Toad for Oracle – GUI Q&A

Q: How do I change my connection color?

A: In Toad for Oracle 11:

• Click on a connection in the log-in window.
• Scroll over to the Color column.
• Click within that field to access the list of colors.

Regarding earlier versions:

To change your connection color for an existing connection go to the login window, select your connection and click on the color for that connection.  A drop-down box will appear with the color choices.  Select one and connect to the database to save the new color for that connection.

Note: The color drop-down on the right side of the login window is only used for "New" connections.

Q: Does Toad display the access and filter conditions for each step?

A: Yes. Turn on the Display option; each applicable step will show up as it appears. Note that we call Oracle DBMS_XPLAN to get the plan, so we show what Oracle says; this is not up to us. You will see plan steps without conditions.

Q: The Window menu no longer shows my list of open windows. The Window menu now only has the icon arrangement items.

A: This is a bug. At some point, there was an access violation in TOAD which caused problems with the saving of the list. To get your list back:

1. Right-click over the main toolbar and choose Customize.
2. In the "Customize" dialog that comes up, select the Commands tab.
3. Select "Window" from the listview on the left hand side.
4. On the right, select "List of Current Windows"
5. Drag "List of Current Windows" up to your Window menu.
6. Close the "Customize" dialog.

If you are encountering this frequently, you may prefer to go to Options → Toolbars and choose a read only toolbar, which will not have this problem.

Q: Under the "Shows windows by connection" icon, all the choices are greyed out. Why?

A: The "Show windows by connection" button does a "restore" on all of your windows that are associated with the selected connection, and it minimizes all of the windows that are associated with another connection. If your windows are currently maximized inside of the main TOAD window, then the choices under "Show windows by connection" will be grayed out.