Release Notes

Toad^® for Oracle 15.1

Release Notes

Revised 1/25/2022

About Toad for Oracle

Toad for Oracle provides an intuitive and efficient way for database professionals of all skill and experience levels to perform their jobs with an overall improvement in workflow effectiveness and productivity. With Toad for Oracle you can:

• Understand your database environment through visual representations
• Meet deadlines easily through automation and smooth workflows
• Perform essential development and administration tasks from a single tool
• Deploy high-quality applications that meet user requirements; perform predictably and reliably in production
• Validate database code to ensure the best-possible performance and adherence to best-practice standards
• Manage and share projects, templates, scripts, and more with ease

The Toad for Oracle solutions are built for you, by you. Nearly two decades of development and feedback from various communities like Toad World have made it the most powerful and functional tool available. With an installed-base of over two million, Toad for Oracle continues to be the "de facto" standard tool for database development and administration.

Toad for Oracle resources

Toad World is a unique and valuable resource available to all Toad users. Toad World provides forums, blogs, videos, product information, Beta releases (when available), and Trial downloads for Toad products. Visit Toad World at: https://www.toadworld.com.

Two of the most-often used features of Toad World are the Forums and the Idea Pond.

• On the Idea Pond page, you can submit your ideas to improve Toad and vote for or comment on other ideas. The Toad team takes your suggestions seriously, and you may even hear back from one of our developers on the topic. We encourage all Toad users—from new to experienced—to let us know how we can improve Toad.
• On the Forum page, you can ask a question or start a discussion and view all other forums within the Toad community.

The Toad World blog pages feature a broad range of information, including topics of interest to our industry, as well as instructions from team members on how to use the latest Toad features.

The Toad for Oracle web-based training is a perfect accompaniment to your product license. This free training walks you through major product features and explains how to perform frequent tasks. You’ll also see how to utilize time-saving automation functionality. You’ll receive a certificate of completion for each course once you pass the accompanying test.

About this release

Toad for Oracle 15.1 includes component and requirement upgrades. These upgrades address security vulnerabilities previously identified in the third party component.

About Toad^® for Oracle^® Editions

Each Toad for Oracle Edition is packaged with additional Quest products to expand your experience. The following products may be part of your Toad for Oracle Edition:

• Toad for Oracle 15.1
• Benchmark Factory for Databases
• Code Tester for Oracle
• Spotlight on Oracle
• SQL Optimizer for Oracle
• Toad Data Modeler

The following Toad for Oracle Editions are available:

Note: The DB Admin Module can be added to any Toad Edition.

For more information about the products in your Toad for Oracle Edition and the minimum system requirements for running these products, see the Toad for Oracle Editions release notes at: https://support.quest.com/technical-documents

New Features and Enhancements

Toad for Oracle 15.1

"Dark Mode" Theme

"Dark Mode" and several other new color themes are now available via Options | Color Styles.

Connections

Toad can now connect to a database without an installed Oracle client using ODAC "Direct mode". To learn about the limitations of this method see ODAC Connection Modes - Client Mode vs Direct Mode" on devart.com.

Native Support for XMLTYPE data type

Toad can now work with XMLTYPE data type using ODAC without limitations, or workarounds when using Oracle client 12.2 or newer.

Improved Oracle 21c Support

Improvements have been made to support the following Oracle 21c features:

• JSON datatype supported throughout Toad.
  Note: Oracle fetches JSON as BLOB. Toad can convert it to CLOB or VARCHAR2 (to make the data readable and editable) if you configure it in Options|Schema Browser|Data Tab. You must add the conversion clause yourself in SQL from the Editor if you want to see the JSON data as text.

• Blockchain and immutable tables supported.

• In-memory clause supported for external partitioned tables.

• Password Rollover Time supported in profiles.

• Mandatory profiles supported.

• Information Lifecycle Management clause supported for indexes.

• Multivalue indexes supported on indexes of JSON columns.

Toad for Oracle 15.0

Subscription Licensing

Note: Applies to Toad for Oracle Subscription with online licensing.

New offerings:

• Toad for Oracle Xpert Plus Edition (Toad for Oracle Professional DB Admin Edition plus SQL Optimizer for Oracle).

Oracle Database 21c Support

Existing Toad features work with 21c on Linux and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Support for new features of 21c will be added in a future release of Toad.

Note: Oracle Database 21c has not been released for Windows at time of publication.

Data Grids

Cached updates allows for bulk operations to be performed and reviewed locally before posting all changes to the database.

Accessibility

Improved support for screen readers in toolbars and menus.

Toad for Oracle 14.2

Automation Designer

• A new menu item has been added, "Change connections...," which allows for changing the connection associated with one or more selected actions.
• The Execute Script action has a new option to enable/disable substitution variables. This is useful when executing a script having an ampersand in its path.

Code Snippets

• The Code Snippets datafile is now in JSON format which is less likely to suffer from corruption in the event Toad shuts down abnormally.

Compare Data

• Settings can be saved to file and loaded for future comparisons.
• A new option has been added to compare LOBs by their length which is faster, but not 100% accurate. See the "Compare LOBs by length only" option in the Features section of the Compare Data options tab.

Compare Multiple Tables

• Table name filter now supports a comma separated list of table names in addition to traditional filters using wildcard (%).
• Memory consumption improvements when comparing LOBs.
• A new option has been added to compare LOBs by their length which is faster, but not 100% accurate. See the "Compare LOBs by length only" option on the Compare Multiple Table options tab.

Compare Schemas

• Exclusion file now supports excluding items only in Source or Target schemas and excluding items with differences.

Connections

• A new option has been added to automatically attempt a reconnect one time if a session disconnect is detected. If the reconnect was successful then Toad will seamlessly continue the operation in most cases. There are a few instances where Toad will not be able to complete the operation. Those include working with datasets that are already fetched into a grid and debugging. See the "Auto-reconnect if timeout or disconnect occurs" option in View | Toad Options | Oracle | Transactions.
• Improved error message when there are no Oracle clients installed that eliminates unnecessary UI elements and provides a link to download the client.

Make/Strip Code

• The Make/Strip Code datafile is now in JSON format which is less likely to suffer from corruption in the event Toad shuts down abnormally.

Schema Browser

• Shortcuts associated with common Schema Browser actions can be configured. See View | Toad Options | Toolbars/Menus | Shortcuts

Sensitive Data Protection

• Table comments are now included in sensitive data searches.

Subscription Licensing

• Improved error message when an invalid license key is entered.
• Notification is presented when there are new editions available.

Toolbars

• Toolbar layouts are now migrated from prior releases. A status bar notification will appear alerting you to the possibility that your migrated toolbars may be excluding menu item changes and new features. From the notification you can reset your toolbars to get the latest toolbar definition.

Workspaces

• Schema Browser Quick Filters and the active right side detail tab are now saved.
• Editor windows and their contents are now restored even if the connection bound to them could not be restored.

Enhancements from Idea Pond

The following is a list of enhancements submitted by Toad for Oracle users through Idea Pond and implemented in this release.

The Toad for Oracle Idea Pond on Toad World is a site where you can submit your ideas to improve Toad and vote or comment on ideas submitted by other users. The Toad development team has always been driven by Toad customers, and Idea Pond makes it easy for you to tell us what changes are most important.

• To visit Idea Pond, log in to the Toad Forums at: https://forums.toadworld.com. Select the Categories tab. Then click Idea Pond in the Toad for Oracle category.

Discontinued Features

Knowledge Xpert. Knowledge Xpert is no longer available on Toad World. Beginning with release 13.1, Toad components no longer reference the online Knowledge Xpert.

Ask a Question. The Go to Toad World and Ask a Question commands on the Toad World toolbar have been replaced. To ask a question, click the Forums toolbar button to go directly to the forum. To go to Toad World, click the Forums or the Browse Blogs toolbar buttons. You can also use the Help menu: Help | Toad World | Forums. This change is found in Toad for Oracle 13.1 or later.

Integration with Toad Intelligence Central. Beginning with Toad for Oracle 13.1, Toad no longer provides integration with Toad Intelligence Central. The Toad Intelligence Central window is not available and you cannot publish scripts, files, Code Analysis results, and other resources to a Toad Intelligence Central server using Toad for Oracle. You cannot connect to Toad Intelligence Central through Toad for Oracle.