Sql Server Management Studio tuning: T-Sql Formatter and SSMS Tools Pack

I think Microsoft Sql Server Management Studio is a great tool for managing Sql Server, writing and optimizing Transact Sql code and for anything with Sql Server but I have always missed some functions:

• Formatting Sql code
• Code Snippets (Like in Visual Studio)
• CRUD Stored Procedure generation

I had to reinstall my working machine last week and started searching for some free Sql Server Management Studio addins for these functions and finally I found a solution:
Poor Man’s T-SQL Formatter for formatting Sql code.
SSMS Tools Pack for the others.

Poor Man’s T-SQL Formatter is a free add in that formats Sql scripts with a single hotkey. As Visual Studio, we can format the whole document or just the selected part of it.
After the installation it puts two entries into the SSMS Tools menu: Format T-SQL Code and T-SQL Formatting Options.

These are my personal settings. I have changed the default hotkey to CTRL+K, CTRL+D and unchecked all the extras, because the default settings were uncomfortable for me (This hotkey is the same as the debugging hotkey in SSMS Tools Pack but I disabled this function because I think I wont use it).
It also has a free web service for testing at poorsql.com.
SSMS Tools Pack is also a free add-in created by Mladen Prajdić SQL Server MVP. It has a lot of features but for me the most importants are:

• Execution Plan Analyzer!!!!!!! (Verry important)
  
  
• SQL Snippets (Fires on Enter – as default – or Tab key)
  
  
• Search Results in Grid Mode
  
  
• CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) stored procedure generation
  
  
• And a lot of other good stuff .

I also have to mention the Format SQL feature that I think is a Fake Function. It only makes keywords uppercase or lowercase, doesn’t format anything in my code.

Summary: I recommend installing these to everybody who uses SQL Server. SSMS Tools Pack works with every version of SQL Server from SQL Server 2005 (as the install shows), and unfortunately I don’t have any information about Poor Mans T-SQL Formatter but I tried it with SQL Server 2008 and it worked fine for me.
Note: EVERYBODY has to try the Execution Plan Analyzer, it is really-really worth it.

The download links are:

• Poor Man’s T-SQL Formatter.
• SSMS Tools Pack.

Happy Coding!
Morzel