It is possible to change the following items:

• Quick Access Toolbar Icons
• Keyboard Shortcuts

Change the Quick Access Toolbar buttons

In order to call the customization dialog box, you press the arrow on the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT).
The QAT is located on the top left of DbaPad, either above or below the Ribbon Control.:

When pressing the arrow, choose ‘More Commands…’ to call the customization dialog.
In this dialog box you can add more icons to the QAT

Change the keyboard shortcuts

If you want to customize the shortcut combinations, press the Keyboard Shortcuts: Customize… button.

A new dialog box will popup, where you can choose a category and command. Next enter the desired key in the Press New shortcut key text box.

When you first install DbaPad, you will automatically get a trial key. This key is valid for 14 days.

A screen is displayed which offers you to get a quick introduction of DbaPad, which is this page.

The next time you start DbaPad, a dialog box will pop up indicating that this is a trial license.
In this dialog box, you are offered to buy a valid license for DbaPad.

After the trial period has expired, you will not be able to use DbaPad anymore unless you buy a valid license code from our website and register DbaPad.

Creating Connections to the Oracle database

In order to use DbaPad, you will need to create a connection to the databases. As this tool is aimed for Oracle database administrators, you will need to logon with a user which has dba privileges, or has the select_catalog_role granted, or has the select any dictionary system privilege.
More information on how to create connections to your Oracle database can be found here.

Changing DbaPad’s Common Options

You can customize a few options of Dbapad, to tailor your taste. Such options are the color used, date format, default actions, …
Have a look at following article for a hint on how to change these options.

After you press the OK button, you will be presented with the Manage License screen.

You will see a link in the Manage License dialog box. When you press this, your default web browser will start, and direct your to the page where you can request your free new license.

Use the Connect Dialog to create new connections to the database.
You can create new connections either by pressing the shortcut combination CTRL+N, or navigate to the main menu and choose New Session.

In the Connection dialog box, you can enter a few parameters:

• Username: The username of your Oracle database account. If you want to connect using OS Authentication, specify a / (slash)
• SYSDBA: Should the connection be a regular (normal) connection, or are SYSDBA privileges required. Connections as SYSDBA should be rarely made
• Password: If you are not using OS Authentication, provide the password for your Oracle username. Be aware that as of Oracle 11g, the password might be case sensitive
• Save Password: Store your password, so you can connect automatically without asking for your password the next time you want to create a connection. The password is saved encrypted using the AES protocol
• Connection: You can either choose between a regular TNS Names entry, or use the EZ Connect method (as of Oracle 10g).
  • TNS Names: Provide a valid TNS Name. Valid TNS Names either are in the local TNSNAMES.ORA file, or should be accessible via Oracle Internet Directory
  • EZ Connect: Provide the hostname of the database server, the port the listener is listening on for the Oracle database service, and a valid service name which is known by the listener.
    The port number should be between 1024 and 32767. If no port number was entered, 1521 is the default
• Add to connection group: Add the connection to a group. You can group several different connection into a logical group. Examples are: Development databases, all sales related databases, ERP systems, SAP systems, …. You have the possibility to create your own connection groups. See Create your own connection groups.

Press the logon button to create a new session to your Oracle databases. Alternatively, you can double click on an entry in the connection list. If the password was saved, the saved password will be used. Otherwise, the password will be the same as the username, and a new session is trying to be established.

After you pressed the Logon button, a connection attempt is made to the database. Should this connection attempt fail for some reason, the connection dialog box will popup again, and the connection error will be displayed:

You can press the error message which is displayed. Your web browser is opened, and if it is a commonly known error, we’ll try to provide information on how to resolve the connection error:

Some of the most common connection errors are:

• ORA-12500: TNS:listener failed to start a dedicated server process
• ORA-12560: TNS:protocol adapter error
• ORA-12541: TNS:no listener
• ORA-12514: TNS:listener does not currently know of service requested in connect descriptor
• ORA-12154: TNS:could not resolve service name
• ORA-12535: TNS:operation timed out
• ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied
• ORA-28000: The account is locked

Create your own connection groups

By pressing the green plus sign next to Add to connection group you can create your own connection groups.
A dialog box will pop up requesting a new group name. Keep in mind that this new group name must have a unique name.

Press ok and a new group will be created. It will be selected by default in the poplist.

If the new group name already exist, a message box will popup to warn you:

Manage your connections

You can delete or rename connections which are in the connection list. By right clicking inside the connection list grid, a new menu popup will be shown:

When choosing delete connection, a message box will popup asking you to confirm the delete:

When choosing rename connection, a dialog box will popup requesting you for a new alias for the current connection.

If the new connection alias is not unique, following message box will popup:

The shortcut keys are F2 to rename a connection, and DEL to delete a connection.

When you decide to buy a license for DbaPad, you will need to register the license code which was issued for your company, or personal name.

In order to register the license code, go to the main application button, click the arrow on the License Code menu and choose the Manage License Code menu option.

A dialog box will open up, where you can enter the company name and license code, which were send to you by email

Click the OK button and your license code is validated. When all checks are performed, your license code will be registered.

The Network Tools can be found at the right hand top side of DbaPad application. When you press the Tools menu, you will find a menu entry Network Tools.

With network tools, you can check some basic networking issues. Currently, the following network tools are provided:

• Tnsping: Execute a TNS Ping to a database server for a given TNS entry
• Ping: Ping a certain server or hostname

TnsPing

Enter a TNS names entry or database name, and press the TNS Ping button.
We will search the %PATH% variable for the tnsping.exe program which is normally included in your Oracle client installation. The output of the tnsping program is transferred to the output window.

Ping

Enter the host name of the server or client you want to ping. Additionally you can set a timeout – in milliseconds – before a ping command stops.
When you press the start button, we’ll try to ping the hostname 5 times.
The output will be put inside the list control.

As of DbaPad 2.0.5, you can press a green dotted line in some screens (session overview, session detail view, database overview).
Pressing this green dotted line will open up the Network Tools dialog box, and will fill in the pressed hostname.
All you need to do is press start, and the ping command will start automatically for the selected hostname.

Possibly the green dotted line was overruled in the Manage Colors option dialog page.

See following article on how to determine the current color →
The property you are looking for is body/general/dbapad actions

Use the option dialog to change common options of DbaPad. You can access the option dialog from the main application button of DbaPad.

At the lower right hand side of the dialog box you will find 2 buttons, one of which is ‘options’.

At the moment, there are 3 different option pages:

• Visual Settings
• Check for Updates
• Manage Colors

Visual Settings

In the Visual Settings option page you can change following options:

• Date format: The date format used in various screens and reports
• Time Format: The time format used. Choose between HH24 or AM/PM
• Enable database actions: When this checkbox is checked, database dml actions are allowed. Such database actions include creating tablespaces, killing session, adding user accounts, …
• Enable AWR graphs: Enable this option if you want to generate AWR graphs. AWR graphs might be subject to additional license cost. Turn this of if you have not the appropriate licenses
• Use last screen when opening new connection: If this option is unchecked, the first page displayed will be ‘Database Overview’. When you enable this option, DbaPad will remember the last screen used and display this when you create a new connection

Check for Updates

In the Check for Updates option page you can define how DbaPad checks for updated versions of DbaPad:

• Automatically check for update: Check this item if you want DbaPad to automatically check for updated versions at startup of the application
• Check every: The time interval when a new check should be performed. Choose between week, 2 weeks and month
• Last Checked string: The timestamp the last check was performed
• Check now button: Immediately check for an updated version of DbaPad

Manage Colors

In the Manage Colors option page, you can change most common colors used by the generated web pages. The option page contain a tree like list, and is divided in following main categories:

• Table
  • Header
  • Odd rows
  • Even rows
• Body
  • General
  • Search
• Menus
  • Menu Bar
  • Normal Menu
  • Active Menu

Pressing on the second column – the one with HTML color codes – will open up a window where you can choose a different color for the given type:

If you are not satisfied anymore with your custom color, you can press the default button in the color window to revert the color back to its original value:

For example, we try to change the value for memory_target, but provide a real low value:

SQL> alter system set memory_target=1;
alter system set memory_target=1
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-02097: parameter cannot be modified because specified value is invalid
ORA-00838: Specified value of MEMORY_TARGET is too small, needs to be at least 132M

You will need to correct the statement. The error message indicates the minimum requirement for the parameter:

SQL> alter system set memory_target=132M;

System altered.

For example, you try to change the memory_target initialization parameter for your session:

SQL> alter session set memory_target=1;
alter session set memory_target=1
                  *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-02096: specified initialization parameter is not modifiable with this option

Although you can change the value for memory_target, you cannot do so for your session.
You can check the v$parameter data dictionary view in order to see if a certain parameter can be changed in a session:

SQL> select isses_modifiable, issys_modifiable from v$parameter where name='memory_target';

ISSES ISSYS_MOD
----- ---------
FALSE IMMEDIATE

As you can see, ISSES_MODIFIABLE (Can be modified using alter session command) is set to false, hence this error message.