Using OEPE as a database development environment

Question

Howdy. I've installed OEPE (for Gallileo) and it seems to work pretty well for stuff like browsing my database object tree, viewing the contents of packages, etc. However, I'm a bit stymied when it comes to trying to actually use it to develop PL/SQL code, because it won't tell me when I've made an error. For example, I can create new sql file called CTestPackage_h.sql, and type into it a package header like so:
CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE cTestPackage AS
     procedure test_me(
     temp FOO NUMBER
END cTestPackage;
There's a syntax error there ("FOO" instead of "IN", "OUT", etc), but when I select and run it, my SQL Results tab says "Succeeded", along with the cryptic "Action Type" of "NLS missing message: OperationCommand_action_exeucte in: org.eclipse.datatools.sqltools.result.PluginResources". Likewise, the status tab says this, with no mention of any compiler errors:
(0 rows affected)
Elapsed Time: 0 hr, 0 min, 0 sec, 0 ms.
When I then refresh my package tree, CTESTPACKAGE appears, but there's nothing under it, and the context menu has a "Show Error" item that displays the real syntax error that occurred ("ERROR at line 4: PLS-00103: Encountered the symbol "NUMBER" when expecting one of the following: := . ) , @ % default character The symbol ":=" was substituted for "NUMBER" to continue. ").
When I right click the package node and choose "Open" it shows the text I entered, and shows "INVALID" on the status line of the details tab. When I right click and click "Compile", it says "Successfully compiled object "IVARLEY"."CTESTPACKAGE". But, it's still invalid, so that's not exactly true.
Is this the intended behavior? If so, I think it's pretty much unusable - every time I made a change to my PL/SQL package code and execute it, I have to refresh my tree, and then right click my package node to see if there were any errors? I'd much rather see my errors immediately. At the very least I'd like to see the "warning: procedure created with compilation errors" message, so that at least I'd know to go check for errors (though, ideally, seeing the actual errors immediately would be even better).
It gets even more confusing, though. When I right click the (invalid) CTESTPACKAGE node in my Data Source Explorer, and click "Edit", it opens it up in a new SQL window, which shows the text I'd entered (minus the trailing "/"). Running it from there does show a status of "Failed", but not because of the invalid syntax - the error message is "ORA_00900: invalid SQL statement", and persists even if I fix the syntax error (change "FOO" to "IN").
So, am I doing something wrong, or is this plugin not really intended for writing PL/SQL code?

Answer 1

I'm looking for the same thing. Thanks for the "show error" tip -- that gets me slightly closer to having a usable environment in Eclipse. I also use the jOra plugin for eclipse. That worked great in earlier version of eclipse, but is a little buggy in galileo.