Console Tab

The Console Tab provides an easy and comfortable way to interact with your databases. Users familiar with the psql command line utility will recognize the general shape — a scrollback log plus an input editor — and a useful subset of its backslash commands work here too:

• \?: show the command list;
• \dt: list tables;
• \d: list tables, views and sequences; \d NAME describes one of them (its columns, types, nullability and defaults) — NAME can be schema-qualified (\d public.customers);
• \du: list roles/users;
• \l: list databases;
• \df: list functions;
• \x: toggle expanded/vertical output;
• \timing: toggle showing execution time.

These map to whatever each connected engine actually has: MySQL/MariaDB’s “database” doubles as its schema, Oracle’s “user” doubles as its schema (and it has no separate multi-database concept), and SQLite has none of schemas/roles/databases at all — where an engine genuinely has nothing to show, the command says so directly instead of returning an empty or misleading result. \h (per-SQL-command syntax help, like a PostgreSQL manual page) is not implemented.

The editor on the bottom of the tab area is full-featured just like the Query Tab editor (it provides syntax highlight and autocomplete with Ctrl-Space). To execute a command, just type it in this editor. If the command is a backslash (starts with \), just type Enter and it will be executed. If it is a regular SQL command, then it can be multi-lined, and you will need to type Alt-Q to execute it.

All commands and its output will be logged into the display area, which is textual and read-only, so you can copy and paste its contents somewhere else. You can clear the display area by clicking on the Clear Console button.

All commands also are logged in the connection query history, and also in a local console history, which you can by clicking in the Command History button.

By clicking in the green check, you can borrow the command and put it into the editor, so you can amend it and execute it. Another comfortable way to navigate through the history is using the shortcuts Ctrl-Up and Ctrl-Down, to quickly paste in the editor the previous and next commands, respectively.

These backslash commands are useful when dealing with databases every day. The console tab will also show any errors and the results of any SQL command you type in a pretty way. Try it out!