Introduction

ApexSQL Edit is designed as an all-in-one Integrated

Development Environment (IDE) for SQL Server. Including features like SourceSafe

integration, Intellisense, data editing, and standard code formatting, along

with Favorites (!), it is a significant upgrade from Microsoft's provided Query

Analyzer. While the look and feel is very similar to Query Analyzer, ApexSQL

Edit is a much more powerful application including many of the things developers

have asked for in Query Analyzer over the years.

Environment

ApexSQL Edit runs on Windows NT 4 SP3+ as well as Windows

2000, XP, and 2003. It requires MDAC 2.7 or higher, the SQL-DMO object library,

and the Microsoft.NET Framework 1.1. Minimum hardware specifications given by

the vendor are a Pentium 133 with 64 MB of RAM (128 MB preferred), and 10.8 MB

of hard disk space required (12.0 MB preferred). A mouse and SVGA monitor is

necessary.

Installation

ApexSQL Edit comes with a standard installer. In order to

activate the product, you must have a key from ApexSQL. Otherwise the software

is limited to a 15 day trial version.

Using ApexSQL Edit

When first starting up, ApexSQL Edit prompts for the SQL

Server to connect to. This is basically the same dialog box as with Query

Analyzer. Once the server connection is made, the main interface comes up. As

Figure 1 shows, it's very similar to Query Analyzer. Do note, however, one

significant addition and that is the Favorites underneath Northwind. Favorites

is listed for every database and you can choose particular tables, views, stored

procedures, etc. and put them in Favorites for quick access. This can be helpful

if your database has a lot of tables and you only need to refer to a few on a

regular basis.

Figure 1: Main Interface

Entering queries is much the same as with Query Analyzer.

However, one key feature in ApexSQL Edit is IntelliSense (though ApexSQL calls

it Object Memberlists for obvious reasons), as shown in Figure 2. ApexSQL Edit

can assist with creating queries by doing a lookup on the objects and presenting

a list. Figure 3 shows IntelliSense at the column level. 

Figure 2: IntelliSense on the Object Name

Figure 3: IntelliSense on the Column Name

Also note how ApexSQL Edit does statement outlining for the

query much as Visual Studio.NET does for a block of code. I can expand or

collapse certain sections of code simply by clicking on the + or - respectively.

For simple queries this doesn't make a lot of difference but for large ones

consisting of many lines it can be very helpful. Not only does ApexSQL add this

feature found in most newer IDEs, but in the event of an error in a query,

ApexSQL Edit does a good job of marking exactly where the error occurred (Figure

4). Note the red mark and squiggly line. In my code I've forgotten an operator

in the second part of the WHERE clause.  Gone are the days of getting a

line number back in Query Analyzer and trying to figure out exactly what piece

of code is broke.

Figure 4: Error Clearly Marked

Thus far I've only covered parts of ApexSQL Edit that are

similar in functionality to what Query Analyzer offers. ApexSQL Edit does most

all of what Query Analyzer does with respect to displaying execution plans and

the like, but one nice feature it has is the ability to create a query visually.

If you have folks that aren't super strong on their SQL skills or just prefer an

interface similar to Microsoft Access or SQL Server Enterprise Manager, ApexSQL

Edit provides Visual Query (Figure 5).  You can access Visual Query either

by Query | Visual Query, hitting the F11 key, or clicking the appropriate icon

on the toolbar. ApexSQL Edit will automatically translate anything created using

Visual Query into the appropriate T-SQL code (Figure 6).

Figure 5: Visual Query Interface

Figure 6: T-SQL Code Generated from Visual

Query

One last feature I'll touch on is Visual SourceSafe (VSS)

integration. Unlike Query Analyzer, ApexSQL Edit can interface with Visual

SourceSafe and does it quite well. In figure 7 I'm attempting to check out the

Customer table in the AdventureWorks2000 database. Notice all of the table names

are in red. The color indicates the objects are under source control. ApexSQL

Edit has full integration with Visual SourceSafe. It handles checking in and out

files, applying labels on check in, synchronizing with the VSS database,

etc. 

Figure 7: Visual SourceSafe Integration

First Impressions

ApexSQL Edit is a product I really like. To be quite honest,

my two main tools for building queries have been the provided Query Analyzer and

a shareware text editor, TextPad. I've tried a lot of other query editors and

wasn't satisfied for one reason or another. Most of the time I either felt

certain features found in Query Analyzer were lacking in the product or the

price of the product didn't justify its purchase when the features were compared

with the two tools I already had. Needless to say, I went into this review

skeptical. Other products hadn't made a strong impression on me and I didn't

figure ApexSQL Edit would either. I was wrong.

The very first feature to catch my eye was IntelliSense.

There's nothing so frustrating as chewing out a bit of code and trying to

remember if this particular database has a table named Customer (singular) or

Customers (plural). IntelliSense is designed to catch things like that.

IntelliSense helps a developer get the names right, hence its inclusion in

Visual Studio 6 and the Visual Studio.NET versions. Another DBA who was looking

over my shoulder as I began my initial tests blurted out, "It has

IntelliSense? Oh man, that's awesome!" I felt the same way. 

The next feature I was really impressed with was the Visual

SourceSafe integration. This is one major feature I feel Query Analyzer is

lacking. I have built-in Visual SourceSafe integration with my Visual Studio

packages and I was hoping Microsoft was going to add it to SQL Server 2000's

version of QA when we didn't see it in 7.0's. That didn't happen. As a result,

many organizations were forced to create manual processes to handle source

control with VSS and SQL scripts. While there are now other third party products

on the market that do VSS integration for SQL Server, ApexSQL Edit's

functionality works great . 

Conclusions

Overall I think ApexSQL Edit is a nice improvement over Query

Analyzer, enough so that I'm starting to switch to it myself. The price is

relatively low and the features are numerous. Probably the only drawback I saw

for some is the requirement to have the .NET Framework. However, as more and

more products use the .NET Framework (to include SQL Server 2005), this becomes

less of a concern. If you need SourceSafe integration, take a look at this

editor. There are a few others on the market that do perform VSS integration,

however all of them have different feature sets. ApexSQL Edit does a good job of

VSS integration and the other features over Query Analyzer make it worthy of

consideration. 

There were quite a few features I didn't have the space to

cover in this review such as autoreplacements, Reporting Services integration,

and more that you'll probably want to check out for yourself. And with ApexSQL's

rapid roll-out schedules, more features are being added constantly. Now there

are some features in Query Analyzer that I didn't see in the version of ApexSQL

Edit I was reviewing. These would be the ability to create templates and the

object search feature. The ApexSQL Edit documentation includes them (though they

are starred) so I assume they are forthcoming.

Ratings

Here is how I rate this product:

Product Information

ApexSQL Edit is available from ApexSQL.