Working with Workspaces

DbVisualizer allows you to create multiple workspaces. Each workspace contains its own independent set of DbVisualizer settings, allowing you to have the application configured in multiple different ways simultaneously.

As an example, let's say that you work with multiple companies, each with its own large collection of databases. Normally, that would result in a huge list of connections to keep track of, perhaps sorted into different folders to create some kind of structure. If working for the different companies required different settings (proxies, time zones, date formats, etc.), you might also need to constantly change the settings back and forth as you switch between working for different companies.

Workspaces give you an alternative way to structure your work by allowing you to separate unrelated sets of configuration from each other. Each workspace is independent from all the other ones, meaning that they have their own separate connections, settings, favorites, recent files, drivers, certificates, and so on. You can easily open another workspace, and even have multiple ones running simultaneously and separately from each other.

Creating a Workspace

Go to File->Workspaces->New Workspace to open the New Workspace dialog:

Each workspace is stored as its own folder on your computer. The Folder Name and Location fields control the name and location of this folder, respectively.

For instance, if the workspace's Folder Name is "tables" and the Location is C:\Users\bobby, the workspace and its files will be stored in the folder C:\Users\bobby\tables

By clicking Create, the workspace will be created and automatically opened in a new window. Changes made in this new workspace will not affect your previous workspace, and vice versa.

Opening a Workspace

The File->Workspaces menu provides two different ways to open a workspace. The first is the Open Workspace option that allows you to open any existing workspace by selecting the folder where it's stored.

Second, if you've already opened at least one workspace in the past, the menu will also contain a list of the most recently opened workspaces. These can be opened by simply clicking on them.

When opening a workspace, it'll load into a new window. This allows you to use multiple workspaces simultaneously.

If there are recently opened workspaces in the menu, you can also use the Clear All Recent Workspaces to clear its list of workspaces. Note that this only clears the list in the menu; the workspaces themselves remain and can still be opened using Open Workspace.

Renaming a Workspace

The purpose of a workspace may shift over time, and its name may need to change as a result. This can be done by opening the workspace you wish to rename and clicking on Tools->Tool Properties to open the Tool Properties window. There, under the General/General panel, you can use the Workspace Name field to rename the current workspace. Enter a new name and click OK or Apply to save the changes.

The Default Workspace

When launching DbVisualizer for the first time, a workspace is automatically created for you. This is known as the Default Workspace, and it's the one you implicitly use if you don't create or open your own workspaces. It is also the one that automatically opens by default whenever you launch DbVisualizer.

Note that the Default Workspace has a slightly different status compared to user-created workspaces. To name a few differences, DbVisualizer is solely responsible for deciding where it's saved, it cannot be renamed, and it will always be considered one of your recently used workspaces.

Command Line Support

Unless configured otherwise, DbVisualizer will always load the Default Workspace when launched. In case you want to launch DbVisualizer with some other workspace, this can be done using the -workspace <folder> command line argument.

For instance, if your workspace is located in the folder C:\business\my-workspace, you can launch DbVisualizer with the -workspace C:\business\my-workspace argument to launch directly into that workspace instead of the default one.

-prefsdir Compatibility

Older versions of DbVisualizer didn't have the option to create and open workspaces from within the application itself, but still allowed one to manually create alternative "user preference directories" and use the -prefsdir <folder> argument to launch DbVisualizer with these preferences instead.

Workspaces are backwards compatible with this previous system, meaning that the preference directories that were manually created for older versions of DbVisualizer are still supported. They can be loaded and converted into workspaces by using File->Workspaces->Open Workspace and selecting the existing preference directory.

Unlike workspaces, the preference directories didn't have proper names. When converted to a workspace, the name will be automatically chosen based on the name of the folder it's stored in. This name can then be changed if needed; see "Renaming a Workspace" above.

The old -prefsdir argument can still be used as an alias for the new -workspace argument. However, the use of -prefsdir is not recommended and only exists for backwards compatibility with existing command line scripts. It may be removed in a future version.