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Dockable SQL Difference View Window, Sizable Columns

I realise this is an "it would be nice" suggestion: a dockable SQL Difference View window. It would be great if it would "dock" (as in, grab to the nearest edge) on any side, for those of us who have big monitors!

It currently only floats *or* docks to the bottom - unless I'm missing something.

For this to work, you'd also need to add the ability to resize the columns in the main view (e.g. "Type", "Object Name", "Include", "Object Name")

Are there any more users who think this would be useful?

Cheers,
thomasswilliams
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  • Dominick Reed
    Hi Thomas

    You're right, the SQL difference pane only docks to the bottom or floats - we actually stripped out a lot of the original docking functionality...

    We left in the ability to float the pane so that those with 2 monitors could take advantage of their extra screen. This can be really handy, especially with Data Compare.

    Regarding docking to the side, when we tried this, even with a widescreen format resolution, becasue of the predominant horizontal bias of the grids and the filter panel, we didn't feel there was any additional space advantage.

    Hope that kind of makes sense !

    :-)

    Dom
    Dominick Reed
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  • Tom Harris
    Hi Thomas,

    this was the beahviour in v4 if the bundle. However, we found that lots of people found the whole docking thing confusing. For this version we decided to go with a left/right approach across both panels. Docking to anywhere except the bottom would break this.

    Leave it with us to consider,

    Tom Harris

    Red Gate Software
    Tom Harris
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  • thomasswilliams
    Thanks Tom and Dominick - before I submitted this request I tried to imagine if I would even use SQL Compare it in this mode (with the Difference Window docked to the side).

    (Maybe only users familiar with Visual Studio will try it).

    On one of my monitors (resolution of 1400 * 1050) my sample looks like: http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/photos/thomasswilliams/images/135792/original.aspx

    As mentioned, the columns in the main window would probably need to be resizable to make this work better.

    Cheers,
    thomasswilliams
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  • Dominick Reed
    This is something that we did think hard about, but after sitting though a lot of usability sessions and seeing the problems docking panels cause, we opted for the simple approach.

    By not having extra docking functionality and resizable column widths, we've been able to ensure that the user is less likely to get in a muddle or spend valuable time continually tweaking what they've adjusted. Sometimes less functionality is better.

    Given your monitor resolution, I could see how it might just be viable for you, but our research indicated that wide-screen isn't that widespread yet. We'd be adding functionality that the majority of our users couldn't take advantage of, and would most likely just cause them more problems.

    Hope that helps explain why we took this route !

    :-)

    Dom
    Dominick Reed
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