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SQL Studio Management Tab Naming

by Jason Bean on August 6th, 2008

Working a significant amount of time in SQL Server Management Studio this week, I was again reminded that there’s one lack of usefulness in the application that gets really annoying.

The screenshot of the interface above I’ve highlighted how the tabs appear when you have multiple query windows open.

If you open just a table or a view, the tab will display a portion of the name, sometimes it’s just enough for you to identify what you’re looking for at the moment. You can kind of tell what happens as you get more tabs open and space becomes an even more valuable asset. The name starts getting the middle of it turned into an ellipsis to express a portion of it being hidden or deleted.

The challenge though is that if you’re working with a number of stored procedures that you’re trying to edit or test or whatever, you have no idea what tab contains what at a glance. You have to click through the tabs and look at the window itself to get an idea. Let’s hope you’re not somewhere in the middle of the SQL and can’t see the header information or some other easily identifiable component.

I think the solution should be something like the object name being displayed in the tab. Ditch the server name and ownership in the tab, but move it down to a thin bar of information right under the tab that only displays when you click on the tab. If this were the case the tab name would give you enough information to quickly jump to the one you’re needing in context and then see the details of the connection in the area immediately between the tab and the SQL window itself.

If you’ve got a solution for how to modify the way my application displays this information where it would be helpful again, please let me know.

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POSTED IN: SQL Server, Servers, Software Wishlist, User Experience