New in SQL Server Management Studio 22: Open Execution Plans In a New Tab!
Video Summary
In this video, I share an exciting new feature in SQL Server Management Studio 22 that was recently added as part of the preview release. As someone who frequently deals with query plans and execution paths, I can attest to how frustrating it is when you lose a plan after doing something else within your query window. This feature allows you to open an execution plan in a new tab directly from the query results, ensuring that you don’t have to worry about accidentally losing or overwriting important plans. It’s a simple but incredibly useful addition that streamlines the process of tuning and comparing queries. Additionally, I highlight another issue I’ve opened for SSMS, suggesting the inclusion of an option to keep actual execution plans enabled by default across all tabs. This would be particularly beneficial for query tuners and presenters who rely heavily on these features during their work.
Full Transcript
Erik Darling here with Darling Data. And this is a very short video because it’s Friday and we’re all in love. Just to talk about a new feature that got added in SQL Server Management Studio 22 preview. If you haven’t gotten a chance to download and try that out yet, I don’t blame you. It took me a little bit to get to it too. The SSMS team is working fastly and furiously. Remember the cadence at which you went from 20 to 21 to 22 has been whiplash speed. So this was actually a feature that I suggested and I’d like to thank, of course, Aaron Stilato and the whole crew who works on SSMS for noticing and taking care of this wonderful addition to SQL Server Management Studio. So what it is, is if you run a query and you get a query plan for it, now you can open that execution plan in a new tab so that you don’t lose it if you do something else within your query window. The number of times this has happened to me and I’ve had to rerun a query to get the query plan is absolutely infuriating. And so I just want to show you what it does and how it works. Now, I just got SQL Server Management Studio 22. I have not done any setup or anything on it. But I just want to show you what it does and how it works. Now, I just got SQL Server Management Studio 22. I have not done any setup or anything on it.
So if it looks weird or anything like that, I guess that’s why. But, you know, I think it looks nice, right? Dark mode and all that other good stuff. So what I’m going to do is just run this query and we’re going to see an actual factual execution plan show up down here, right? You can admire all its glory. Look at this. Oh, geez. We’ve got spills and look at all this stuff going on. Oh, boy. We got to tune this thing. But what if we wanted to like, you know, try some stuff and then and then I don’t know, like compare execution plans. What would we do? Well, we could go the clunky route and save it or we could right click and we could say show execution plan in new tab. It’s beautiful. Look at that. And then we do this and it pops up in a brand new tab. And now we can do whatever you want in this window without losing our query plan. It’s fantastic. It’s wonderful. We don’t have to worry about accidentally hitting something. or doing something without remembering to save stuff. We can just pop something off to a new tab and move on with our day, right? Get back to tuning queries, all that good stuff.
Now, there is one other issue that I have open for SQL Server Management Studio. And I think it’s probably an important one for query tuners and people who present about query tuning generally. Because nothing is worse than forgetting to turn on actual execution plans when you are when you’re going to do things, right? Because if you have a lot of different tabs that you’re dealing with or whatever reason, let’s just say, maybe you’re just a fellow old person who works with SQL Server quite a bit.
And the old memory might lapse here and there. I have an open issue to add an option to keep actual execution plans enabled for all tabs. Now, this isn’t obviously this wouldn’t be a default, right? Because not everyone wants execution plans on all the time. This could even maybe be something that you like a setting and presenter mode, because, you know, that’s maybe a little bit more geared towards the type of people who would who would who would like this button there.
But it is something that I think would be a useful addition to SQL Server Management Studio. So we’re going to I don’t know why I just refreshed that we’re going to I’m going to promote that issue in this video as well. The link for this will be down in the video description.
But SQL Server Management 22 Studio 22. I don’t know why I keep forgetting the word studio. This is this is gives you some idea about the forgetful nature of the aged population working with SQL Server. But looking good, looking real nice.
I like it’s all smooth and pretty and got got all the familiar buttons that I’m that I’m used to. So I don’t get lost and have another grandpa episode. Where’s my damn buttons?
Anyway, thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed yourselves. I hope you learned something. I hope that you will download SQL Server Management Studio 22 and test it out. Give it a give it a give it a give it a little hoot and a holler and and see how it goes.
And I don’t know. It’s just about it’s Friday. We should we should not have to watch overly long videos on Fridays. We should we should be able to get back to enjoying ourselves day drinking, optimizing our wine storage cabinets, whatever it is that we do to enjoy ourselves.
I don’t know. Smoke four packs of cigarettes and stare at the sky. That’s sounds like a nice time.
Anyway, thank you for watching.
Going Further
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