SQL Server Compact & SQLite Toolbox 4.2 – Visual Guide of new features

After more than 370.000 downloads, version 4.2 of my SQL Server Compact & SQLite Toolbox extension for Visual Studio 2010 and later is now available for download and available via Tools/Extensions and Updates in Visual Studio. This blog post is a visual guide to the new features, improvements and bug fixes included in this release, many suggested by users of the tool via the CodePlex issue tracker

The main features in this release have been improved integration with SQL Server & SQLite, and a number of improvements to the SQL editor.

This version is a recommended update for anyone using this tool.

Improved SQL Server integration

I have previously used this old tip from Jon Galloway for prompting users for a connection to a SQL Server/SQL LocalDB/SQL Azure database, but this caused a number of issues when connecting to LocalDB and SQL Azure, so for this release, you will use Server Explorer to create SQL Server connections, and then I will refer to these from the Toolbox.
So to interact with SQL Server from the Toolbox (for example for scripting, generating DGML files or Exporting a full database for SQL Server to SQLite, first connect to the SQL Server via Server Explorer:

Then launch the Toolbox (you can do that directly from Server Explorer), and select the relevant connection from Server Explorer from the dropdown list:

Export SQLite to SQL Server (and LocalDB/Express)

It is now possible to migrate a SQLite database to SQL Server without running creating any intermediate scripts. Simply right click your SQLite database in the Toolbox , and select the “Migrate to SQL Server” option:

Select your Server Explorer SQL Server connection (as described above), and you can follow the progress of the export via the Visual Studio status bar:

Many thanks to @thughesit for help with improving this feature.

As SQLite is much more loosely type than SQL Server, a new option have been added that will truncate string (causing data loss) if a string has been defined with a length like nvarchar(255) and the length of the data stored in SQLite actually exceeds this. This option is disabled by default. Any truncations will be logged to %temp%\SQLiteTruncates.log

You can now also migrate the other way, from SQL Server to SQLite, without any intermediate scripts. Right click the root “Data Connections” node of the Toolbox and select “Export SQL Server to SQLite (beta)”

Choose the Server from the dropdown list:

Choose the tables to Export:

And specify the name for the new SQLite database file, and you can follow the progress of the Export via the Visual Studio status bar.

SQL editor improvements

The query editor has received a number of highly requested improvements:

Improved document handling: There is now both a “Open” (1) “Save” and “Save As” (2) buttons, and each editor window is aware of its underlying document. If there is a document open, it is indicated in the window caption, and a * symbol indicates if the document has unsaved changes:

Keyboard shortcuts: Keyboard shortcuts have been added for "Execute" query: F5, Save: Ctrl+S
and Open: Ctrl+O – a long standing request finally implemented
Export results as CSV: A new button has been added, that will export the first results as a csv (Excel) file, saving you having to copy and paste the results to Excel.

SQLite PRAGMAs: It is now possible to execute PRAGMA commands with SQLite

Other Improvements

Migrating a SQL Compact or SQLite database to SQL Server no longer blocks the UI.
Exporting a database from SQL Server no longer blocks the UI.
No more Error Reporting dialog, I am now using Exceptionless for error reporting instead.
Improved formatting of DataAcccess.cs sqlite-net code
Improved initial directory when adding SQLite and SQL Compact connections
Improved error information when SQLite datetime parsing errors occur (SQLite allows you to put anything in a column defined as datetime, apparently!)
Improved error information when SQL Server script execution errors occur (would mainly happen when exporting from SQLite to SQL Server)
Closing the Edit Data grid now closes the connection to the database, meaning that the Toolbox will have no open connection to the database file when all Edit Grids are closed.
Update to version 1.0.96 of SQLite ADO.NET provider

Bug fixes

Migrate to SQL Server feature was broken
Merge Replication Subscription creation was broken
Edit column should not show "Primary Key" column, and not allow editing of column name
Opening the SQL Editor sometimes crashed VS
FormatException in Explorer window

SQL Server Compact Toolbox 3.7.2–Visual Guide of new features

After more than 260.000 downloads, version 3.7.2 of my SQL Server Compact Toolbox extension for Visual Studio 2013, 2012 and 2010 is now available for download. This blog post is a visual guide to the new features included in this release, many suggested by users of the tool via the CodePlex issue tracker. The focus for this release is a number of features that help improve the experience when using the new support for SQL Server Compact 3.5 (supplied by yours truly) in Entity Framework 6.1 and the related Entity Framework 6.1 Tools.

Run “Generate from Model” script without errors

When using the “Generate Database from Model” option in the Entity Data Model Tools, the tool generates a script to DROP and CREATE the generated objects in the database. If you have tried to run the script until now in the SQL Server Compact Toolbox, the script would fail. A new option “Ignore DDL errors” in the Toolbox SQL Editor will allow you to run the script without any errors:

DDEX install requires VS restart

The simple DDEX providers supplied by the Toolbox for VS 2012 and VS 2013 are installed when the Toolbox is activated, and therefore require VS to be restarted to be used. A notification is now available to notify you of this. You can read more about the DDEX providers in my previous blog post here and here.

(Also, notice the new, “modern” icons in the toolbar of the Toolbox.)

Preserve SQL Server date types

A new option is now available to control scripting of the SQL Server date, datetime2 and datetimeoffset data types. The default behaviour is to always convert these column types to datetime (SQL Server Compact does not have these datatypes). But this can cause data loss (as datetime has limited precision) or overflow errors, as datetime only supports dates from 1753 to 9999, unlike date, datetime2 and datetimeoffset, that all support dates from 0001 to 9999.

Improved About dialog

The About dialog has been improved for readability, and contains a counter for the current number of Toolbox downloads:

Bug fixes

EDMX generation feature failed if only VS 2012 and not VS 2013 was installed.

"Refresh" of tables, including refresh after schema changes, was broken

Scripting API improvements

- improved SQLCE runtime check

- datetimeoffset columns scripted as datetime by default now, not nvarchar()

- sql_variant and hierarchyid handling improved, to avoid getting wrong ordinal for identity and timestamp

- sqlite indexes are now always given unique names

The scripting API improvements are also included in the latest version of my SQL Compact command line export tool and Scripting API, available here.

Feedback

As usual, please provide feedback if you have any feature requests, ideas or encounter any issues (or even bugs!!) by using the CodePlex Issue tracker.

SQL Server Compact Toolbox 3.7.1–Visual Guide of new features

After 250.000 (!) downloads, version 3.7.1 of my SQL Server Compact Toolbox extension for Visual Studio 2013, 2012 and 2010 is now available for download (and available via Tools/Extensions in Visual Studio). This blog post is a visual guide to the few new features included in this minor release, which all centre around Server Explorer (DDEX) , including support for Visual Studio 2012 and 2013.

 

Simple DDEX providers for Visual Studio 2012 and 2013

I already blogged about this feature here, it has been extended to also support SQL Compact 3.5. Follow these steps to use the providers with Entity Framework Tools:

- Install this version of the toolbox and launch Visual Studio 2012/2013.
- Open the Toolbox (this will silently run the “installation” of the DDEX provider if required).
- Restart VS 2012/2013.
- Add new Toolbox connection to a new or existing SQL Server Compact 4.0 or 3.5 database file.
- Add EntityFramework.SqlServerCompact or EntityFramework.SqlServerCompact.Legacy NuGet package to project and build project.
- You can now use this connection for Generate Model from Database, Generate Database from Model and Update Model from Database, and with the Power Tools.

With this release, the DDEX support matrix looks like this:

	SQL Server Compact 3.5	SQL Server Compact 4.0
Visual Studio 2010	Microsoft	None
Visual Studio 2010 SP1 + SQL CE 4.0 Tools	Microsoft	Microsoft
Visual Studio 2012	ErikEJ	Microsoft
Visual Studio 2013	ErikEJ	ErikEJ

“Microsoft” means full featured, Microsoft supplied provider
”ErikEJ” means simple, basic support, enough to enable Entity Framework Tools, provided by this version of SQL Server Compact Toolbox.

Currently, the 3.5 DDEX provider does not fully work with the Entity Framework Tools, due to a bug (my bug!) in the EntityFramework.SqlServerCompact.Legacy Entity Framework provider; I am working on getting it fixed.

Scan Solution for sdf files

This new menu item will scan the active Solution for any sdf files, and add those to the Toolbox:

Prefer DDEX

This new option allows you to always use the Toolbox supplied dialogs for connecting to a SQL Server Compact database file, which will allow you to connect to any file, and does not require an .sdf file type. (By choosing not to prefer!)

Bug fixes and enhancements

Add connection will now always use DDEX provider if available
Handle apostrophe in file and folder names when saving connections
Fixed error: The specified table does not exist. (Databases)
Make it clearer that sqlmetal dependent features requires 3.5 to be installed

Please report any issues you encounter and provide feature suggestions and requests here.

SQL Server Compact Toolbox 3.7–Visual Guide of new features

After more than 235.000 downloads, version 3.7 of my SQL Server Compact Toolbox extension for Visual Studio 2013, 2012 and 2010 is now available for download (and available via Tools/Extensions in Visual Studio). This blog post is a visual guide to the new features included in this release, many suggested by users of the tool via the CodePlex issue tracker. A major “theme” for this release has been to improve the experience for Visual Studio 2013 users, which has no Server Explorer/DDEX support for SQL Server Compact at all.

Add Column, Index and Foreign Key to table

As Server Explorer support is completely missing in VS 2013, and only available for 4.0 in VS 2012, I have added dialogs for building script to add columns, indexes and foreign keys to a table. Right click any table, and select the desired dialog:

 

Note that currently the Index and Foreign Key dialogs only support a single column, I am aware of this, so please vote here and/or here.

Generate Entity Framework 6 Entity Data Model with VS 2012 and SQL Compact 3.5

The code generation menu items have now been moved to a sub-menu:

In addition, as the Entity Framework Tools are now available for Visual Studio 2012 as well as Visual Studio 2013, it is now possible to generate a “database first” Entity Framework model (EDMX) based on a SQL Server Compact database in VS 2012. And I have just contributed an Entity Framework SQL Server Compact 3.5 provider (available as prerelease on NuGet), that allows you to use SQL Server Compact 3.5 with Entity Framework 6. 

Copy database file

It is now possible to copy a database file, and then for example paste it into your project, should you so desire, simply by pressing Ctrl+C on the selected database, or selecting the context menu item:

Data only export to SQL Server

The current data export feature has been enhanced to support SQL Server and IDENTITY columns by using DBCC CHECKINDENT instead of the unsupported ALTER TABLE statements currently used.

New "ALTER column" context menu item

To help you modify columns, a new context menu to script ALTER COLUMN statements has been added:

“Database designer”

I am now hosting a web based database designer based on http://code.google.com/p/wwwsqldesigner/ (which implements only the SQL Server Compact column data types). Current state is “alpha” (and there are known issues with IE 11)!

Server DGML now has table selection

When generating a database diagram for a SQL Server database, you can now select which tables to include in the graph, which can be helpful when diagramming databases with many tables. I have already blogged about this earlier.

Other improvements and bug fixes

Missing database files indicated in tree view
No longer depends on the SQL Server Compact 3.5 runtime, and no longer depends on DbProviderFactory, simply requires either 3.5 or 4.0 in GAC
Each Query opens in new window
BUG: "Upgrade to 4.0" was blocked in Visual Studio 2013
BUG: Not ideal support for Dark Theme in VS 2012/2013 (improved slightly)
BUG: EF6 EDMX code generation with VB was broken

SQL Server Compact 4 desktop app with simple Private Deployment and LINQ to SQL

In this post I will describe a simplified approach to SQL Server Compact Private Deployment, for an overview blog post on Private Deployment with SQL Server Compact, see my blog post here.

By forcing your app to run using x86 always (Prefer 32-bit), which is the new default Platform target option  for apps targeting .NET Framework 4.5, deployment of SQL Server Compact with you app becomes simpler, but must follow different guidelines from what I have previously blogged about. (The same approach will also work with apps targeting .NET 4.0, just set the Platform target to x86 in the location shown below. And the same approach will also work with the SQL Server Compact 3.5 DLL files.)

To read more about the new default Platform target option introduced in .NET 4.5, see the MSDN documentation here, and the blog post here.

In addition, I will demonstrate how to use LINQ to SQL with SQL Server Compact 4.0, a low overhead, fast performing ORM.

For the sake of simplicity, and in order to focus attention on the private deployment aspects, I will demonstrate with a console application, but the same approach will also work for WinForms and WPF applications.

Before you get started, make sure you have the following installed:

1: Visual Studio 2010/2012/2013 Pro or higher 

2: SQL Server Compact Toolbox add-in (Install via Tools/Extensions in VS)

3: An existing SQL Server Compact database file, I will use Chinook, which you can download from here. 

4: The SQL Server Compact 4.0 SP1 runtime

(You could also use the free Visual Studio 2010/2012/2013 for Windows Desktop with the standalone SQL Server Compact Toolbox for 4.0, which also supports LINQ to SQL code generation)

With that in place, let us open Visual Studio and get started:

Create new console application

Go to File, New Project, and create a new Windows Console application. Make sure to set the target platform to 4.0 or newer.

Include the SQL Server Compact binaries in your project

Now include the SQL Server Compact 4.0 binaries and ADO.NET Provider as content in your app. Copy C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition\v4.0\Private\System.Data.SqlServerCe.dll to your project folder, and then copy all files and folders in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition\v4.0\Private\x86 also to your project folder.

In the Solution Explorer, select Show All Files, and include the new folder and the seven files just copied in the Project:

Now mark all the copied files (also the files in the Microsoft.VC9.CRT folder) and mark them as Content, Copy Always:

Finally, add a Reference to the System.Data.SqlServerCe.dll file in your project folder:

(Make sure to check the file location and the Version, should be 4.0.0.1)

Add your database file to the project

Make sure it is also Content, Copy Always – we use the”Database First” workflow here.

Generate the LINQ to SQL DataContext

Next,we will generate a LINQ to SQL DataContext class and related Table classes based on the database, so connect to the database in SQL Server Compact Toolbox, using the Add SQL Server Compact 4.0 Connection menu item:

Then right click the database and select “Add LINQ to SQL DataContext to current project”:

(I am just using ChinookContext as Context name)

Click OK, and a DataContext class file will be added to your project, and the required reference to System.Data.Linq will be added to the project.

Now let us add some test code to the Main method in order to verify that everything works so far, so the Program.cs code looks like this:

using System;
using System.Data.SqlServerCe;

namespace LinqToSqlCePrivateDeploy
{
    class Program
    {
        private const string 
            dbFileName = "Chinook_SqlServerCompact_AutoIncrementPKs.sdf";
        
        private static string dbConnectionString = 
            string.Format("Data Source=|DataDirectory|{0};Max Database Size=4091", dbFileName);
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            using (var connection = 
                new SqlCeConnection(dbConnectionString))
            {
                using (var context = new ChinookContext(connection))
                {
                    //To log SQL statements, use:
                    //context.Log = Console.Out;
                    foreach (var album in context.Album)
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine(album.Artist.Name);
                        Console.WriteLine(album.Title);
                    }
                }
            }
            Console.Read();
        }
    }
}

We can now access the database via the generated object model, and do not have to type SQL, but can use LINQ to query the database. In addition, we can update the database (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE) via methods on the DataContext.

Notice that the DataContext must be constructed with a SqlCeConnection object, in order for LINQ to SQL to work with SQL Server Compact 4.0.

Deploy the database file

The final step will be done to ensure that the database file will be located in a writeable location on the users machine when deployed/installed. We will simply do this in code in order to not depend on any install actions and issues. In addition, we can do this without storing any connection strings in app.config, making the app more self-contained. We will use the same approach that I have already used in my blog post here, which takes advantage of the DataDirectory connection string macro.

private static void CreateIfNotExists(string fileName)
{
    string path = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData);
    // Set the data directory to the users %AppData% folder            
    // So the database file will be placed in:  C:\\Users\\<Username>\\AppData\\Roaming\\            
    AppDomain.CurrentDomain.SetData("DataDirectory", path);
            
    // Enure that the database file is present
    if (!System.IO.File.Exists(System.IO.Path.Combine(path, fileName)))
    {
        //Get path to our .exe, which also has a copy of the database file
        var exePath = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(
            new Uri(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase).LocalPath);
        //Copy the file from the .exe location to the %AppData% folder
        System.IO.File.Copy(
            System.IO.Path.Combine(exePath, fileName), 
            System.IO.Path.Combine(path, fileName));
    }
}

Remember to add a call to CreateIfNotExists as the first line in the Main method:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    CreateIfNotExists(dbFileName);

You can now use ClickOnce, XCopy or an Installer to deploy your app, with no other requirements than the target .NET Framework version.

What we have achieved:

- Simple, self contained deployment of a single user desktop app of any type to any .NET 4.0 or higher platform (not ARM, though)

- No need for special incantations in app.config

- RAD (Rapid App Development) “Database First” access to a well-performing, well-documented and simple ORM.

You can download the complete solution from here; http://sdrv.ms/179QBaa

Generate a Windows Phone 8 Local Database DataContext from an existing database

Despite my tooling for this having been available for more than 18 months, I have never posted a dedicated blog post for this subject. This post intends to remedy this.

The Local Database (a SQL Server Compact database accessed via LINQ to SQL) is a data access API available on Windows Phone 7.5 and 8.

The Microsoft documentation (listed here on my blog, together with many other useful Windows Phone Local Database links) always describes a Code First workflow, which makes it cumbersome to reuse existing effort in creating a SQL Server Compact database schema for Windows Mobile or desktop, and  also makes it hard to distribute a database prepopulated with data together with your app. My tooling, which is available with the SQL Server Toolbox Visual Studio add-in, and also available in a simpler form with the new standalone edition of the Toolbox for SQL Server Compact 3.5 (currently in alpha), enables both scenarios. The standalone edition is useful for VS Express users and when you do not wish to install Visual Studio on a PC (it is a single .exe file, so very simple to distribute)

In the following walkthrough, using Visual Studio 2012, I will demonstrate how to use the SQL Server Compact Toolbox to take an existing SQL Server database and use it as an included Windows Phone database in an new (or existing) Windows Phone 8 App. The process to do this requires these steps:

- Create the SQL Server Compact database from the server database and add it to the Windows Phone project
- Generate the LINQ to SQL DataContext and releated classes.
- Use the database from code

I assume you have Visual Studio 2012 Pro or higher with the Windows Phone 8 SDK installed.

Create the SQL Server Compact database

I have created a new Windows Phone Databound App for this sample, and selected Windows Phone OS 8.0 as the target OS.

I then use the Toolbox to create a new SQL Server Compact 3.5 database in the folder where the Phone project resides, (you can determine the folder from by using the “Open Folder in File Explorer” context menu item).

I then click Create, navigate to the project folder, and type PostCodes.sdf, press OK.

Click OK, and a new, empty database will be added to the database list in the Toolbox:

Now we need to connect to the SQL Server database, and script it, then run the script against the new, empty database.

Create and save the database script using the Toolbox menu item above, and then open the SQL Editor against the PostCodes.sdf database file:

Use the Open button in the editor to load the script, and the press the Execute button to run the script.

Now the database contains a PostCode table (the script is available here), which has all Danish postcodes.

The final step is adding the database file to the Phone project. In Solution Explorer, select “Show all files”, and include PostCodes.sdf. In this sample scenario, we would like the database to become writable on the Phone, so include it a “Embedded Resource” – it could also be included as Content, if it was just a read-only database, read more here.

 

Generate the LINQ to SQL DataContext

In order to generate the DataContext based on the database, right click it in the Toolbox, and select “Add Windows Phone DataContext to current project”.
If this menu item is disabled, verify that the database file is in 3.5 format, and that the SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP2 runtime is properly installed, you can check this via the About dialog. “Yes” is required in both places, if that is not the case, repair/re-install.

Let’s walk through the various options on this dialog:

Context name: The name of the generated DataContext class

Namespace: Allows you to specify another namespace for the generated code

Language: You can generate C# or VB code.

Pluralize: If checked, will rename tables (Person => People) etc.

Create a file per table: Normally, just a single file is created

Advanced options:

Add schema version table: If you would like to include the database file a a writeable file, and allow use of the DatabaseSchemaUpdater class in a future app version select this option .

Add rowversion column to all tables: Checking this will ensure that all tables have a rowversion column (formerly timestamp), which enhances performance when doing UPDATE and DELETE (see my blog posts here and here)

Include ConnectionStringBuilder: Will add a LocalDatabaseConnectionStringBuilder class to the project, to help with building connection strings in a strongly typed fashion.

For this sample project, just click OK, and a PostCodesContext.cs file will be added to the project, and we are done.

Use the database from code

Finally, to demonstrate that we are able to include data with the app, alter the DataTemplate in MainPage.xaml as follows:

<DataTemplate>
  <StackPanel Margin="0,0,0,17">
      <TextBlock Text="{Binding Zip}" TextWrapping="Wrap" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextExtraLargeStyle}"/>
      <TextBlock Text="{Binding City}" TextWrapping="Wrap" Margin="12,-6,12,0" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextSubtleStyle}"/>
  </StackPanel>
</DataTemplate>

Replace the OnNavigatedTo event handler in MainPage.xaml.cs with the following code:

        protected override void OnNavigatedTo(NavigationEventArgs e)
        {
            using (PostCodesContext ctx = new PostCodesContext(PostCodesContext.ConnectionString))
            {
                ctx.CreateIfNotExists();
                ctx.LogDebug = true;
                MainLongListSelector.ItemsSource = ctx.PostCode.ToList();                
            }
        }

This code initialize a new PostCodesContext instance (embraced in “using”, as it is Disposable). The CreateIfNotExists method extracts the PostCodes.sdf embedded resource from the project, and copies it to isolated storage (feel free to look at the code). Setting LogDebug to true will show all SQL statements as text in the Debug window while debugging:

SELECT [t0].[Id], [t0].[Zip], [t0].[City], [t0].[Street], [t0].[Company], [t0].[IsProvince], [t0].[rowguid] AS [Rowguid], [t0].[ts] AS [Ts]
FROM [PostCode] AS [t0]

And finally, calling ToList() will execute the SELECT and return a list of PostCode objects, that is the bound to the ItemsSource property of the LongListSelector.

Result:

Summary

Let us finish with a summary of advantages of this approach:
- Use desktop database tools for data population and schema design
- Saves time doing 1:1 mapping between database tables and DataContext classes
- DataContext class and entity classes are partial and can be extended
- The generated DataContext contains Index definitions (which SqlMetal does not support, as this is a Windows Phone extension)
- The generated DataContext contains the CreateIfNotExists method, that optionally extracts an included database (prepopulated with data) to Isolated Storage
- The generated DataContext includes the LogDebug property, that allows you to see all SQL statements generated on the device in the debug window
- Optionally split the generated Data Context classes into multiple files
- Optionally add a Version table if you include the table with your app, and want to enable use of the schema updater functionality.
- Optionally add rowversion columns to improve UPDATE and DELETE performance
- Optionally include a ConnectionStringBuilder class to build a valid connection string in a strongly typed way,  using advanced connection string options (see some of my Phone blog posts for candidates)

Hope you find it useful.

UPDATE: Comments have now been closed, please contact me for any issues via the Codeplex issue tracker here: http://sqlcetoolbox.codeplex.com/issues/list

SQL Server Compact Toolbox 3.1.1 with support for Windows Phone 8 and VS 2012 released

Just a short note to let you know, that the SQL Server Compact Toolbox add-in has been updated beginning of this month to support the following new features:

Generation of a LINQ to SQL DataContext for Windows Phone 8 projects in Visual Studio 2012. (Like Windows Phone 7.5, Windows Phone 8 supports a so-called “Local Database”, which is a SQL Server Compact Database accessible only via LINQ to SQL). This feature will allow you to generate a Phone specific DataContext, I have blogged about this earlier as you can see under the heading ErikEJ on this page. 

In addition, the Toolbox is now able to use sqlmetal.exe on “clean” Windows 8 systems, with only Visual Studio 2012 Pro or higher installed.

Also note, that the Toolbox supports SQL Server Compact 3.5 database files even under VS 2012, despite the fact, that the VS 2012 Server Explorer no longer supports SQL Server Compact 3.5 (this requires the SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP2 desktop MSI to be installed, of course – download from here.

SQL Server Compact Toolbox 3.1–Visual Guide of new features

After more than 130.000 downloads, version 3.1 of my SQL Server Compact Toolbox extension for Visual Studio 2012 and 2010 is now available for download. This blog post is a visual guide to the new features included in this release, many suggested by users of the tool via the CodePlex issue tracker

Export to SQLite

As I have blogged about earlier, the Toolbox now has a feature that enables migration to SQLite, for use for example for migrating Windows Phone solutions to Windows 8 Apps.

Upgrade a SQL Server Compact 3.5 database directly to 4.0

The Toolbox already supports scripting a 3.5 database and running the generated script against a version 4.0 database, but this release contains a feature that does a direct upgrade, using the SqlCeEngine Upgrade method. In addition, the new database will be connected to Server Explorer and the Toolbox automagically.

Option to ignore IDENTITY columns when scripting table data

Some users have requested the option to script table data without SET IDENTITY_INSERT statements, basically ignoring the IDENTITY column. This is now possible via a new user option:

New SQL Server Connection dialog

When connecting to SQL Server to generate scripts, the dialog used in previous version of the Toolbox only worked with Integrated Security, not connections using SQL Server authentication. This is the new dialog:

Other improvements

Improved DataGrid results performance – when enabling showing query results in Grid, performance was not ideal – this has been improved:

Support for VS 2012:

Notice that both 4.0 and 3.5 database file versions are supported by the Toolbox in VS 2012, but that 3.5 SP2 must be installed separately, as it is no longer installed by Visual Studio. Toolbox support for 4.0 in VS 2012 does not require 3.5 SP2 to be installed.

Bug fixes

All SyncFx menu items now only available with SyncFx 2.1 installed
Updated scripting API
Fix of 2 bugs related to "correct" table sorting