Skip to content

A tour of the workbench

This tour walks the window from left to right, using the notes table from your first query. Keep Alcuin connected to tryout as you read.

The activity bar and the sidebar

Section titled “The activity bar and the sidebar”

The narrow strip of icons down the left edge is the activity bar. Each icon shows a view in the sidebar beside it; choose the icon of the view already showing to fold the sidebar away. Hover over an icon to see its name and key.

Alcuin's window connected to tryout, with the notes table open. Down the left edge is the activity bar, then the sidebar with the Explorer's tree, the notes tab with its rows, the bottom panel with Messages, History and Plan, and the status bar along the bottom.

The workbench, with each icon of the activity bar numbered.

  1. Connections
  2. Explorer
  3. Migrations
  4. Search
  5. Saved queries
  6. Performance
  7. Roles
  8. Settings
  9. The sidebar, here showing the Explorer
  10. Tabs
  11. The bottom panel
  12. The status bar

From the top:

  • Connections: your saved connections, by project, and the one you are on.
  • Explorer: the database’s schemas and objects as a tree. It opens here by default.
  • Migrations: changes to the schema, and the migration files of a project folder. It shows on Local and Development connections only.
  • Search: finds tables and other objects, columns, saved queries and history. Its results stay while you open them one after another.
  • Saved queries: queries you saved, by name.
  • Performance: a short summary of activity, health and top statements.

At the bottom are Roles, which opens roles and grants, and Settings. Roles belong to the whole Postgres server, not to one database: Server and database says what else the server shares.

⌘B on macOS or Ctrl+B on Windows and Linux shows or hides the sidebar.

The Explorer

Section titled “The Explorer”

Above the tree is the schema it shows; public holds notes. Open Tables and click notes.

A single click opens the table in a preview tab, with its title in italics. A single click elsewhere in the tree replaces it. Double-click, or do anything in the tab, and it stays as a tab of its own. Double-click notes now.

Tabs

Section titled “Tabs”

Tabs run along the top of the work area. Home opens first when you connect. Table tabs, query tabs and other views open beside it.

When you quit and open Alcuin again, it reconnects to the database you were on and brings back its tabs, the text in each query tab, and the tab you had open. Each database keeps its own tabs: switch to another connection and back, and they return with it. Edits you staged but did not commit come back too, marked restored from your last session.

⌘W on macOS or Ctrl+W on Windows and Linux closes the current tab.

A table tab

Section titled “A table tab”

A table tab has four tabs of its own, and opens on Data:

  • Data: the rows, in a grid. Double-click a cell to open the row panel on the right, with every field of that row. This is where you edit rows, in your first safe edit.
  • Overview: the table at a glance: its rows, its indexes with their size and use, the tables it relates to through foreign keys, and when it was last vacuumed and analyzed.
  • Structure: its columns with their types, keys and defaults, then its indexes, constraints, triggers and row security policies.
  • DDL: the statements that would create the table. A menu picks which parts to show: Table, Constraints, Indexes, Triggers and Comments.

Open each one on notes. The Structure tab marks id as the primary key and as an identity column.

The bottom panel

Section titled “The bottom panel”

⌘J on macOS or Ctrl+J on Windows and Linux shows or hides a panel under the tabs. It has its own tabs:

  • Messages: notices the server sent and the errors of queries you ran, newest last, kept until you quit.
  • History: the queries you ran on this connection, newest first, with a search box. Click one to open it in a new query tab. ⌘Y on macOS or Ctrl+Y on Windows and Linux opens History straight away; on Windows and Linux, Ctrl+Y inside the query editor is redo instead.

Open History now. The CREATE TABLE script and the SELECT from your first query are there.

The status bar

Section titled “The status bar”

The line along the bottom of the window says whether you are connected and which server version you are on. When a connection is read-only, Read-only comes before that. On a local or dev database, a chip at its end says how the schema compares with its migrations folder or, with no folder, with the schema as it was when you first opened it: on tryout, 1 change since you opened it is the notes table you made.

Go to and Commands

Section titled “Go to and Commands”

Everything in Alcuin is reachable from the keyboard, through two lists.

Go to opens with ⌘P on macOS or Ctrl+P on Windows and Linux. Type part of a name to find a table, a view, a column, a saved query or a query from your history. Press Return to open it. Try not to find notes.

Commands opens with ⌘⇧P on macOS or Ctrl+Shift+P on Windows and Linux. This is the command palette: every action in Alcuin, by name, with its key if it has one. Type history to find Query history.

⌘/ on macOS or Ctrl+/ on Windows and Linux shows every key on one sheet. Inside a query editor the same key comments out the line instead, so press it from anywhere else. The keyboard shortcuts and commands references list the same.

Next, make your first safe edit.