So i've started a new project called SqlPins. Soon to be at www.SqlPins.com

What is it?

SqlPins in a WPF application allows you to create a number of small configurable 'sql pin windows' that after a configurable interval runs a configurable sql command against a database (ConnectionString configurable) and then present the result of an ExecuteScalar('your sql') call (return single result).

Why?

With SqlPins, I can save a number of pre-defined 'pins' onto my desktop that automatically refresh to show me metrics from the database I am interested in without having to manually / remember to re-query the database.

What kind of metrics?

Things that will change throughout the day like orders or registered users.

Why not a standard web report?

Obviously, I could have just got the sql query running from a web page and displayed the results but I wanted several small windows, not one large web page with many figures.

What's configurable again between each pin?

• Name of pin
• Description of pin
• ConnectionString
• Sql query
• Interval (time between queries) in milliseconds
• Visibility

How is each pin configurable?

Double clicking on each pin opens a new settings window to allow configuration of that pin.

How was SqlPins developed?

• Using WPF and C#
• In Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition
• Using Biggy for persisting settings in json format
• Sql Server

What databases can it query?

At the moment only Sql Server

Ideas for future development

• Toggle modality
• Countdown in seconds to next run time
• Custom SqlPin window formatting

Lots more, but I need to prioritise alongside my other projects

Cool, can I have the code?

As the tool is very simple and it wouldn't take much effort for any skilled developer to reproduce something with similar functionality as useful as it is, I don't see it as having much commercial potential.

For that reason I'll probably drop it on GitHub once I've tidied up the code a bit. I reserve the right to commercialise it in the future if I so choose.

I should really be getting back to developing ChartShare.co

-- Lee