First Release of SSDT Power Tools

I am pleased to announce the first release of SSDT Power Tools. The SSDT team will be leveraging Power Tools as a mechanism to deliver new functionality and experiences through frequent updates, of which this is the first example. In this first iteration, we focused on addressing the feedback that SSDT does not offer the equivalent of the Schema View tool window found in the Visual Studio 2010 Database Project. This release of the SSDT Power Tools will add the Schema View capabilities back by extending the SQL Server Object Explorer, providing a logical view over the schema hosted inside your projects.

What can it do?

After the Power Tools are installed, you'll notice a new node named “Projects” inside the SQL Server Object Explorer. You can use this tree to navigate your schema, edit objects, refactor them, and add new objects.  

What's next?

There are several features in the Visual Studio 2010 Schema View version that are not included in this release: 

• Group by Schema: The tool only has top-level folders for object types. We plan on adding the option to the SQL Server Object Explorer in general, in order to group objects by schema, then object type

• Filtering Built-In Objects and External Objects: Checkboxes to filter out built-in and external objects from the tree

• Auto-refresh: Detect drift from project and refresh the tree automatically.

We plan on addressing these features to complete the experience in a future update.

Send us feedback!

We're actively prioritizing our plans and adding new ideas based on your suggestions and feedback.  Please let us know what you think via the "Q and A" tab of our gallery page or on our team forum.  We look forward to hearing from you!