User guide

General functions

Main Form

Connection Form

How to connect to a database

1. Click Database\Connect menu item or press Ctrl+N.
2. Click the New button.
3. Enter the connection string paramateres of the new connection.
4. Click Test button to test the connection.
5. Click OK button to save the connection string.

How to create a new file based database

1. Click Database\New menu item.
2. Type the file name of the new database file (SQL Server Compact, SQLite).
3. Click Save button.

How to open a file based database

1. Click Database\Open menu item or press Ctrl+O.
2. Select the required file type (Access, Excel, MSI, SQLite, SQL Server Compact)
3. Enter the file name.
4. Click Open button.

How to create a connection to a database

1. Click the Database/Connect menu item.
2. Click the New button.
3. Type the name of the connection.
4. Choose the provider (SqlServer2005, SqlServerCe40, Tfs, Wmi, etc.)
5. Type the data source manually or click the dropdown button to enumerate the possible data sources. Click the Refresh button if you need the refresh the data source enumeration.
6. Check the integrated security or type the user id and password.
7. Choose the initial catalog.
8. Click the OK button.

How to open a new query form to a database

1. Click Database/Connect menu item.
2. Double click left mouse button on the selected row or select the row and click the Connect button.

How to copy the result of a query from a source database to a target database

1. Connect to the source database. Leave the query form open.
2. Connect to the target database. Now you have two query forms.
3. Type the text of the query into the source query form.
4. Click right mouse button in the source query form. Click the ‘Create table’ menu item.
5. Navigate to the Messages tab page. Copy the create table script to the clipboard.
6. Navigate to the target query form. Paste the create table script to the target query form. Execute it.
7. Navigate to the source query form. Click right mouse button and click the ‘Copy table’ menu item.
8. Wait until the end of the query execution.
9. Navigate to the target query form. Check the content of the table.
10. Commit the transaction in the target database by clicking the Query/Commit Transaction menu item.

How to close a query form

1. Double click the top left icon of the MDI child window (Ctrl+F4 is assigned to another function).
2. The program automatically writes the content of the query textbox into the log file (%TEMP%\DataCommander.log).

Query TextBox

• Syntax highlighting
• SQL keywords are marked with blue.
• Provider specific keywords are marked with red.
• The Data Commander specific exec keyword is marked with green.

Function	Hotkey
Database/Connect to database	Ctrl+N
Database/Open file database	Ctrl+O
Database/Save all	Ctrl+Shift+S
Database/Exit	Alt+F4
Edit/Paste	Ctrl+V
Edit/Find	Ctrl+F
Edit/Find Next	F3
Edit/List Members	Ctrl+J
Edit/Goto	Ctrl+G
Edit/Increase Line Indent	Tab
Edit/Decrease Line Indent	Shift+Tab
Query/Describe Parameters	Ctrl+P
Query/Execute Query	Ctrl+E or F5
Query/Execute Query (Single Row)	Ctrl+1
Query/Execute Query (Schema Only)	Ctrl+R
Query/Execute Query (KeyInfo)	Ctrl+K
Query/Execute Query (XML)	Ctrl+Shift+X
Query/Open Table	Ctrl+Shift+O
Query/Cancel Executing Query	Alt+Pause
Query/Parse	Ctrl+F5
Query/Result Mode/Text	Ctrl+T
Query/Result Mode/DataGrid	Ctrl+D
Query/Result Mode/ListView	Ctrl+L
Query/Close All TabPages	Ctrl+Shift+F4
Query/Create Insert Statements	Ctrl+I
Object Explorer	F8
Help/Contents	F1
Check for updates	F12

How to open a file in the query text box

1. Drag and drop the file into the query textbox.
2. Click Database/Save menu item or press Ctrl+S to save the file.

How to go to a specified line

1. Press Ctrl+G.
2. Enter the line number.
3. Press Enter.

How to execute a query

1. Type the statement text into the query textbox.
2. Click Query/Execute Query menu item or press Ctrl+E or press F5.

How to cancel an executing query

1. Type the statement text into the query textbox.
2. Click Query/Execute Query menu item or press Ctrl+E or press F5.
3. Click Query/Cancel executing query menu item or press Clrl+F12.

How to create insert into ... values(…) SQL statements from a query result

1. Type the query statement into the query textbox.
2. Click Query/Create insert statements menu item or press the Ctrl+I key.
3. The generated insert statements (and the create table statement of the result schema) will be added to the result messages tab page.

How to create insert into ... select … SQL statements from a query result

1. Type the query statement into the query textbox.
2. Click Query/Create insert select statements menu item.
3. The generated insert statements (and the create table statement of the result schema) will be added to the result messages tab page.

How to use the auto completion listbox

1. Press Ctrl+J
2. Press Up or Down key to navigate to the previous/next member of the list.
3. Press Shift+Up or Shift+Down to navigate to the next matching member of the list.
4. Press Ctrl+Sub to filter items.
5. Press Enter to select the current list member or press Escape to close the listbox.

How to modify the font of the query from

1. Click Font menu item. Consolas Regular 9pt and Courier New Regular 8 are recommended.
2. Restart the application.

Object Explorer

How to show/hide object explorer

1. Press F8.

How to refresh the root node of the object explorer

1. Click Tools/Refresh Object Explorer’s root menu item.

How to find text in object explorer nodes

1. Press Ctrl+F.

Result tab pages – Messages tab page

How to close a result set tab page

1. Click right mouse button on the result set tab page header.
2. Click close menu item.

Result tab pages - DataTableEditor

Top left header context menu items

1. Copy column names
2. Save table as
3. Copy table
4. Copy table as XML
5. Edit dataview properties
6. Unhide all columns
7. Unhide all rows

Column header context menu items

1. Copy column name
2. Hide column

Row header context menu items

1. Hide row

Cell context menu items

1. Find
2. Add row filter
3. Remove row filter
4. Copy string field
5. Save string field as
6. Save binary field as

How to save the table into a file

1. Click right mouse button over the table.
2. Click the ’Save table as’ menu item.
3. Save the table as HTML, Fixed Width Columns or Tab Separated Values.

How to copy the table to the clipboard

1. Click right mouse button over the table.
2. Click the ’Copy table’ menu item.
3. Open Microsoft Word or Excel and click Paste Special

How to sort and filter rows in a table

1. Click right mouse button over the table.
2. Click the ’Edit DataView Properties’ menu item. See MSDN RowFilter and Sort for more information.

How to hide/unhide columns in a table

1. Click right mouse button over the table header.
2. Click the Hide column or the Unhide all columns menu item.

How to hide/unhide rows in a table

1. Select some rows.
2. Click right mouse button over the row header.
3. Click the Hide rows.
4. Click right mouse button over the table header.
5. Click hide all rows.

How to find text in a table

1. Navigate to the data table editor to the first row and first column. The search will start from the selected cell. If the search starts in the first row then you can find column names, too.
2. Click Edit/Find menu item or press Ctrl+F keys.
3. Type the text to find to the find what textbox.
4. Click the OK button or press the Enter key.
5. Press the F3 key to the next search result (Find Next).

How to copy a string field to the clipboard or save a string field to a file

1. Click right mouse button over the cell which contains the string.
2. Click right click button and click the ’Copy string field’ or the ’Save string field as’ menu item.

How to show a field as XML in Internet Explorer

1. Type the query statement into the query textbox which results an XML value.
2. Click Qurery/Execute Query (Xml) menu item or press Ctrl+Shift+X keys.

How to edit data in a table

1. Type the query statement into the query textbox.
2. Click the Query/Edit Rows menu item.
3. Modify the data in the data table editor.
4. The generated SQL script (insert, update, delete) will be added to the query textbox.