed parts.
  • The indicator area next to the scrollbar visualizes the region of source code that is captured by the visible editor area and where changed source has been changed.
    • Create an update script to synchronize structure (basic support)
  • General changes
    • Modal dialogs for renaming Oracle objects now show you the current utilization of the 30-character-limited length for the new identifier
    • Each Hora page now shows information about the database connected to. This is helpful when running multiple KeepTool instances against different databases at the same time.
    • For Windows 7 and later our tools now make use of progressbar animation in the Windows taskbar when perfoming data dictionary scans in RevDDL, ER Diagrammer, DB Compare, HTML Doc.
    • For SYS and SYSTEM users you can configure now a separate start page. By default it shows the SQL page instead of the tables page.
    • Changes on the schema page
    • The schema privileges cross table view now uses a different background color when the user has a private synonym for the object. That allows you to view both private privileges and synonyms in a single grid view.
    • New context menu items have been added for creating and dropping synonyms for all granted or all not granted objects.
    • A new tab sheet shows unusable indexes.
    • The new menu item Schema | Mask Schema Data opens a wizard that helps you to anonymize your database.
    • A new menu item Schema | Recently changed objects shows you a list of recently changed database objects including time stamps.
    • Hora now remembers a “current schema” change from the last session and asks you when connecting again if you want to change the schema.
  • Several new context menu items have been added to the Table | Copy to clipboard menu on the tables overview page:
    • Table description
      Copies the column definition of the table into the clipboard
    • MERGE statement
      Creates a MERGE SQL statement for the selected table
    • WHERE condition
      creates a template for a WHERE condition that includes all columns
    • Copy to clipboard | CURSOR FOR LOOP
      Creates a CURSOR FOR LOOP statement for the selected table.
    • Read-only columns are now displayed using a gray font.
  • The context menu on the tables | overview page that generates a SELECT statement now prompts you for an (optional) table alias.
  • New menu items have been added to the triggers context menu:
    • Sequenced PK trigger wizard
      It helps you to create a trigger that fills the primary key column from a sequence value.
    • Mutating trigger wizard
      It creates a compound trigger to avoid the “mutating error” when updating an aggregated value of the master table value after changes on the detail table.
    • Instead of trigger wizard
      It is a great help for creating instead of triggers for views.
  • A new menu item Table | Column | Lob segment | Move tablespace
    allows you to move a lob segment to another tablespace
  • A separate Show DDL menu items has been added for constraints and for indexes
  • SQL editor changes
    • A new menu item in the SQL editor “Selected object | Expand CURSOR FOR LOOP” changes the selected table name to a CURSOR FOR LOOP statement.
    • Double-clicking a word in the SQL editor highlights all occurrences of the word in the editor
    • The Query generator now optionally speaks ANSI SQL (INNER JOIN, etc.)
    • The query execution plan now can be exported to Excel
    • The SQL Query builder now uses a blue font for not null columns.
  • Data content browser and SQL resultset grid
    • The tree view now shows different cell background colors depending on the indention depth. This makes it much easier to understand the tree structure.
    • The Excel export option is now also available for the tree view as well.
    • The SQL recording now also keeps track of DML changes made by editing data in content grid
    • Besides the INSERT and UPDATE script, you can now generate a MERGE and a DELETE script from the data content grid.
    • The Data Content | Create Update Script command now shows you a list of Primary Key and UNIQUE constraints. This allows you to choose which key columns will be used to build the WHERE condition
  • The generated HTML documentation for the schema now
    • Ahows views in a separate list.
    • Shows cross-references between tables/views and PL/SQL objects.
    • View and package definition now uses syntax highlighting
  • Spatial data support
    • The create INSERT script command now supports the SDO_GEOMETRY data type.
    • A new context menu item both data contents and SQL query result set grid allow structured SDO_GEOMETRY data view
    • A new Tables | Columns | Bounding Rect sheet shows the bounding rectangle for spatial columns (ALL_SDO_GEOM_METADATA).
    • A Context menu item copies an INSERT statement into the clipboard for transfering the bounding rectangle to another database.
    • Another context menu item allows you to export spatial data from a field to a KML file that can be opened in Google EarthTM
    • A new context menu item in both SQL and data content pages allow you to create a KML file from spatial data for the entire result set.
    • On the Schema page you will find a new tab sheet “Spatial columns” showing all spatial columns of the schema including the bounding rectangle definition from ALL_SDO_GEOM_METADATA and the supporting spatial index. The context menu allows you to create an insert script that also rebuilds the spatial index. Furthermore, you can export the bounding rectangle to a KML file for showing in Google EarthTM.
  • PL/SQL page
    • The error highlighting now uses more subdued colors.
    • The height of the PL/SQL error list is now automatically adjusted according to the number of errors.
    • PL/SQL packages automatically recompile the package body when the package specification has been changed. This shows you resulting errors immediately rather than invalidating the body only.
    • PL/SQL packages and bodies as well as procedures and functions are now show on the same tab. This makes it much more easier to switch between package specification and body.
    • PL/SQL objects as well as tables/views with LAST_DDL_TIME changed recently are highlighted in green color. Now you see at a glance what has been changed recently. There is a confirmation button that resets highlighting horizon to current date.
    • Red highlighting of erroneous objects keeps as is, but uses a more subdued hue.
    • Recently changed objects that are currently invalid are highlighted in yellow color instead of green.
    • The PL/SQL page keeps track of the editor scroll position when switching between PLSQL source code of different objects during session
  • The sessions page introduces new highlighting colors:
    • transaction+active: green
    • in transaction+inactive: yellow
  • The sessions page now shows the service name. A checkbox marks sessions running locally on your machine.
  • Reverse DB now generated PL/SQL code to create Policies
  • There is a new Active Session History tab on the AWR page.
  • A new page DBA Container Database has been added for Oracle 12c.

KeepTool 10

KeepTool 10.1.4

27 Feb 2014

  • Compatibility for Oracle 11.2.0.

KeepTool 10.1.3

09 Jan 2014

  • Our new setup prodedure includes also HoraLight.
  • Compatibility update for Microsoft Microsoft Security Advisory (2896666) to circumvent „Invalid Operation in GDI+ (Code 1)” error on some older Windows versions.

KeepTool 10.1.2

22 Aug 2013

  • Kill-Session menu item has been enabled for mutli-select.
  • Significant performance enhancement on session|overview and SGA|sql area pages.
  • Enabled for Oracle 12c and Windows 8.

KeepTool 10.1.1

04 Aug 2013

  • Hora’s “Create table from import source” command now has been enabled to process CSV files besides MS-Excel and MS-Access sources.
  • Unusable indexes are highlighted using red font.
  • When exiting Hora while a transaction is still active you will be asked weather to commit or roll back.

KeepTool 10.1.0

12 Jul 2012

  • The new AWR button on the database page gives you an interface to Oracle’s Automatic Workload Repository. Please be aware of the fact that only users that licensed Oracle Enterprise Manager Diagnostic Pack are entitled to use AWR. The first tab lists AWR snapshots grouped by database instance. The context menu allows you to add a new snapshot manually or create and show an AWR report.

KeepTool 10.0.3

25 Apr 2012

  • The create insert script command now temporarily disables self-referencing foreign keys.
  • Rev/DDL’s compile schema option is now checked by default and adds code to recompile invalid views.
  • The file search dialog on the SQL page is now available on SQL scratchpad as seen on file explorer.
  • The tree view on data contents now implements foreign key lookup same way as the grid view.
  • Improved formatting of Low Value and High Value on both Tables|columns and Tables|Statistics grids.

KeepTool 10.0.2

21 Feb 2012

  • The data grid build-in filters now work case insensitive. A new checkbox on the “Behavior” settings page allows you to get back to case sensitive filtering.
  • Rev/DDL has got two new main menu items to save and restore a configuration to an XML file.
  • The filter tabset below the Tables | Overview grid changed from “All |Tables | Views” to “Tables | Views | Tables and Views”, i.e. “All” became “Tables and Views” because the small “All” tab could be overlooked easily.
  • Both the “open table” button on the data contents browser and the “open other table” tab on the data contents detail view show the “Open table” dialog. It allows you to select a table name from a combo box and enter an optional filter condition. The filter combo box now shows a couple of filter templates. They are based on columns of the selected table such as COLUMN_NAME = ‘?’ and can be changed. If you are on the data contents details view, references to the master table such as DETAIL_COLUMN = :MASTER_ID are added as well. It allows you to display your data in a master-detail relationship, even if there is no foreign key reference.
  • A new checkbox option allows you to change between multi-column and single-column record view layout.
  • The new menu item “Schema | Search all tables in schema for string …” allows you to search the entire database schema for a string sample.The dialog shows table names, column names and the number of matches.

KeepTool 10.0.1

12 Dec 2011

  • The MS-Excel export button now creates XLSX file format without the limitation of 65536 lines related to XLS file format.
  • The Explain Plan context menu item auto-selects the SQL statement at cursor position similar to the Execute SQL command (Ctrl+E).
  • The Scheduler page has been enabled for users with standard privileges.
  • Schema page uses DBA-Views instead of ALL-Views when accessible.
  • The Show DDL menu item is now enabled for multi-selection on the Tables, PL/SQL and Sequences page.
  • An asterisk shows up in the Statusbar to indicate the editor contains unsaved text.

KeepTool 10.0.0

28 Nov 2011

  • The Tablespace fragmentation tab is now a detail view below the datafiles grid view and replaces the former free space subview. It gives you a better overview of used and free space.
  • Significant less memory consumption when creating an Insert or Update script from data contents view.
  • The generated Insert or Update script now contains an ALTER SESSION SET CURSOR_SHARING=FORCE statement for faster execution of big scripts.
  • The Index | Index Statistics – Validate Structure context menu item now shows results from INDEX_HISTOGRAM as diagram view and INDEX_STATS as data view.
  • Dialogs for gathering system, database, schema, table and index statistics show more options matching dbms_stats procedure parameters.
  • Added new context menu items to lock, unlock and restore schema and table statistics.
  • A new tab sheet on the database page shows dbms_stats system statistics. The context menu allows you to update statistics by calling dbms_stats.gather_system_stats.
  • Added a new column group to the tables | columns view. It uses optimizer statistics to show how frequently the column has been used in different WHERE predicates and a timestamp of last usage in a WHERE predicate. You can use the information to decide wether indexing the column would make sense.
    • You need either HORA_USER or SELECT ANY DICTIONARY role or SELECT privileges ON sys.col_usage$, sys.col$, sys.obj$ and sys.user$. If you are lacking privileges, the appropriate columns keep null.
  • Tables | columns view now shows also the filter row known from the overview grids.
  • Support for compound triggers.
  • New tables | statistics view shows information about table and column statistics, histograms, statistic history and preferences.
  • On Windows 7 Hora 10 provides a Jumplist for the Windows Taskbar showing the most recent connections.
  • New wrapped columnar layout for record view.
  • The record view is now printable.
  • Both grid and record view can show a popup calculator for non-indexed numeric columns.
  • Both grid and record view now implement active tooltip hints that provide context sensitive lookup information from the database and the dictionary:
    • For the indicator column in the very left of the data content and SQL result set grids you will be shown a comma separated list of row values that is called instant record view. There is a setting that toggles prefixing each value with column name.
    • For column headers you can see the SQL datatype of the underlying table column, the column comment and information about constraints.
    • For data content cell values that reference another table by a foreign key relation you will see a list of lookup values from the referenced master table. There is a setting to switch it all off for slow database connections.
  • Added a slider to the chart view to adjust the number of categories (i.e. x-axis values) shown per page.
  • Offline datafiles are displayed grayed, those needing recovery use red font.
  • SQL Scratchpad remembers last used tree node for each connection.
  • The SQL editor now sports a check list box showing an item for each SQL file in the current folder. You can batch execute a selected subset of files and it will consecutively load a file in the editor and execute it.
  • The new Pivot view on both data contents and sql query result set view is very powerful. You can drag-drop one or more fields to the filter, column, row and data sections of the cross table grid. After that, the pivot view shows data including column and row totals.
  • A chart view below shows the same data. You can select a smaller region of cells to reduce the amount of data show in the chart.
  • DDL creation for profiles.
  • Omit datafile name from DLL if db_create_file_dest parameter is set.
  • Roles granted to a user are now displayed hierarchically using a tree view. Object and system privileges can be shown in the context of the user or any role from the hierarchy. A checkbox allows you to include privileges granted to subordinate roles as well.
  • Roles granted to roles are displayed on the Database page similarly.
  • Explain plan dialog shows costs with decimal separators.
  • The Database|Undo (Rollback) segments page shows recommendations for undo tablespace size and undo retention time based on v$undosta
  • Show DDL menu item enabled for multi-selection on Synonyms page. This is especially useful for reverse engineering a bunch of public synonyms.
  • The dropdown list of the current schema selection box in the lower left of the main form now shows your login schema, CTXSYS, SYS and PUBLIC using bold text font.
  • The database | NLS parameters page shows NLS_LANG client settings from the Windows registry, environment variable and resulting NLS_LANG.
  • The Tables | Create table from import source dialog has been redesigned.
  • The new menu items File | Write to Oracle | Alert log, Trace File, Both allow administrators to leave a message in the Oracle trace file, alert log file, or both.
  • New page Data Pump shows information about Oracle datapump export and import.
  • The foreign key lookup dialog of the data contents grid now works in the filter row as well as in data rows. Press Return key to apply selected filter value.
  • Using the new File | Open File menu item, the corresponding toolbar button or Ctrl+O you can open an existing SQL file without navigating the file explorer on the SQL page. It will open in the PL/SQL editor similar to the “Open in separate editor” context menu item.
  • Another new menu item File | New File and the corresponding toolbar button open the PL/SQL editor with an empty file.
  • The “Describe” context submenu item has been moved from “Query” to a new menu item “Selected Object” right below “Query”. There are three additional submenu items that allow you to expand a selected table name to a full SELECT, INSERT or UPDATE statement similar to the copy to clipboard commands on the Tables page. Another new submenu item “Show data” opens the result grid window showing the data of the selected table or view.
  • New tab sheet „Feature Usage“ on database page shows statistics about usage of Oracle features.
  • There has been a change in the information that is displayed in the free space column on the tablespace overview grid. The change is only related to temporary tablespaces. Up to Version 9 Hora calculated the free space information as the difference of the maximum temporary tablespace size and the overall size of allocated temp segments. Because Oracle doesn’t free temp segments this information doesn’t really give you a clue how much temp space is available to Oracle sessions. Now, Hora displays the real size that is available as temp space and includes both unused segments and not yet allocated space.

KeepTool 9

KeepTool 9.1.5

01 Aug 2011

  • The Clear Schema procedure now drops jobs and triggers prior to other database objects.

KeepTool 9.1.4

21 Mar 2011

  • Added a checkbox above the DBA|Users|Roles grid that includes object privileges implicitly granted by role. They are marked ‘~’ to distinguish them from privileges granted to the user (lower case ‘x’) directly and those besides grantable (upper case ‘X’).
  • On the Sessions | Locks page is a new checkbox “is user” that indicates wether the lock type takes part in the mechanism of locking sessions against each other. No-user locks are displayed in gray font. In accordance to this change the overview page now counts only user locks held and requested.
  • Temporary Tablespace | Temp/Sort Segment Usage is shown in detail grid.

KeepTool 9.1.3

08 Nov 2010

  • Using XMLSERIALIZE the data contents grid now shows XMLTYPE columns as CLOB in read-only mode.
  • Please remember, you get full read/write support for XMLTYPE columns when connected with an Oracle client.
  • The maximum number of dropdown list values for grid column filters is limited to save grid performance. This limit now can be customized using the Extras|Settings|Behavior|FilterMaxValueListCount spin edit control. You can change the value to zero for unlimited dropdown list size but this may result in poor grid performance for large result sets.

KeepTool 9.1.2

02 Sep 2010

  • The Show DDL command for a selection of multiple users now generates a common block with distinct ROLE and TABLESPACE create statements for the selected users.
  • Network licensing compatibility improvements for less privileged OS users.
  • The tablespace overview grid now shows a checkbox that is checked for the default permanent and temporary tablespace. The context menu allows you to set a tablespace as default.
  • This requires Oracle 9i for temporary and 10g for permanent default tablespaces.
  • The users overview grid has got a new column that shows the number of objects owned by the user. It keeps blank for users without objects. This allows you to filter by not null values to show all database objects owners.
  • There is a new button on the Schema | PL/SQL errors page that allows you to edit the PL/SQL object and show the error. This is similar to the existing “edit in a new window” button on the PL/SQL overview page.
  • Minor improvements for handling temporary tables.
  • Array fetch size for overview grids is now configurable by settings.
  • Performance enhancement on tables page.
  • Load/save template button on data export wizard
  • A new check box option has been added: Behavior – Disable in-memory mode for tabbed data grids. It is recommended to check only if there are tens of thousands of tables in one schema. This will speed up data grid performance and disable some enhanced grid options. The setting does not influence data contents and SQL scratch pad pages since both always come up without in-memory grid mode.

KeepTool 9.1.1

27 Jul 2010

  • Office 2010 compatible skins
  • New Windows Service Application that keeps network licensing grace period charged on Windows Vista and later (see installation instructions)

KeepTool 9.1.0

02 Jul 2010

  • Data export and import dialogs replaced.
  • Added Granularity and Degree options to the analyze schema, table and index dialoges (dbms_stats interface), especially for partitioned tables.
  • Added V$SESSION.SERVER column on sessions page.
  • Setup routine with improved Windows 7 support

KeepTool 9.0.3

04 Mar 2010

  • The modal dialog for analyzing table using dbms_stats now allows you to enter a estimate percent value. By default it keeps blank as before. Furthermore, if the table is partitioned, you can select a partition from the combo box. If you keep the box empty the entire table will be analyzed as before.
  • A new context menu item for tables | partitions has been added to give access to the dialog from the context of a table partition.
  • Added support for creating users identified globally (LDAP/AD/OID). The appropriate column EXTERNAL_NAME is shown on the users page. DDL generation has been changed as well. (10 or higher).
  • A couple of minor enhancements of create/alter user dialog

KeepTool 9.0.2

27 Feb 2010

  • New commands Schema | Statistics | Gather Data Dictionary Statistics, Delete Data Dictionary Statistics, Gather Fixed Objects Statistics, Delete Fixed Objects Statistics accessible for SYS as SYSDBA covering dbms_stats package calls.
  • The connection dialog now shows two OCI DLL settings for global and individual Oracle home selection:
    • The default OCI DLL is used whenever no other OCI DLL is defined in the complementary box.
    • The complementary OCI DLL overrides the default setting for the current SQL*Net_service.
    • ·Both Create Insert Script and Create Update Script menu actions now allow you to change the file encoding between ASCII, Unicode, etc. in the file save dialog.
  • If the file editor detects a non-ASCII character such as a German umlaut it suggests switching to Unicode encoding. You can follow or decline the suggestion. Furthermore, a checkbox allows you to suppress further prompting. You can get back to being prompted by checking the box “Ask for change to Unicode” at Extras|Settings|SQL page.
  • BTW, you can switch file encoding anytime using the file editor context menu.
  • Inplace bar diagrams on explain plan tree view for better overview of costs.
  • Multi-select option enabled in data grids. Now you can copy the tab-delimited content of selected data rows (excluding invisible columns) into the clipboard by pressing Ctrl+C. Clipboard content fits nicely into MS Excel spreadsheets.
  • A new option Others | Query GV$-Views on Sessions page (Enable RAC support) introduces limited RAC support for Oracle 10g and later. If checked, the sessions page queries GV$-views instead of V$-views. As a result, it shows information from other instances as well.
  • Modal context menu dialogs now come with full look and feel support for the Office 11 visual style.
  • Both data contents browser and Hora’s tables overview remember the last used table name separately from the last used view name. When switching from tables to views and back to tables, you will find the last used table name selected again. When switching to views, you will find the last used view name selected.
  • Chart view in data contents view and on SQL page now allows you to show up to 5 instead of 2 series.
  • Powerful privileges such as DBA, UNLIMITED TABLESPACE, BECOME USER, RESTRICTED SESSION, %ANY%, %P_FULL_DATABASE are highlighted red in appropriate detail grid views of both Users and Roles page.

KeepTool 9.0.1

18 Jan 2010

  • UniCode support (UTF-16)
  • New filter row in data contents, SQL query result set, Overview grids and connect dialog grid allows fast filtering
  • New Diagram View page for Data Contents and SQL Result allows you to show different chart views of your data.
  • New Tree View page for Data Contents and SQL Result allows you to show hierarchical data as tree view.
  • Connect dialog remembers OCI.DLL for each server and connection.
  • Reverse/DDL allows you to select the schema to being reverse engineered
  • Checkbox on DB object browser (editor component) to change between alphabetic and logical column order.
  • Table or column comment for selected node is shown in a new text box below the tree view.
  • Users page shows a checkbox column that unveils DBA privilege.
  • Users with DBA privilege are listed in red font, locked user accounts in gray.
  • New Oracle 11g related information on Users page:
  • Default password (such as tiger for scott) according to dba_users_with_defpwd dictionary view
  • Checkbox for SYS_ASM login privilege
  • Password versions shows security rules for database users that have been migrated from 10g to 11g
  • New Oracle 10g and 11g related information on Tablespace page
    • Checkbox for Default table compression
    • Undo tablespace retention
    • Checkbox “Big file”
    • Predicate Evaluation (Host/Storage)
    • Checkbox “Encrypted”
    • Compress for (by default for what kind of operations)
  • For Oracle 11g database the triggers list on the tables page shows a new detail grid with firing order definitions.
  • You can now tab-switch between session and system parameters on the Database-Parameters page. The context dialog to change parameters shows valid parameters in a combo box from v$parameter_valid_values as far as it is accessible regarding database version and privileges.
  • Support for read only constraints on views added.
  • Show DDL command for policies on schema page
  • PLSQL type dependency view similar to PLSQL package/procedure dependency sheet.
  • Error messages from import wizard dialog are dumped to dbms_output window. This allows an unlimited number of errors to be read.
  • Show DDL and Drop Role context menu operations are now available to a selection of multiple grid rows.
  • Tablespaces | Segements page shows pie diagram view of tablespace utilization by user.
  • Performance|Disk I/O view now includes tempfiles
  • Connect dialog shows new custom category for grouping by such as server location, project name, etc.
  • Schema | Disabled Constraints page renamed to Not Validated Constraints. It shows both disabled and not validated constraints. A new column Enabled allows you to filter either of them
  • New page Schema | Dependencies shows relations with and dependencies from other schemes.
  • The HTML documentation generator now makes use of the modal connect dialog.
  • Enhanced data grid printing dialog including optional PDF export.
  • Columns that display information about database jobs on sessions page are hidden by default. A checkbox click makes them visible. This results in significant performance enhancement on later database versions due to eliminating access to DBA_JOBS dictionary view.

KeepTool 8

KeepTool 8.1.8

26 Jul 2009

  • Added support for multiple (comma separated) aliases in TNSNAMES.ORA
  • XML field data is displayed in grid views similar to CLOB contents. The option “Show CLOB content in grid” has been extended by XML content.
  • Syntax highlighting for XML field data.

KeepTool 8.1.7

07 Apr 2009

  • Added show DDL menu item for PL/SQL types
  • Visual appearance of database and schema triggers reconciled with table triggers
  • Create foreign key dialog retains referenced table owner for next call

KeepTool 8.1.6

27 Jan 2009

  • Faster completion in SQL editor
  • Tablespace and Datafile dialogs now support Oracle Managed Files
  • Increased (and customizable) array fetch size in Data Contents and SQL pages for faster data transfer
  • Enhanced LOB performance
  • The DB object cache related columns on the PLSQL overview page are now hidden by default. A check box allows you to show them on demand. This increases the performance of the PLSQL page, especially if the database server runs on its limits.
  • SQL editor now supports SET TIMING and SET FEEDBACK SqlPlus commands. You can initialize them in the options dialog.
  • Elapsed time or number of rows processed is written in the dbms_output window.

KeepTool 8.1.5

27 Nov 2008

  • Data Contents Browser shows number of rows for tables as of last analyzed date.
  • New button on dbms_output window that allows you to switch stay-on-top property when window is floating.
  • New option Pre-Query Record count allows you to query the count of rows before opening the table. It is displayed in the status bar instead of the number of currently fetched rows.

KeepTool 8.1.4

16 Oct 2008

  • Password change dialog now adds REPLACE clause for Oracle 9.2 or later

KeepTool 8.1.3

06 Oct 2008

  • Significant performance enhancement when executing scripts with tens of thousands of lines.

KeepTool 8.1.2

17 Sep 2008

  • In addition to the existing icon that flags primary key columns in the list of table columns, a new blue icon has been added to mark foreign key columns. The primary key icon changed its color from yellow to orange for better visual appearance.
  • The constraints manager, i.e. Hora’s build-in tool that allows you to enable or disable all constraints of the schema, now handles the ORA-00955 error. If the index for a primary key or unique constraint already exists, the enable constraint command is re-executed without USING INDEX clause.
  • The Reverse DDL engineer now allows you to generate DDL scripts in batch mode. Therefore, you have to run a command like
    RevDDL.exe <filename> <connectstring>
    or
    RevDDL.exe C:\Temp\Scott.SQL SCOTT/TIGER.
    Please don’t forget to “quote” file names including white space.
  • If the program is run with at least 2 parameters, error messages are redirected to a file defined by the first parameter.
  • In-place editing of table and column comments can be disabled at Extras|Settings, page “behavior”.

KeepTool 8.1.1

07 Jul 2008

  • Improved performance of switching between pages
  • Database|Datafiles page now includes both datafiles and tempfiles.
  • “Create table from import” Wizard now automatically ensures table and column names match Oracle naming conventions.
  • Improved tooltip hints in ER Diagrammer
  • Data grids allow inplace-editing of table and column comments
  • Several minor tweaks fixed.

KeepTool 8.1.0

04 Jun 2008

  • Multi select on Tablespaces page for “Show DDL”
  • New Pretty-print option available from the context menu of both the embedded and standalone SQL editor (excluding HoraLight).
  • Master/Detail tables diagram can now be zoomed using a slider.
  • Master/Detail tables diagram now can be copied to clipboard (fully scalable enhanced metafile format)
  • Several new skins
  • New Role Hierarchy diagram on Schema page
  • New context menu for adding and dropping redo log members
  • Several improvements on Data Import Dialog
  • ER-Diagrammer: New menu item for modifying foreign keys
  • Performance improvements on several pages
  • System environment information dialogs shows additional information such as video card and disk space

KeepTool 8.0.1

15 Feb 2008

  • Microsoft Windows Vista supported
  • Support for Oracle 11g virtual columns. The table columns grid shows two new check boxes: “virtual” and “hidden.” Use add/change column context dialogs to manage virtual columns
  • Support for Oracle 11g invisible indexes. The appropriate data grid shows the property, and context menu permits modifications.
  • Invisibility (to optimizer) property of indexes is shown in the grid
  • FastReport Designer now allows you to dynamically create new subordinate SQL queries (ODAC dataset integration)
  • Parameter dialog on the SQL page now lets you set the data type for each parameter
  • New “ping” context menu item for database links
  • New “Create | Table from import” item on “Tables | Overview” context menu. Creates column types that match the import source.
  • The list box items showing column names in the “Add foreign key” dialog now can be ordered either by name or logically.
  • New File Search menu item on SQL page’s embedded Windows Explorer window.
  • Tablespace | Fragmentation view has been redesigned. It lists the tablespace’s contiguous chunks of segments and free space in reverse order of the way they are stored in the data file. This means that you will now see segments that prevent downsizing the tablespace at the top of the list.
  • The filter box that dynamically appears below a filtered grid can now recall the last 5 settings using a MRU list
  • The Explain Plan dialog now auto-commits the EXPLAIN PLAN SQL command that is executed when the dialog is shown. Thus the lock on PLAN_TABLE is released.
  • Export from data grid to Excel (data contents and SQL scratchpad) now exports numeric values in numeric instead of string format. Foreign key columns are still exported in “general” format because of technical limitations. Use the export wizard on the underlying dataset to get around this
  • New Refresh button (shortcut F5) next to Commit/Rollback button refreshes the currently active page.
  • DDL creation for external tables has been improved
  • The Query Builder now indicates the type of join (inner, left/right outer) using a solid/framed circle next to the table column. The join type is initialized according to the NOT NULL properties of the joined columns. You can change the join type using the join’s context menu by right-clicking the line that connects the joined tables.
  • Excel export and grid mode for tables with timestamp columns are now supported.
  • Editor code auto completion (Ctrl+Space code) performance has been improved.
  • Increased width of record view controls with context button on data contents page
  • Improved performance in SQL Scratchpad
  • Skinned user interface. The settings dialog allows you to change the visual appearance of the application.
  • New FTP Explorer tab sheet on SQL page allows you to execute scripts right from the server using FTP protocol.
  • Grant dialog for object privileges has been re-designed.
  • PL/SQL Procedures/Call interface page now shows authorization method for procedures and functions (Oracle 9i or later).
  • New tab sheet Statistics Preferences on the Tables page for Oracle 11g. The context allows to change the values
  • Scheduler | Global Attributes can now be changed using context menu (10g or later)
  • Explain Plan dialog shows the new 11g optimizer_use_invisible_indexes session parameter and allows changing.
  • Support for Oracle 11g read-only tables: Tables overview displays it as check box. The properties context dialog allows changing.
  • Read-only data content is shown in gray font
  • DDL generation includes the new property.
  • SGA page shows values of new initialization parameters like sga_target and memory_target.
  • SGA page now adds a new Oracle 11g result cache tab showing result cache statistics, result cache objects and result cache-related initialization parameters.
  • Basic SQL support for inherited object fields
  • Optimized LOB fetching memory usage
  • Query Builder now allows you to save and retrieve a query definition to and from an XML file.
  • Additional parameters are shown for flashback DB (Redo Log page).
  • Support for new 11g connect mode AS SYSASM.
  • Context menu on Schema Privileges page has been improved. It includes now support for granting and revoking privileges.
  • ·Skinned User Interface. You can select between multiple visual appearances by selecting from Extras|Settings – Behavior – Skin name.
  • ·There are different look and feels available such as Office XP blue, black and silver and a couple of seasonal skins like Xmas and Valentine’s day.
  • New options Extras|Settings – Data Contents – Long Numbers as String (default: True). The option defines how different precisions of Oracle’s and Window’s numeric data types are handled. If checked, long Oracle NUMBER columns are displayed as strings without loosing precision. As a result, calculated footer totals are not available. If unchecked, long NUMBERs are mapped to Windows’ double data type with 15 significant digits. Totals such as SUM and AVG are available, but precision may be lost.

KeepTool 7

KeepTool 7.3.0

05 Oct 2007

  • New installation program
  • Auto-selection of single statement on SQL execution (Ctrl+E)
  • Minor tweaks in network license handling eliminated
  • New versions of ODAC, JAM and DevExpress 3rd-party libraries.
  • Improved handling for users without OS administration privileges
  • Manifold SQL generation for triggers on views fixed
  • Conversation error in tablespace quota dialog fixed
  • Improved display of PLSQL warnings
  • Recycle bin objects excluded from several grid and list views
  • Expired password can now be changed in connect dialog
  • Sidebar bug button response on first click
  • Registration form changed

KeepTool 7.2.1

04 Apr 2007

  • Improved performance of the off-site license usage feature.
  • Improved performance when working with the floating license and a poor network connection.
  • Improved performance for displaying of tables with a large number of columns in Data Contents, Data Contents Browser, and SQL Scratchpad.
  • Optimized display on the SGA & Statistics | SQL area tab.

KeepTool 7.2.0

19 Mar 2007

  • Enhancements to Connect Dialog
    • Passwords can be stored in encrypted form
    • Connections can be displayed grouped by user or server. Connections can also be sorted in reverse chronological order
    • Remarks about connections can be entered and saved using the “Short Description” field
  • SQL Page
    • The SQL Repository is now known as the ‘Scratchpad’
    • The File Explorer, which previously allowed navigation among SQL and PL/SQL files only, now displays all files
    • Hora’s integrated editor now displays ASCII files with syntax highlighting and code folding for the most common languages (SQL, PL/SQL, Java, C++, Pascal, HTML, XML, etc.)
    • Elementary lexers for TXT, LOG, as well as .sk, .ksh, .csh
    • A binary file, such as a Word document, can be opened directly from the File Explorer with the related application
    • File Explorer returns to the last displayed directory for each connection
    • Statement detection on the SQL code window
    • New File Explorer navigation buttons on the SQL page
    • Files can be dragged and dropped from Windows Explorer to File Explorer
    • A Print Preview window appears before files are printed
  • Schema page | Invalid Objects tab
    • The context menu contains two new entries: “Compile All Invalid” and “Show DDL”
    • Multiple selection is available using the Ctrl key
  • PL/SQL Objects page (formerly Packages)”
    • The former Packages page is now known as “PL/SQL Objects”
    • Triggers can now be displayed on the PL/SQL page, in addition to the Tables page
    • The PL/SQL Objects Overview page now contains an additional group, “PL/SQL Debug”
  • Performance improvements to the DB Object Browser
  • On the Data Contents page, columns with the NOT NULL attribute are highlighted by underlining the column heading
  • The context menu on the User Page now makes available the PASSWORD EXPIRE clause of ALTER USER
  • New display of the Tables Overview in Data Contents Browser and Query Builder through use of high-performance grid components
  • When SQL Recording is in effect, only successfully executed SQL statements are now saved
  • Help is now context-sensitive for each page
  • The Execution Plan now provides more information. A number of new columns have been added (including Options, Optimizer, Position, Cost, etc.)
  • PL/SQL Debugger
    • Source code can now be selected via the menu, providing the Debugger has run for at least one step. After the source code is selected, breakpoints can immediately be set
    • Context-sensitive graying of buttons and menus has been improved
    • The Debugger now automatically provides the Evaluate/Modify function for variables through a tooltipVarious bugs corrected
  • In ER Diagrammer, the hints for connections between tables have been moved further from the connecting lines to facilitate working with the lines
  • Line breaks and spaces in SQL Editor are ignored when a selected SQL statement is being executed.
  • New Import/Export Wizard dialogs that allow saving and loading of user-specific profiles via the Specifications button.
  • When printing, paper size defaults to either A4 or Letter depending on regional settings.
  • The “Optimizer Mode” combo box under Extras | Settings | Session has been redesigned. The FIRST_ROWS and ALL_ROWS options are no longer available. The field can be edited so that combinations of options are possible.
  • A new “PL/SQL Warnings” check box is available under Extras | Settings | Session. This enables PL/SQL warnings to be enabled or disabled for 10g databases. – Hora no longer shows package names in red on the Overview page when only warnings have been generated. They will not be shown in red unless there are actual errors.
  • Hora automatically requires a new password when a user’s password has expired.
  • The Connect dialog has been made larger in size.
  • Hora issues a warning when the oci.dll file predates the database.
  • If no file has been selected on the SQL Page’s File Explorer, the editor becomes read-only and has a gray background.
  • Improvements to the “Best Fit Columns” function:
    • Double-clicking the border between two columns enables Best Fit for the column to the left. This is also true for groups of columns.
    • Best Fit Columns” can be automatically put into effect for a certain number of columns or groups, using a new option in Extras | Settings | Behavior.
  • Using the check box in the filter panel below the data grid, you can temporarily disable the filter.
  • The Tables and PL/SQL page now offer an “Include Synonyms” check box in the upper right corner. The Synonyms tab has been removed from the Tables page.
  • Hidden files (those whose name begins with a period) can optionally be made visible or hidden in SQL Scratchpad’s File Explorer. The check box to set this option can be found under Extras > Settings > SQL Page > Hide period-prefixed files.
  • The SQL Page now offers the ability to execute a single SQL statement with Ctrl + E when the cursor is placed on it.
  • Alphabetic sorting in SQL Scratchpad has been corrected.
  • Improved performance when switching between tasks.

KeepTool 7.0.3

16 Sep 2006

  • Improvements to the Sessions page:
    • A new group, “Waiting,” has been added to the Overview, with columns “Waiting Since” and “Seconds”
    • An additional column, “Transaction and Blocking,” has been added to the Status group
    • Another additional group, “Wait Object and Row,” has been added
    • Information identifying the client application is displayed on the right, in a non-scrolling section
    • Only the session causing a lock will now be shown graphically. A session that holds a lock will only be listed in red when it is blocking another session. A blocked session will no longer be shown in red. Note: To use this feature, available starting with Version 7.0.3.2, the HORA_USER role must be redefined
  • The Scheduler icon has been redesigned in a different color to differentiate it from the Jobs icon
  • Grant Object Privileges dialog now recalls last selected privileges
  • Improved accessibility to tables in other schemas: Ctrl+Space enables table search without the need to specify owner in Current Schema
  • SQL Query Result Set window does not automatically close when leaving the SQL page
  • Corrected problem in Find/Replace in Editor when regular expressions are specified
  • New Data Contents Browser context menu item: the Editor opens a modal dialog for CLOB columns
  • New Enable/Disable context menu item for the Scheduler
  • Maximizing and restoring of the DBMS_Output window now possible after closing the window
  • PL/SQL Debugger: context menu allows clearing the DBMS_Output window
  • ER Diagrammer, DCB and Query Builder show all owners if user has the SELECT ANY TABLE privilege
  • ER Diagrammer now clarifies relationships through tool tips
  • Dependent and independent tables are visually differentiated in ER-Diagrammer. Non-identifying relationships are now shown as broken lines
  • Several bug fixes

KeepTool 7.1.0

06 Jun 2006

  • Hora now shows the Oracle version and SID in the main form’s title bar
  • Jobs can now be shown for the current schema or optionally for all schemas
  • User/Roles: A new detail view shows the users and roles that have been granted object privileges for the current user
  • Overview Tables: New Errors column in the Flags group. This is always NULL, except for Views. Views with errors are also shown in red
  • Several bug fixes

KeepTool 7.0.2

24 Feb 2006

  • The Tables context menu allows monitoring for all indexes to be set on or off
  • The Indexes context menu allows monitoring to be set on or off for individual indexes
  • Information from V$OBJECT_USAGE is now displayed for indexes
  • Improved performance when moving from Overview Tables to the Data Contents Browse
  • Enhanced display in SQL Editor’s Outline window
  • Enhanced appearance of SQL Editor’s Code Folding feature
  • Improvements to direct Excel export (Excel file now shows grouping by columns, when in effect)
  • Improvements in navigation through Database Roles
  • Improvements in Data Contents (new Record View, new Text View, enhancements to the column headings in Grid View, display of BLOB fields using Windows applications)

KeepTool 7.0.1

30 Jan 2006

  • A new and easier-to-use interface in all Version 7 products
  • A powerful new data grid component, with much better performance when managing query results available through the optional in-memory mode on the client, for
    • Sorting
    • Filtering
    • Grouping, including multiple levels
    • Calculation of sum, average, min, max, count
    • For details, see www.keeptool.com/newsletters/060110/Grid.html
  • New SQL Editor with
    • Collapsible code
    • Text folding
  • Enhanced capabilities for applying color scheme
    • For details, see www.keeptool.com/newsletters/060110/Colors.html
  • Additional Oracle 10g support: Scheduler, XML
  • Integration of the latest version of the Fast Reports 3 report generator
  • Explain Plan tree view now presents information about each step in column form
  • Integration of new WYSIWYG printing component
  • Enhanced performance on Tables page
  • Improved functionality in PL/SQL Debugger
  • ER Diagrammer now based on new diagramming component (FlowChart)
    • For details, see www.keeptool.com/newsletters/060110/Diagrammer.html

KeepTool 7.0.0

10 Nov 2005

  • Hora 7 pre-release becomHora 7 pre-release becomes available, with full release of KeepTool 7 to follow.es available, with full release of KeepTool 7 to follow.

KeepTool 6

KeepTool 6.2.7

02 Sep 2005

  • The standard connection dialog for KeepTool products now provides the Color Theme drop-down box, which allows users to easily distinguish between multiple sessions.
  • The Data Contents Browser has been redesigned. Tables and views may now be opened by selecting them from a list and double-clicking. A previously created settings file can now be opened even if some of the tables no longer exist.
  • Hora can now be automatically started from the command line with the specification AS SYSDBA or AS SYSOPER. For details, please refer to the Command line parameters topic.

KeepTool 6.2.5

24 Mar 2005

  • SQL Workbench’s default node My SQL is now called Personal SQL. This change does not affect current users.
  • The horizontal ruler in SQL Editor may now be toggled on or off through the Extras | Additional menu.
  • The Connect dialog has been enhanced to allow access through the 10g Instant Client, using a string formatted as host:port/service name.
  • Reverse DDL now supports the Tablespace clause for LOB’s.
  • A problem with importing dates from Microsoft Excel has been corrected.
  • In Database | Roles, when System Privileges is selected with the bottom left tab, only the Grantees bottom tab is enabled on the right.
  • An Oracle Data Access Components problem that occasionally showed blank cells in the Tables | Data Contents grid has been corrected.
  • In Overview Tables, the Case-Sensitive check box in the filter dialog has now been turned off by default.

KeepTool 6.2.4

03 Nov 2004

  • The Connect Dialog has added a new field that allows optional entry of a tag whose text will form part of the main window’s title bar and the taskbar button for the session.
  • Various minor changes to improve efficiency.

KeepTool 6.2.3

01 Oct 2004

  • Performance of Tables | Data Contents and the Data Contents Browser has been improved by runtime caching of metadata for subsequent queries.
  • The DROP TABLESPACE dialog now offers the AND DATAFILES option for 9i and 10g databases.
  • Hora’s startup performance has been enhanced by eliminating automatic calls to DBMS_JAVA. On the Extras | Settings menu, it is now possible to set Java Server output on or off separately from DBMS_OUTPUT, and to set the buffer size. The default is now Java output disabled, and DBMS_OUTPUT enabled, with a buffer size of 20,000 lines for each.
  • On Hora’s Tables page, it is now possible to create primary and unique keys from the Columns | Constraints detail grid, in the same manner as on the Constraints sheet.
  • HTML Documentation Generator’s connect dialog now offers the possibility of a direct TCP/IP connection.

KeepTool 6.2.2

01 Sep 2004

  • A list of the current contents of the Data Contents Browser can now be saved to a user-specified XML file. On re-entering the Browser, all tables and views can be brought back into the window via the new Load button.
  • Hora now offers the ability to cancel long-running queries in the SQL Workbench, Tables | Data Contents and the Data Contents Browser. A new checkbox in Extras | Settings asks the user if he wants to cancel the query. It appears after 2 seconds in Windows XP, or for all queries in earlier versions of Windows. See the new topic Cancel Query for details. (This feature is not available with a TCP/IP connection.)
  • Enhancements have been made to the customization dialogs for the standalone SQL Editor and to the built-in editor in Hora’s code windows, most significantly in the Colors dialog. As a result, new default settings are in place. These may be replaced and saved for future use. Details are available in Customizing the Editor.
  • The Search dialog that can be accessed from the Overview Packages page (described in the dialog Search PL/SQL Text) now allows for searches within all categories of PL/SQL object, or just within the category pointed to by the bottom tab.
  • Hora’s settings now add the option of disabling Windows Ghosting. This option affects only Windows XP SP1, and prevents situations where windows cannot be closed after switching between Hora and other Windows applications.
  • Another new setting determines whether execution time will be shown in the DBMS_Output window when using the Execute Query function.
  • Hora’s CREATE VIEW dialog now automatically qualifies the view name with the current schema name. This prevents an Oracle error message that was previously generated when the schema selector box was used to manage another user’s schema.

KeepTool 6.2.1

09 Aug 2004

  • On Tables | Data Contents and in the Data Contents Browser, a new XML export facility has been added.
  • On Tables | Triggers, the display of columns affected by triggers has been enhanced.
  • The Reports Facility now permits export to an Excel file, and data fields in the Report Designer include references to variable names.
  • In the SQL Workbench’s Results grid, the reference to AutoCommit in the window caption has been removed.
  • The CREATE TABLE dialog, Tables | Columns , and DDL Generation now allow for input and display of explicit length semantics qualifiers BYTE and CHAR for CHAR and VARCHAR2 datatypes. This is shown in Reverse DDL Engineer and HTML Documentation Generator, in addition to Hora.
  • The redundant fields LAST_SEC, THIS_SEC, NEXT_SEC in Overview Jobs have been removed.
  • In Users | SQL Area, buttons for Filter, Find and Flush SQL Area have been added.
  • On Hora’s Materialized Views overview, additional information regarding refresh groups has been added to the grid. A new Logging checkbox has been added to the CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW dialog. The query that produces the overview for an 8.1.7 database was modified to prevent the display of erroneous values in ALL_MVIEWS.COMPILE_STAT.
  • In Tablespaces | Datafiles, a context menu item to drop a tempfile has been added.
  • Hora’s Data Contents Browser now shows the current row and the number of rows fetched in the status bar in the same way as the Tables | Data Contents page.
  • In Hora’s Packages page, the source code of a PL/SQL unit that is opened in a separate editor now retains editor settings in the same way as the source code window. The Find Procedure function in the separate editor window now also functions in the same way as on the Source Code tab sheet.
  • Check marks in grids are no longer encased in boxes.

KeepTool 6.2.0

21 Jun 2004

  • All KeepTool products now support access to the Oracle 10g server via the 10g client’s Oracle Call Interface.
  • In Hora, a new option has been added to the general options menu that is available through Extras | Settings. AutoCommit causes inserts, updates, and deletes that are made through the grids on Tables | Data Contents and in the Data Contents Browser to be automatically committed. In previous versions of Hora, AutoCommit was automatically in effect. This option may now be set off by unchecking the box.
  • For Oracle 10g databases, the status of the Flashback Database may now be viewed through a new tab on the Redo Logs page.
  • The context menu for Overview Tablespaces now allows renaming of tablespaces in Database 10g.
  • On the Overview Tables tab sheet, three new flags have been added: Dependencies, Compression, and Dropped. The third indicates that a table has been dropped, but not purged, from an Oracle 10g database, and is in the Recycle Bin. On Tables | Indexes, a new Dropped flag indicates that an index has been dropped and is in the Recycle Bin.
  • The Oracle Data Access Components used by KeepTool now support Transparent Application Failover (TAF), which automatically re-establishes a connection to the server when the prior connection fails.

KeepTool 6.1.1

28 Apr 2004

  • All KeepTool products now support access to the Oracle 10g server via the 10g client’s Oracle Call Interface.
  • Hora now supports the Oracle Database 10g Server.
  • The link to Oracle Reference, SQL Reference, and Error Messages, formerly on the Help menu, has been replaced by an all-encompassing link to Oracle Help from theSearch context menu in all of Hora’s code windows and the standalone SQL Editor.
  • Hora’s Query Builder now allows adding related tables from a selected table’s context menu.
  • It is now possible to drop multiple objects in Hora, by holding down the Ctrl key when selecting objects. A Confirm drop window is displayed and must be acknowledged before proceeding.
  • New filtering options have been added to the Data Contents Browser and the Data Contents sheet of the Tables page. They allow the definition of an ad hoc relationship between tables.
  • Both the Data Contents Browser and the Data Contents sheet of the Tables page now enable the memo editor for columns defined as XMLTYPE, and for tables defined as TABLE OF XMLTYPE.
  • button on the Toolbar, two new options are available: case-sensitive and non-matching records.
  • than the width of the column headings.
  • In Hora’s Overview Packages, Procedures, Functions sheet, new tabs showing information taken from the V$DB_OBJECT_CACHE view that pertains to the highlighted item is now shown.
  • The source code windows for PL/SQL objects now automatically include a slash (/) at the end, to facilitate execution if they are saved to external files.
  • Hora’s Schema page has been moved from the bottom to the top of the Additional collection.
  • On Hora’s Schema page, it is now possible to see DDL for grants of object privileges made by the schema owner to others.
  • A new sheet, Schema Triggers, has been added to Hora’s Schema page.
  • The colors of the type and background in Hora’s Sidebar are now customizable from the Startup tab of Extras | Settings.
  • On Hora’s Tablespace page, the Datafiles tab sheet has been enhanced to include STATUS from V$DATAFILE, showing whether datafiles are online or offline.
  • Batch invocation of HTML Documentation Generator adds many new options, including the ability to generate an HTML file while bypassing the options dialog completely.

KeepTool 6.1.0

12 Jan 2004

  • In Hora’s SQL Workbench, support has been added for source code management systems that conform to the Microsoft SCC interface, beginning with Microsoft Visual SourceSafe.
  • Hora’s Standard Sidebar contains a new item: the Data Contents Browser, which facilitates viewing and updating of several tables or views at once. An option enables automatic filtering to show only rows related to a selected row in the previously viewed table.
  • Hora’s Data Contents sheet on the Tables page has been enhanced to allow viewing of any user-selected table along with the related detail tables. Also, the Arrange Columns dialog has been enhanced to present two new options for selecting columns to be displayed: Select All and Unselect All.
  • The Advanced Button in the Connection Dialog for all three products now gives the user the ability to choose among existing oci.dll files for all Oracle Homes using a combo box.
  • In all of Hora’s code windows, and in SQL Editor, a new context menu item has been added that will comment multi-line selected text with /* */ symbols.
  • For schemas, tables and indexes, Hora now offers new options for analyzing statistics.

KeepTool 6.0.2

02 Dec 2003

  • The EMS Import and Export facilities on Hora’s Table page and on SQL Results added support for the Microsoft Access (.mdb) format. You must have ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) installed to enable this option.
  • In Hora’s Data Contents page, TIMESTAMP columns are now correctly displayed when using an Oracle 9.2 oci.dll.
  • The Context menu for table shapes in Hora’s Query Builder now offers options for presenting the order of table columns.
  • Hora’s Query Builder now allows for both tables and views to be incorporated into the query.
  • Hora now uses the SELECT ANY DICTIONARY privilege (in place of SELECT ANY TABLE) with Oracle 9i databases to determine whether Data Dictionary views should be displayed for users who have not been granted the HORA_USER role.

KeepTool 6.0.1

24 Oct 2003

  • A new option has been added to Hora’s Extras | Settings menu. It determines whether a dialog will be presented after each DML statement to enable the user to choose between a Commit, a Rollback, or continuing the transaction until a future time. A commit or rollback may now be done via new Toolbar buttons or via the File Menu.
  • A new context menu item and Toolbar button has been added to Hora’s SQL Workbench. It allows the contents of the code window to be sent to a SQL*Plus session for execution and output to be viewed in the DBMS_OUTPUT window.
  • On Hora’s Data Contents tab for Tables, a context menu item now allows loading BLOBs and CLOBs from files and saving them to files.
  • On Hora’s Schema | Policy tab, new context menu items to add or drop a security policy have been added.
  • On Hora’s Tables | Columns tab sheet, a new dialog to control the visibility and order of columns can now be invoked by clicking the area in the upper left corner of the grid.
  • Hora’s Redo Logs page has added a new sheet to show archived log data.
  • Hora’s Report facility now has the ability to save reports in various formats, including .pdf and .rtf.
  • Hora’s SQL Query Builder adds a checkbox that allows columns to be used in WHERE clauses without being SELECTed.
  • The SQL Editor’s customization options (standalone and embedded) now include a new Additional category, where it is possible to set highlighting of the current line on or off.
  • The File Explorer in Hora’s SQL Workbench now displays additional file types such as .sqs and .tab created by Oracle Designer.
  • Several miscellaneous minor enhancements.

KeepTool 6.0.0

07 Sep 2003

  • The design of the user interfaces for all of KeepTool’s products has been modified to allow the interface to follow the currently selected Windows XP design. In Windows XP, the currently selected tab on all tab sheets is now outlined in orange. The majority of the icons in all products have been updated to show more detail and more color.
  • Hora: The SQL Query Builder has been replaced by a new version that allows tables and columns to be shown graphically, with joins for table relationships being automatically generated. Query Builder now also generates code for cursor “for” loops, in addition to SELECT, INSERT and UPDATE statements. The new facility is covered in the SQL Query Builder topic under Modal Dialogs.
  • Hora: New Export and Import dialogs have been added to both the Tables | Data Contents sheet and the Results grid in the SQL Workshop. These facilities are described under two new topics in the Modal Dialogs: EMS File Export and EMS File Import.
  • Hora: A new Report facility has been added to both the Tables | Data Contents and the Results grid in the SQL Workshop. This facility is described in the Modal Dialogs under the new topic Reporting.
  • Hora and SQL Editor: A new File Comparison facility has been added to the SQL Workbench. It is accessible from both the SQL Repository and File Explorer tabs, and can be used to compare any two text files. This facility is also available from the File Menu in the standalone SQL Editor. It is described in Modal Dialogs under the topic File Comparison.
  • Hora: Two new buttons have been added to the left end of the Toolbar, and are available for most operations that allow updates by typing in a data grid: Commit and Rollback.
  • Hora and SQL Editor: Both Hora’s SQL Workbench and the SQL Editor now display column numbers in the code window.
  • Hora: The Execute Script function in SQL Workbench now ignores SQL*Plus commands. This allows the SQL commands and PL/SQL blocks in scripts to run without interruption.
  • Hora: The Execute Script function now shows results from SELECT statements in the DBMS_OUTPUT window, where they can be further manipulated.
  • Hora: A new Schema page has been added to the Additional Sidebar. The page gives information about the status of all objects within the currently selected schema, without regard to the type of object.
  • Hora: The Grant System Privileges dialog, found under both Database | Roles and Users | Roles & Privileges, now uses icons to distinguish between roles and privileges, and adds a checkbox to facilitate multiple grants.
  • Hora: The Privileges tab sheet of the Tables page has been redesigned to show grantees and privileges through a grid.
  • Hora: All grid columns can now be resized. Double-clicking a column boundary will set the column size to that of the largest cell. Pressing the Alt key when selecting a text area with the mouse enables selecting a rectangular block of text.
  • Hora: On the Database page, port string, version and compatibility have been added. All options, whether installed or not, are shown, with unavailable options in gray.
  • Hora: The Schema | Clear Schema menu option now gives detailed information about objects that cannot be dropped, such as public synonyms.
  • Reverse DDL Engineer: A filter condition can now be applied when specifying objects to be included individually.
  • When creating new foreign-key relationships in ER Diagrammer, new foreign key names are now shown automatically without the need to update the diagram.
  • When ER Diagrammer has been started from a saved .dgr file, a connection dialog is automatically presented after any attempt to update the diagram.

KeepTool 5

KeepTool 5.3.0

19 Mar 2003

  • A new facility for exporting the SQL results grid and table contents to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet has been added.

KeepTool 5.2.4

21 Feb 2003

  • A new facility for generating new user connections, and for switching new connections within Hora, has been added to the menu bar and to the Toolbar.
  • Syntax highlighting for reserved words in code editing windows now includes more new 9i words.
  • The Current Schema combo box in Hora has been expanded in length, and the schema name, followed by a colon, has been added to Hora’s title bar, when a schema other than the connected user’s is being viewed.

KeepTool 5.2.3

26 Jan 2003

  • Enhancements to PL/SQL Debugger to maintain variable watches in triggers between invocations, and to enable variable watches in global package variables.
  • In Reverse DDL, a new option determines whether the check-box list of database objects should appear checked or not checked when opening the application.
  • When executing SQL from either the SQL Workbench’s code window or the standalone Editor, it is now possible to turn off automatic save prior to execution, through a checkbox in the Extras | Settings menu item.
  • When updating from the results grid in the SQL Workbench, it is now possible to select either Commit or Rollback after posting changes.

KeepTool 5.2.2

08 Nov 2002

  • The Grant and Revoke modal dialogs, available on the Privileges tab of certain objects, now allow privileges to be granted to or revoked from multiple roles or users at the same time.
  • Additional columns pertaining to Object Tables have been added to the Overview Tables sheet.
  • The Oracle Online Documentation feature now offers access to all versions of Oracle 8i and Oracle 9i documentation.
  • Interface to Resource Manager updated to support new Oracle 9i parameters.
  • The Database | Roles sheet now allows selection of either Roles or System Privileges, in order to show grantees of all System Privileges.

KeepTool 5.2.1

02 Oct 2002

  • Automatic Code Completion can be enabled or disabled through the Extras menu item.
  • Automatic Code Completion now completes an unfinished designator after a pause or Ctrl + space. If Enter is pressed, code completion resumes in the same case as the previously entered text.
  • In SQL Workbench, root nodes on a network drive are now shown using a distinct icon. Items are now sorted alphabetically.

KeepTool 5.2.0

16 Sep 2002

  • Reverse DDL Generator now creates DDL for tablespaces, and is available through Hora’s context menu.
  • The Overview Tablespaces sheet now includes the tablespace number.
  • SQL Logging is now called SQL Recording, and can be toggled on or off through the Extras menu, as well as from the SQL Preview window.
  • The SQL Repository is now file-based. SQL that was previously stored in the Windows Registry can now be imported. SQL Recording can designate a destination file through the new File Explorer tab.
  • New Code Completion menu item under Query on the SQL Editor context menu. This feature also appears automatically when entering a table name, alias name, or package name, followed by a period, in a SQL statement.
  • The DBMS_Profiler Oracle-supplied package can be invoked through a new toolbar icon from SQL Workbench.
  • In the SQL Editor, color-coding now distinguishes between successfully- and unsuccessfully-executed statements. Problem statements can be corrected in the editor window, and the code can be re-executed.
  • SQL Editor automatically creates Bookmark 0 in front of the first statement.
  • A new MRU (Most Recently Used) tab has been added to the bottom of the Overview Tables sheet. This limits the view to those objects that were most recently selected, using one of the tabs at the top.
  • A new two-part combo box appears for selecting the schema to be viewed. The top part lists the most recently viewed schemas. The bottom lists all schemas in the Data Dictionary that are accessible to the current user.
  • The new Analyze option on the Overview Tables sheet allows the DBMS_STATS package to be used for statistics gathering.
  • The Overview Materialized Views sheet now shows privileges granted and the relevant initialization parameters.
  • A new tab, Long Operations, has been added to the Sessions page.
  • The Triggers and Foreign Keys menu items on the Schema menu have been replaced by Triggers Global Management and Constraints Global Management.
  • Improved error flagging for PL/SQL object and trigger compiles.
  • New Update Comments column on the Initialization Parameters tab of the Database page (Oracle 9i only).
  • New Firing Order and Level columns on the Triggers tab of the Tables page.
  • Data that violates constraints can now be updated directly in the Show Exceptions dialog of the Constraints tab of the Tables page.
  • Views can now be updated directly, using the Data Contents tab of the Tables and Views page.

KeepTool 5.1.3

08 Mar 2002

  • Changes to the Tables | Data Contents tab sheet
    • The Create INSERT Script menu item now prevents all previously hidden columns from being included. This feature enables partial comparison of tables belonging to different databases.
    • The new Create UPDATE Script menu item generates a similar script containing UPDATE statements.
  • A new Logging context menu item lets you choose whether tables and indexes should have logging on or off.
  • A new Create Export Parameter File menu item has been added to the Schema menu item of the main form. It allows you to create a parameter file that controls Oracle’s export utility for multi-table exports.
  • It is now possible to add new partitions to a hash-partitioned table, using the Add context menu item of the table partitions grid.
  • Reverse/DDL now allows you to choose between the following methods of computing the START WITH value for sequences:
    • Original start value used to create the sequence.
    • Last number used: this means that the DDL statement starts with the current sequence value. This option is very useful once you have run the DDL script to create the schema structure and used Oracle’s import utility to load the data.
    • Always one, regardless of the original start value and the last number used.
  • The Change Current Schema dialog, which used to appear when you clicked on the schema button to the left of the status bar, has been replaced by a combo box. Its built-in most-recently-used list eliminates the need for a dialog.
  • The Tablespaces | Datafiles sheet now shows the high-water mark for each datafile. This is the absolute number of bytes used, including the free chunks between used data blocks. The size of a datafile can be shrunk to at least this size.
  • When a table is moved to another tablespace, its indexes must be rebuilt. We have added a grid to the Moving to another tablespace dialog that displays the indexes and their tablespaces. You can use the check boxes to select which ones to rebuild.
  • Both Reverse/DDL and the DDL generated from the Show DDL menu item on Hora’s Users page now support Resource Manager privileges. A call to the Resource Manager package is included in the DDL that defines the user if the current user has the privilege of switching a user from one consumer group to another.
  • A new Hora menu item, Tablespaces | Show DDL, has been added.
  • Added context menus to the watches and breakpoints windows of the PL/SQL Debugger, along with the appropriate menu commands.
  • The PL/SQL Debugger now supports server output for Oracle 8i databases. Whenever the Debugger stops, lines written to dbms_output are displayed in the new dbms_output window.

KeepTool 5.1.2

10 Feb 2002

  • The new Resource Manager page presents an interface for managing the hierarchy of resource plans and associating them with consumer groups. You can define a default consumer group for a user and switch the consumer group for a session.
  • The interface to Oracle’s auditing facility has also been improved. You can define audit options for such database objects as tables, procedures and directories. You can also apply auditing to selected statements and privileges at the user level. Hora’s Auditing page gives you an overview of all audited objects, statements and privileges in the database.
  • Some problems with locally managed temporary tablespaces have been resolved.
  • The tablespace context menu now allows the status of a tablespace to be toggled between read-only and read/write.
  • Added an overview tab to the Performance page. It displays the numeric values from the other pages.
  • As is known, Reverse/DDL generates CREATE ROLE statements for the roles granted to the schema owner. Now it also generates GRANT statements for the system and role privileges that are granted to the role.
  • Added an extents grid below the tablespace fragmentation grid that shows all extents with the selected fragment size.
  • The PL/SQL call interface sheet now supports PL/SQL record parameters.

KeepTool 5.1.0

15 Jan 2002

  • Added a new Visible Columns … context menu item to the data contents grid. It opens a modal dialog for changing the order and visibility of the columns.
  • New Sessions | Transactions tab sheet.
  • The headings on some data grids are now displayed and managed hierarchically. Related columns are now grouped together as subheadings under major headings. Also, columns that have been repositioned are marked.
  • A new context menu item called Data Grid | Revert to default column positions restores the default column positions.
  • Some problems with Oracle 9i client software have now been resolved.
  • The Data Contents tab sheet now remembers changed column positions for each table until the end of the session.
  • The display of columns on the Overview Sessions sheet that show information about a file path, for example the client application name column, has been enhanced. In earlier versions, the text was truncated on the right when the cell width was too small to display the full path information. Now Hora preserves the rightmost part of the path and inserts two dots into the middle of the string. This allows you to read the file name rather than the less interesting path information.
  • The new Materialized Views page replaces the Snapshots page for Oracle 8i databases.
  • Reverse/DDL now generates Materialized View Logs and Materialized Views for Oracle 8i databases .
  • Added the Show DDL context menu item to the Sequences, Synonyms, Jobs, DB-Links, Materialized Views, Materialized View Logs, Directories, Libraries and Users pages.

KeepTool 5.0.7

12 Dec 2001

  • In Hora, you can now right-click on any table to show the corresponding Create Table statement.
  • Reverse/DDL now supports partitioned tables.
  • The representation of table and index partitions in Hora has been improved.
  • The connect dialog now allows you to choose either normal, sysoper or sysdba as the connect mode. This is required in order to connect as SYS to an Oracle 9i database.
  • The ASCII export dialog now remembers the settings of its last use.
  • The explain plan outline now shows the number of affected rows (cardinality) and the optimizer costs associated with each node. The tree can be saved to an ASCII file using the right mouse button’s context menu.
  • The Create Tablespace Dialog now conforms to the SAFE (Simple Algorithm for Fragmentation Elimination) specification. See Oracle paper #711 on technet.oracle.com for more information.
  • The Tablespaces | Segments/Extents sheet now displays statistics about the number of segments and the amount of data used by each combination of owner and segment type. The subordinate grid shows only segments of the selected type.
  • The new Tablespaces | Fragmentation sheet shows statistics about the number and size of used extents and free chunks in the selected tablespace.
  • An user’s account now can be locked and unlocked. Locked users are displayed in a grayed font.
  • Added an incremental search dialog to each MDI child window that has the A..Z navigation buttons in the left, and overview and multiple detail panes. This dialog appears as soon as you press a letter key while the overview grid has the focus.

KeepTool 5.0.6

20 Nov 2001

  • Added a new Result to Logfile context menu item to each grid. It fetches the entire result set from the server and dumps the data to the log file.
  • Added File | Disconnect menu item to Hora and the standalone SQL editor.
  • The Templates directory (CodeSnip.txt, etc.) is now customizable using the Extras | Settings menu item.
  • Reverse/DDL now supports nested tables.
  • A new Help | System Environment Information menu Item shows details about the configuration of the database server and your workstation. Please attach the information to any customer support request.
  • For modifications to table data on the Tables | Contents sheet or in SQL Workbench, Hora now insures that the record has not been changed by another user. You can disable this feature through a checkbox in the Extras | Settings dialog.

KeepTool 5.0.5

09 Nov 2001

  • New DB drag/drop object browser tool window is now available from each embedded and standalone editor.
  • Ability to edit different PL/SQL objects in separate editor windows.
  • Enhanced support for partitioned tables and indexes.
  • F5 button refreshes current tab sheet from the database.

KeepTool 5.0.4

31 Oct 2001

  • Supports Oracle 9i databases.
  • Network licensees now can work offline from the network for a maximum period of 30 days. The license accumulator will be reset as soon as the application runs in the network environment again.
  • Support for creation of local (partitioned), bitmap, reverse or function based indexes.
  • Fixed some problems with the new licensing procedure affecting certain hardware.
  • Some minor ease-of-use enhancements.
  • SQL Editor now highlights Oracle configuration file syntax (TnsNames.ora, etc.).

KeepTool 5.0.3

02 Sep 2001

  • The new Gateway to the Oracle Documentation is now accessible from any location outside of the Oracle home directory, for example a central directory on your intranet.
  • Added a Favorites collection to the Sidebar that is fully customizable by the user.
  • Hora now raises an exception if you try to replace a PL/SQL package that has been changed by another Oracle session.
  • The detail view of the Roles sheet has been divided into two tab sheets. The first sheet shows the privileges granted to the role. The second sheet shows the grantees, i.e. users and roles that have received grants through the role.
  • A new Text View context menu item for each data grid allows you to select any subset of rows from the data grid and copy it to another Windows application.

KeepTool 5.0.2

20 Aug 2001

  • HTML documentation generator now supports views
  • Online help is now context-sensitive
  • The connect dialog now remembers the most recently used connections hierarchically. They are ordered first by server names, then by the schemas accessed.

KeepTool 5.0.1

24 Jul 2001

  • Fixed workstation and floating network licenses
  • Explain plan dialog displays the current session’s optimizer mode.
  • Tablespaces | Datafiles and Database | Datafiles grids show backup status
  • New Snapshot Logs page
  • PL/SQL editor remembers the insertion point location in each PL/SQL object until the database connection is closed.
  • LOB detail information tab sheet below Tables | Columns
  • Gateway to ORACLE online documentation added to the Hora Help menu .
  • The Database Links Overview tab sheet shows local settings like global_names and default domain initialization parameters at the bottom.
  • ER Diagrammer now can print over multiple pages.

KeepTool 5.0.0

30 Jun 2001

  • General
    • Data grid menu item within each database grid:
      • record view
      • filter
      • locate
      • ASCII export (Excel, etc.)
      • Fixed anchor columns
      • Row height (variable number of lines)
  • Tables page changes
    • Improved create table and create view dialogs
    • Create index on FK columns using the FK context menu
    • Support for partitions and subpartitions
    • Search column, constraint, index or trigger names
    • Multiline data contents column captions allow smaller column widths
    • Filter by selection extended by a query condition preview dialog.
    • New Access detail page
    • Deferrable Constraints Support
    • Set column unused
    • Disable constraint cascade
    • Checks if record was changed by another user in data contents
    • Returning clause used in data contents
    • Detail subpage in data contents view
    • Referenced Constraints subdetail page
    • Move table to another tablespaces
    • Column histograms
  • New Java objects page
  • Summaries page
  • Jobs & Pipes page
    • New All Users tab sheet to display all jobs
  • Tablespace page changes
    • Sort segments and sort usage subpages
  • DbLinks page changes
    • Distributed transactions
  • Users page changes
    • Schema triggers
    • SQL area
  • Database page changes
    • Enable/disable restricted session
    • Control file space totals
    • Controlfiles can be backed up to trace
    • Database triggers
    • Separate instance page
    • Datafiles page
  • Session page changes
    • in statistics page : class info column factored out into a master grid
  • RedoLog page changes
    • Changes grouped by hours to show peaks in the log activity.
    • Log Miner page
  • SQL Page
    • &Macro Macro substitution
    • Describe and columns drop-down lists now supports synonyms
    • Stay-on-top option for query resultset window
  • Reverse/DDL changes
    • support for database and schema triggers
    • Deferrable Constraints Support
  • ·R Diagrammer changes
    • enhanced navigation
    • copy to clipboard in meta-file format

KeepTool 4

KeepTool 4.2.3

15 Nov 2000

  • Reverse/DDL keeps track of last-used directory.
  • Bug in the profiles management dialog fixed.

keeptool 4.2.2

01 Nov 2000

  • Some bug fixes regarding the Oracle 8 object types and tablespace quota management
  • In each object window, you can now toggle through the tab sheets with the SPACE bar while the CTRL key is held down. Hold both CTRL and SHIFT keys down to toggle between the tabs in reverse order. Also, some improvements regarding default value calculation in the Tables | Contents view.

KeepTool 4.2.1

16 Oct 2000

  • Enhanced data grids
  • New online help
  • Version is based on ODAC 2.50 database access components
  • Automatic coloring of top-most important entities in the ER Diagrammer
  • Enhanced ER diagram subset definition support
  • Improved ER Diagrammer automatic layout
  • Triggers can now be created on particular columns
  • The Database | Rollback segments view shows information about transactions/sessions using the rollback segment
  • Schema prefix eliminated from SQL statements except when current schema has been changed.
  • Enhanced synonyms page

KeepTool 4.1.7

21 Aug 2000

  • The OCI DLL setting (Hora: Extras | Settings) also affects the other tools.

KeepTool 4.1.6

29 Jul 2000

  • ORA-01026 error problem with databases using double-byte character sets fixed.

KeepTool 4.1.5

05 Jul 2000

  • Problem with Debugger and Oracle 8.1.6 client software fixed.

KeepTool 4.1.4

13 Apr 2000

  • Version is based on ODAC 2.20
  • HEdit: First 80 characters are shown in the status bar

KeepTool 4.1.3

24 Mar 2000

  • Jobs are cleared with the clear-schema function
  • Dialog job/properties improved
  • Generation of PL/SQL call interface improved
  • Print function for data contents improved
  • Minor bug fixes
  • PL/SQL Debugger
  • Problem with large PL/SQL packages solved
  • ER Diagrammer
  • Print function improved
  • New combo box for search function

KeepTool 4.1.2

12 Mar 2000

  • Word wrap is activated on the sessions, open cursors, SGA screens
  • The rebuild index dialog is now part of the properties/alter index dialog
  • PL/SQL Debugger: The target session will be automatically stopped when the debug session is finished
  • ER Diagrammer: Bug fix in print function

KeepTool 4.1.1

26 Feb 2000

  • Some minor bug fixes
  • Windows 2000 compliant
  • New Synonyms page
  • Redo log page shows special InitOra parameters. These parameters can be changed
  • New search modal dialog on PL/SQL page for finding expressions in PL/SQL packages

KeepTool 4.1.0

11 Feb 2000

  • SQL Query: No auto-commit after execution. After execution, the number of lines affected is displayed and the commit must be confirmed-otherwise a rollback will be executed. SqlQuery with live result set still uses auto-commit
  • SQL Query: Position of syntax error is displayed
  • Editor: The GotoLine dialog now works with a combo box containing the last-used line numbers in a drop-down list
  • Reverse/DDL: IniTrans, PctUsed, PctFree will not be generated as long as generation of storage parameters is deactivated
  • Reverse/DDL: Checking a checkbox prevents generation of grants max
  • CREATE_ANY_TRIGGER statement as part of HoraUser role only as comment
  • On DB Links page the UserSnapshots view is used instead of AllSnapshots, StartWith field is displayed
  • New filter on Table | Contents page: : You may right-click on an item, and when using Filter By Selection, only the rows that match the selected item are shown
  • Programming of KeepTool 4 version 4.1 now with Delphi 5
  • Completely new designed Editor

KeepTool 4.0.4

19 Nov 1999

  • Reverse/DDL: Generation of tablespace parameters and storage parameters can be deactivated
  • Drop Column is offered now with ALTER TABLE (Oracle 8i only)
  • New feature: On Delete Set Null
  • HEdit: All buttons are now context-dependent
  • PL/SQL Debugger out now! Oracle Server Version 7.3.4 or higher is needed for the Debugger

KeepTool 4.0.3

02 Nov 1999

  • Tables|Contents: You can enter decimal places in columns of type NUMBER (without precision/scale)
  • HEdit: At execution time the character / will be interpreted as end-of-statement only if it is placed in the first column

KeepTool 4.0.2

18 Oct 1999

  • After selection of all Tables/Views the ReverseDDL selects only the appropriate comments
  • The ColumnHeaderClick event (which changes the sort order) will not be triggered after moving columns
  • EXECUTE SELECTION on the SQL page
  • Recall buffer for the most recently executed statements on the SQL page

KeepTool 4.0.1

11 Oct 1999

  • New feature: By using the context menu (Properties/Alter/Rename), all constraints can be renamed and modified. Now it is possible to change a foreign key to cascading and to change the search condition for a constraint. In case of error, the existing constraint will be restored. Before renaming a primary key, dependent foreign keys must not exist.
  • Bug fix: Color coding on the Tables|Triggers page was corrected. Triggers with errors are now shown in red, and invalid and disabled triggers in gray.
  • Bug fix: named constraints are now detected or shown using the reverse.sql script
  • After successful compilation of a PL/SQL package, the cursor is now positioned where it was previously
  • In all grids sorting is performed by clicking on the title of the grid column
  • ER Diagrammer: Bug fix: Now the cursor moves in synch with the shape
  • ER Diagrammer: The default zoom factor can be chosen and auto-zoom can be deactivated
  • ER Diagrammer: Snap to grid, grid visibility, and grid size can be adjusted
  • ER Diagrammer: Bitmaps can be deactivated

KeepTool 4.0.0

28 Sep 1999

  • MDI technique
  • Direct access to Oracle via the OCI (Oracle Call Interface), no BDE needed
  • Lower space requirement for installation (5 MB instead of 7 MB)
  • Better performance
  • Better support of Oracle 8 features
  • Light version of the ER Diagrammer is part of Hora 4
  • Pre-Release of the PL/SQL Debugger is part of Hora 4
  • Hora 4 contains a light version of the new product ER Diagrammer

KeepTool 3

KeepTool 3.0.0

15 Jun 1998

  • Complete application redesign
  • Multiple object-related pages
  • View and change most Oracle 7 database properties
  • Oracle 8 compatibility patch
  • Integrated and standalone SQL editor with syntax highlighting
  • Reverse/DDL Engineer
  • HTML Documentation generator

KeepTool 2

KeepTool 2.0.0

15 Jun 1997

  • Outsourcing to KeepTool is the basis of the first commercial version
  • Browser for table definitions, PL/SQL source code, and some related information
  • Simple SQL interface for making modifications

KeepTool 1

KeepTool 1.0.0

15 Jun 1996

  • Tool used internally by a big German software company
  • Non-commercial version provides a graphical interface for frequently used SQL scripts
  • SQL*Net access via Borland Database Engine (Native Oracle SQL Links)