Firebird Maestro 11.2 released

Feb 16, 2011

SQL Maestro Group is happy to announce the release of Firebird Maestro 11.2, a powerful Windows GUI solution for Firebird administration and database development. Please consider the list of new features implemented in this version since the last official release:

Server management extensions:

• This version has been successfully tested with Firebird 2.5 (the latest Firebird version available at the moment). Also the 2.5 embedded server library is now included into the installation package.
• Support for Global Temporary Tables has been implemented (Firebird 2.1+). Such tables are stored in the system catalogue with permanent metadata, but with temporary data.
• It is now possible to use a domain when declaring the data types of arguments in stored procedures (Firebird 2.1+). Suppression of the domain check and default value (the TYPE OF clause) is also supported.
• Support for default values for stored procedure arguments has been implemented (Firebird 2.1+).
• Invalid procedures and triggers are now displayed in red (Firebird 2.1+). Of course the color can be changed in the program options.
• User accounts become manageable by SQL statements (Firebird 2.5+).
• From now on it becomes possible to enable/disable all the triggers for a table in a single mouse click.
• Now it's allowed to create DML procedures automatically. These procedures are the most efficient choice for accomplishing the CRUD operations (Create, Read, Update, and Delete).

  Picture 2. Generating of DML procedures

  It is possible to create the procedures for a single table or for several tables at once (even for all the tables in the database). To accomplish these tasks, use the popup menu of the corresponding node at the Explorer tree and the Main Menu | Object | Generate DML Procedures wizard accordingly.
• Along with stored procedures the new version allows you to generate updatable views for your tables in a few mouse clicks; moreover, the Insert, Update, and Delete operations can be enabled or disabled at your choice. The updatable views can be generated at the same manner as CRUD procedures (see above).

Interface improvements:

• This release has been successfully tested with 64-bit operating systems including Windows 7 x64.
• Table Editor features:

  • A possibility of importing data from Clipboard has been implemented. It is supposed that columns within the data block are separated by the tabulation symbol, records are separated by newlines and the first line of the data block contains column headers.

    Listing 1. Data packet example

    ColHeader1  ColHeader2
    R1C1        R1C2
    R2C1        R2C2

    The same data format is supported by a lot of other applications, so it is easy to use this feature to quickly copy data from MS Excel, another table or view, or even from a data set from a different DBMS especially if it is opened with an appropriate our product.

  • An ability to upload files as BLOBs into a table has been implemented. The file names must contain the information on the record they need to be placed to: the files need to be named in the same manner and their names have to include content of one or several table columns that can uniquely identify each row.
• Data Analysis tool has been updated:
  • Starting with this version it is possible to use a wide spectrum of aggregate functions such as maximum, minimum, average value, etc. for subtotals (the only available function for the previous versions was sum of values).
  • A possibility of sorting data by summary columns has been added. This means, for example, the product you'll see first is not the one which starts with an A or Z, but rather the one that has the most or least sales.
  • You can also specify the number of top rows that are displayed to view, for example, only a specific number of best-selling or worst-selling products for each year, month, customer, etc. This will help you to concentrate on only the most important information and avoid being overload with a lot of superfluous data.
• Dependency tracker now allows you to browse tables referenced to the selected one and domains the table is based on.
• The Script Runner window can now be invoked directly from the Tools menu. Also the productivity of this tool has been significantly improved.

  Picture 3. Script Runner

• Data Import: starting with this version it becomes possible to import data from any database accessible via an ODBC driver or OLE DB provider, such as SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, MS Access, Sybase, DB2, PostgreSQL, etc. Let's look through some details of the new feature:
  • To import data in this way, you have to specify a connection string and select appropriate identifier quote characters to escape improper symbols and blanks in object names according to the source database (for example, double quotes for Oracle and PostgreSQL, backticks for MySQL, or square brackets for SQL Server and MS Access).

    Picture 4. Data Import: connecting to an ODBC data source

  • Another thing to note is that this kind of import completely supports BLOBs (if they are supported by the ODBC driver / OLE DB provider used).
• Data Grid: the Clone current record command has been added to the popup menu. Use it to add a new record which is substantially similar to an existing one.
• BLOB editor: starting with this version it is possible to select a BLOB column to edit directly within the editor window.
• The Case Insensitive option has been added to data grid filter settings (ON by default).
• Application Options: now it's possible to specify default directories for data export/import/extract/etc to be used on database profiles creating.

In addition to this, several bugs have been fixed and some other minor improvements and corrections have been made.

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