Little SQL Server Tricks: Object Explorer Details in SSMS

The Object Explorer window in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) is the place in which you find the databases, the tables, and all other objects inside a SQL Server. While I worked with this view for ages, I only recently found the Object Explorer Details view.

You can open this view with F7 or in the top navigation bar in View / Object Explorer Details:

This view shows some additional details for the selected elements in the Object Explorer view. If you click on a COLUMNS node of a table, you get a list of all columns in the details view. While it looks similar to the Object Explorer view itself, it has a nice additional feature: you can select all columns and copy them to a text file:

Name Policy Health State
BusinessEntityID (PK, FK, int, not null)
PersonType (nchar(2), not null)
NameStyle (NameStyle(bit), not null)
Title (nvarchar(8), null)
FirstName (Name(nvarchar(50)), not null)
MiddleName (Name(nvarchar(50)), null)
LastName (Name(nvarchar(50)), not null)
Suffix (nvarchar(10), null)
EmailPromotion (int, not null)
AdditionalContactInfo (XML(Person.AdditionalContactInfoSchemaCollection), null)
Demographics (XML(Person.IndividualSurveySchemaCollection), null)
rowguid (uniqueidentifier, not null)
ModifiedDate (datetime, not null) 

While these things are nice to have, there are a few views that offer a unique insight into your SQL Server instance. My favourite one: If you select the Database node, you get the list of all databases on this server, including their recovery model, the compatibility level, and the collation. Instead of clicking through all your databases one by one, you open the Object Explorer Details view and get everything at once:

That last view with the details for all databases alone is worth knowing about this little feature of SSMS. I hope this will make your work with SQL Server a little easier.