A tour of the workspace

#6.1What you see when the IDE opens

Reading the window from the top down you will find two header rows — the menus and the connection chip, then the icon toolbar — a narrow vertical strip of icons down the left edge, a schema tree beside it, the module area filling the centre, and a single-line status strip along the bottom. The AI assistant and the bottom dock stay out of sight until you ask for them.

Nothing in this tour is destructive. Switching modules, opening panels and dragging edges only change what you are looking at, and every layout choice is remembered between launches: rail position, panel widths, dock height, which dock tabs are open, and whether the AI panel is showing.

#6.2The header — menus and connection

The top row holds eight menus on the left — File, Edit, Session, Database, Tools, Debug, Terminal and Help — and on the right the notification bell, the light/dark toggle, the settings gear, the user menu and the Ctrl+K palette button.

In the middle sits the connection chip: the alias you connected with, your username and the host. On a container database a second chip names the container you are working in, and a red SYSDBA badge appears whenever you are connected with that authority — so the privilege you hold is always visible without going looking for it.

The second row is the icon toolbar: execute, stop, commit, rollback, explain plan, query builder, formatter, file operations, export and import, new window, history and snippets. It acts on the SQL editor no matter which module you are looking at.

Chapters 7, 8 and 9 document every menu, button and chip in these two rows.

#6.3The docking rail — switching modules

The vertical strip of icons down the left edge is the docking rail, and it is how you move around the product: one icon per module, development tools grouped at the top and DBA tools below. Hovering an icon names it; clicking it replaces the centre of the window and leaves everything else — including your open editor tabs — exactly as it was.

The rail itself can be docked, floated as a small palette, or collapsed off the edge when you want the width back. Chapter 10.

#6.4The left panel — finding your objects

Beside the rail sits the left panel: your connection at the top, and beneath it the schema object tree. Expand a schema to reach tables, views, procedures, packages, triggers and the rest, and right-click any object for the actions that apply to it — query its data, generate DDL, compare it with another, import into it.

The panel appears on the SQL Editor, Object Browser, Debugger and Test Manager, and is absent from the DBA modules because those have nothing to browse. Drag its right edge to resize it. Chapter 11.

#6.5The centre — where the work happens

The large area in the middle is the module area, and it shows whichever module the rail has selected: query tabs on the SQL Editor, and dashboards, lists, grids or diagrams on everything else. Parts III and IV of this guide are, chapter by chapter, a description of what appears here.

On the SQL Editor and the Debugger one further panel — the AI assistant — slides in from the right when you press Ctrl+Shift+A and slides away when you press it again. It is optional and inactive until you configure an AI endpoint of your own (chapter 34).

#6.6The bottom dock — results, terminal and monitors

Query results do not appear inside the editor; they appear in the bottom dock, which rises from the foot of the window as soon as a statement returns. Ctrl+` opens and closes it by hand.

The dock is tabbed. Data Grid is always there and holds the results of the last statement. Terminal, Sessions, Storage and Live Metrics open on demand from the menus or the command palette, and each can be closed individually without disturbing the others. Drag the top edge of the dock to make it taller. Chapter 12.

#6.7The status bar — reading the state at a glance

The single line across the bottom of the window is the status bar, and it answers the questions you would otherwise go looking for: which account is connected and to what, whether the last statement succeeded or failed, how many rows came back and how long they took, where the cursor is, which container you are in, the database version, and — when the editor is holding work you have not committed — a pending-transaction marker. Chapter 13.

#6.8Your first five minutes

If you would rather learn the window by using it, this is the shortest useful path through it:

1. Connect. Enter host, port, service name and your credentials; the IDE opens as soon as the connection is verified (chapter 5).
2. Look around the left panel. Expand your own schema and find a table you recognise (chapter 11).
3. Ask for its data. Right-click the table and choose the option that queries it. A new editor tab opens with the SQL already written for you.
4. Run it. Press F8, or the ▶ button on the toolbar. The bottom dock opens with the rows in the Data Grid (chapter 16).
5. Read the status bar. Row count, elapsed time, and whether anything is now sitting uncommitted (chapter 13).

That is the loop the whole product is built around — find an object, write or generate SQL against it, run it, read the result. Every other module is a specialised version of the same cycle.

#6.9The quickest way to get oriented

Press Ctrl+K to open the command palette, type a few letters of what you want, and press Enter. Every module and every major action is in there. If you would rather browse, choose Help → User guide to open a sliding panel that describes each rail icon in one sentence and jumps you straight to it.