Settings dialog

This dialog is used to setup application settings:

for SQL Server, settings dialog

Each tab has self-descripting options. Here are some more details on the use cases when you may need to change these options:

Database Open settings tab:
- Object types and filters group specified which object definitions will be loaded and compared. When you open a database, the application reads all chosen object definitions from the database and keeps them in memory. For a large database it takes some time. Or, maybe you're not interested in some changes at all. Using these settings you can specify which objects you need to load. So, by disabling some object types, you can speed up database open process and keep your focus only on objects you need. Please note that if you omit some object type, then this can prevent some further merge actions. For example, stored procedure (SP) can depend on some view. If you need to merge this SP to the other side, then you will have to merge that view first. But if you'll disable views loading, then you will not able to do this and on merge you'll get an error from the database server that referenced view does not exist in the target database
- Project open/reload group allows you to change the behaviour you've chosen previously using Database reload dialog
Data diff settings tab configures default behavior for the Data diff tab:
- Paging specifies default page size
- String compare options defines the default state of ignore case and ignore leading and trailing whitespaces vertical toolbar action states
- Local cache specifies folder for temporary data diff cache. Note that MssqlMerge cleans up this folder from time to time
Text diff settings tab:
- Text compare options defines the default state of ignore case, ignore leading and trailing whitespaces and ignore all whitespaces toolbar action states for the Text diff tab
- Object text loading allows you to trim the trailing semicolon in the object definition during database open
- Text diff tab specifies number of visible non-collapsed rows for the Text diff tab in the new/changed/new+changed modes
Table Definitions settings tab specifies table definition compare options
Misc. settings tab:
- Application appearance allows to setup some application UI settings:
  - Don't resize toolbar on application zoom allows to keep toolbar unchanged when you zoom application UI using and zoom toolbar actions
  - Max tab header width specifies the maximum width of tab in pixel for the main application tab control
- Ambiguous object names due to case differences specifies which names should be used for objects with case-insensitive names if there are some changes only in character case. Currently these settings are applied for the Batch data diff tab ('Table name' column) and for the Object list tab (Excel export - 'Name' column)

Free version limitations:

The whole dialog is not available

Last updated: 2023-10-03