Query/View Designer, Database Tools, Options Dialog Box

Use this page of the Options dialog box to change the defaults for Query and View Designer. You can access the Options dialog box from the Tools menu.

Query and View Designer Options

• SQL query time-out
  Check to specify how many seconds a query may run before it times out. The valid time-out range is 1–65535 seconds. Clear to allow the timeout to be dictated by ADO.NET.

Panes shown by default

• Diagram
  Displays the Diagram pane in Query and View Designer. The Diagram pane displays the tables and other table-structured objects for the query or view, the available data columns, and icons indicating how the columns are used. If you do not select this option, you can still open this pane in the Query and View Designer. From Query Designer menu, point to Pane, and click the pane you want to see.

• Criteria
  Displays the Criteria pane in Query and View Designer. With the Criteria pane you can specify query or view options, such as what rows to select and how to group them. If you do not select this option, you can still open this pane in the Query and View Designer. From the Query Designer menu, point to Pane, and click the pane you want to see.

• SQL
  Displays the SQL pane in Query and View Designer. The SQL pane shows the SQL statement for the query or view. If you do not select this option, you can still open this pane in the Query and View Designer. From the Query Designer menu, point to Pane, and click the pane you want to see.

• Results
  Displays the Results pane in Query and View Designer. The Results pane shows the data retrieved by the query or view. If you do not select this option, you can still open this pane in the Query and View Designer. From the Query Designer menu, point to Pane, and click the pane you want to see.

• Show system objects
  Select to display system objects.

• Default Query type
  Selects the default syntax for new queries. You can choose Insert Value query, Insert Results query, Update query, Delete query, Make Table query, or Select query.

Parameter Identification for Generic Databases

These options allow you to provide the parameter settings for generic databases. For example, databases that do not have a .NET Framework Data Provider can have their specific parameter identifiers set here.

• Parameter prefix
  Provides a way to distinguish run-time parameter substitution variables using a prefix. While you can use the same symbol for all the run-time variables, each parameter will be nameless and you will have to keep track of each parameter by its ordinal position in the SQL statement. With a parameter prefix, you can expose the parameter with a meaningful name. You can also specify the default parameter in Query and View Designer by clicking Query Parameter Identification in the Properties pane and clicking the ellipses (…) to the right of the property.

• Parameter suffix
  Provides a way to distinguish run-time parameter substitution variables using a suffix. You must specify a parameter prefix in order to also use a parameter suffix. While you can use the same symbol for all the run-time variables, each parameter will be nameless and you will have to keep track of each parameter by its ordinal position in the SQL statement. With a parameter suffix, you can expose the parameter with a meaningful name. You can also specify the default parameter in Query and View Designer by clicking Query Parameter Identification in the Properties pane and clicking the ellipses (…) to the right of the property.

• Parameter escape character
  Specifies the escape character for using the actual value of the following character. This is useful where conflicts might occur with the default parameter prefix or suffix. You can also specify the default parameter in Query and View Designer by clicking Query Parameter Identification in the Properties pane and clicking the ellipses (…) to the right of the property.

See Also

Concepts

Visual Database Tool Designers

Other Resources

Querying with Parameters

Types of Queries