Enhanced Visual Explain and Explain Whiteboard (Revision #2)

The Visual Explain Plan tools have been updated to help users clearly identify the critical paths of SQL statements.

• Use the Explain Whiteboard to perform side-by-side comparisons of multiple explain plans.
• Save Image As saves an Explain Diagram as an image file (JPG or PNG).

Explain Plan

• Added to popup menu "Save Column Positions" to allow the customization of the position of the explain node columns
• Added color coding support, including ability to enable/disable coloring in popup menu.
• Explain Plan results now have tooltips for each explain node.
• Explain Diagram nodes now have more detailed information.
• Visual Explain Color Coding for Critical Path, Critical Node and Critical Operations. The Explain Diagram now has support for color coding ...
- Critical Path: Colors the critical path, determined by the costliest sub-node of each node.
- Critical Node: Colors top 3 costliest nodes in the entire path.
- Critical Operation: Colors the costliest operations. Level_1=Cartesian Joins; Level_2=Full Table Scans; Level_3=Sorts

• Options for default value of Color Critical Path, Critical Node and Critical Operation
• Options to specify background/foreground colors for nodes in Critical Path, Node and Operations