Upcoming PL/SQL Developer 16.0 release

Upcoming PL/SQL Developer 16.0 release

New Features Version 16.0

AI Assistant

The most important new feature of PL/SQL Developer 16.0 is the AI Assistant. It allows you to leverage the power of the most popular AI Systems to create, modify or analyze your SQL and PL/SQL code at minimal costs. All you need to do is supply an authorization key for your AI account, after which you can immediately make use of the predefined AI Functions in PL/SQL Developer. You can also create your own AI Functions for specific tasks.

With the predefined AI Functions you can create, modify, finish, fix or optimize SQL or PL/SQL code. You can also let the AI System comment, review or explain code, or you can ask general questions about code. An example of the create function might be:

The result is a complete PL/SQL function with comments:

For more information read the complete description of the AI Assistant.

PL/SQL Developer currently supports OpenAI GPT, Google Gemini, Meta Llama, Mistral, Deepseek and AI2SQL. Support for additional AI Systems will follow in the near future.

Oracle PDF Manual Integration

The Oracle PDF Manual integration allows you to quickly access these documents by pressing F1 in an editor or by selecting the Oracle Manuals function from the Help menu. During configuration can select which specific manuals you want to include for indexing. Searches will find topics in all selected manuals:

In this case the LOCK TABLE statement is found in 1 manuals: the PL/SQL Language Reference and in the SQL Language Reference. Clicking on a search result will display the corresponding page in the PDF manual:

You can use the contents list, navigation buttons, and search field to navigate the manual.

The PDF format replaces the previously used HTML format, as it offers better performance, navigation, rendering quality, and readability.

SQL Window Bind Variable Support

In addition to substitution variables (prefixed with an ampersand) you can now also use bind variables (prefixed with a colon) in a SQL Window:

Bind variables have a string data type by default. You can use the same syntax as with substitution variables to define the data type, default value, selection list, and other properties.

Template Filter

The Template List now has a filter field to quickly find your templates within all subdirectories of the template root directory:

In this case searching for “var” found the template for the varchar2 constant, the varying array type declaration, the variance function, and the varchar2 variable declaration.

Colored Icons Preference

You can now choose between colored and grey icons through a preference. By default the icons will be colored.

Error Help

In case of an Oracle error or warning, or in case of a compilation error or warning, the help function will now take you directly to the corresponding section on the Oracle Help Center website:

Find & Replace Preserve Case

You can now preserve case of the original text when performing a find & replace:

When using the Preserve case on replace option, the results are as follows:

Other enhancements

• SQL Window Pin All Result Sets item added to the result popup menu. Select this option to automatically pin all current and future result sets of the SQL Window.
• For Table Exports in SQL Format you can now select a Batch mode. In the exported SQL File, batches of records will be sent to the server as one block. This can improve import performance in environments with poor network performance.
• DBMS_Output fetch performance has been optimized.
• Editor AutoReplace is now invoked for all symbol characters, in addition to the space, tab and enter keys.
• Font preferences now allow for an unrestricted color selection, instead of a fixed set of colors.
• The Text Importer can now detect UTF8 encoding if there is no BOM header in the file.
• Program Window tabs now have a close button.
• SDI Window Tabs are now smaller, always have a close button, and is always single row.
• The File Selector now has a standard appearance, and conforms to the Windows dark/light color setting.
• Oracle 23 documentation added to the Web Search configuration and to the Oracle Manuals download options.
• New AppDataPath parameter to override the Windows User Application Data path (C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Roaming) for all PL/SQL Developer application data files. This parameter only be set on the command-line, not in the Params.ini file.
• New NoCrashRecovery parameter to prevent crash recovery during startup.
• The application error reporting system has been replaced.
• New Preference “Export to Excel with Text Formatting” added (default on).
• The Code Assistant now also provides an (all) option and multi-select for inline view field lists.
• New “AutoSave Layout” preference added in addition to “AutoSave Desktop”, so that you can separately control these options.
• New Color Selector with improved selection methods and RGB value entry.
• New Font Selector with precise color selection.
• Excel export: date columns are now left-aligned.
• Excel export: right-aligned columns now also have right-aligned headers.
• Oracle Scheduler now displays disabled objects with a corresponding icon.
• When split editing in the Program Window, bookmarks are now synchronized in the top and bottom view.
• Command Window result set display performance improved.
• Export User Objects now exports sequences first to prevent table column dependencies during import.
• The Function / Procedure “Test” function now declares Temporary CLOB/BLOB variables, which is a better default than the previously used Database CLOB/BLOB data type.
• User Interface Display performance improved and flickering reduced.
• In case of an Oracle error in a SQL Window or Test Window, the window is brought to the front if necessary.

Fixes

• Stability improvements.
• Output button was not visible after executing a PL/SQL Block with dbms_output in the Program Window.
• Program Window did not process unlimited dbms_output buffer size correctly.
• Program Window Code Contents could be slow for packages with many variables and constants.
• SQL Window Large Data Editor did not highlight XML with CDATA or comment sections with < or > characters.
• SQL Window Large Data Editor JSON syntax highlighting did not handle escaped double quotes (\”) correctly.
• SQL Window single record view horizontal scrollbar could unnecessarily be displayed after refreshing.
• SQL Window Auto Refresh could cause Access Violations when PL/SQL Developer is not on top.
• SQL Window Copy/Export to Excel would crash for cell values larger than 32767 characters.
• Report Window &dbuser and &database variables were not always correct when using multiple connections.
• Report Window Export to Excel would fail when there is only 1 column.
• Command Window SQLPLUS command did not find the SQL*Plus executable when using an Oracle Instant Client.
• Renaming a view would fail with ORA-01765 if the Always Include Owner Oracle preference was enabled.
• PL/SQL Beautifier did not always add a line break after an OPEN FOR statement.
• PL/SQL Beautifier did not always correctly format the DML statement of a FORALL statement.
• PL/SQL Beautifier could show an error when using double quotes and multi-line strings in the same program unit.
• PL/SQL Beautifier could show an error for some case expressions.
• Diagram Window could case an error when refreshing objects that were dropped in the database.
• Diagram Window drawing artefacts fixed.
• Editor Paste did not always work for the 64 bit version.
• Editor Special Character color was too bright in dark mode.
• Editor Uncomment did not always preserve the selection correctly.
• Window List transaction indicator could be partly visible when disabled in the preferences.
• Re-opening the most recently used workset would cause an error if it was deleted.
• Project add spec and body would only add a single item.
• Closing PL/SQL Developer when multiple windows are changed could ask to save changes multiple times for a window.
• Selecting the Differences button when notified of file changes would not show Unicode text correctly.
• DDL for Table primary/unique keys was not correct when based on other indexes.
• Crash recovery could sometimes cause an Error Saving File message.
• Downloading Updates did not always work for the 64 bit version.
• Function keys assigned to File > New > Program Window submenu items did not always work.
• Copy/Change Window To functions did not always handle ANSI/Unicode characters correctly.
• PL/SQL Beautifier could not always parse code with a WITHIN GROUP expression.
• PL/SQL Beautifier did not wrap cursor parameters in a FOR LOOP.
• Preference Search list did not always allow selection of the last item.
• Program Window declaration hint could display too much text.
• Splash screen could incorrectly show “Loading Workset”.
• Improved error handling when exporting rows to Excel.
• Object functions “Properties” and “Describe” did not properly handle errors.
• Compare User Objects and Compare Table Data did not handle target session logoff errors correctly.
• Some Database Object functions did not handle Oracle errors correctly.
• Connection Indicator Color could make the connection description on window status lines difficult to read.
• Difference Viewer could raise “List index out of bounds” error.
• File Browser refresh could cause a “List index out of bounds” error.
• Test Window “Save as Standard Test” was not disabled during execution.
• Posting changes in a SQL Window for a disconnected session would cause an unexpected error.
• Project Options visuals improved in dark mode.
• Command Window DESCRIBE command could display an unexpected error.
• Compare User Objects could lead to errors if Oracle preference “Check all sessions” was enabled.