MySQL :: MySQL Workbench Manual :: 1.1.1 New in MySQL Workbench 8.0 Release Series

MySQL

The following MySQL 8.0.19 and 8.0.20 server language features are supported in MySQL Workbench 8.0.21:
- DROP CHECK, ALTER CONSTRAINT, and DROP CONSTRAINT in ALTER TABLE statements.
- Locking clause for query expressions.
- Table values constructor.
- Short table select syntax.
- New requirements for the CHANGE MASTER TO replication statement (row format, primary key check).
- Failed login attempts and password lock time in ALTER USER statements.
- Format support for EXPLAIN ANALYZE statements.
- New and changed keywords:
  - ARRAY
  - FAILED_LOGIN_ATTEMPTS
  - MASTER_COMPRESSION_ALGORITHM
  - MASTER_TLS_CIPHERSUITES
  - MASTER_ZSTD_COMPRESSION_LEVEL
  - MEMBER
  - OFF
  - PASSWORD_LOCK_TIME
  - PRIVILEGE_CHECKS_USER
  - RANDOM
  - REQUIRE_ROW_FORMAT
  - REQUIRE_TABLE_PRIMARY_KEY_CHECK
  - STREAM
  - TIMESTAMP
  - TIME
The following MySQL server language features are supported in MySQL Workbench 8.0.19:
- Value references in INSERT statements.
- New options (TLS version, cipher suite, compression, and privilege check) in CHANGE MASTER TO replication statements.
- Random passwords in CREATE USER and ALTER USER statements.
- EXPLAIN ANALYZE (see Obtaining Information with EXPLAIN ANALYZE).
- binary collation names.
Beginning with MySQL Workbench 8.0.17, the ANTLR4 grammar was updated to handle the language features of each supported MySQL server version from MySQL 5.6 to MySQL 8.0, including the following new language features in MySQL Server 8.0.17:
- CHECK constraints with enforcement.
- ODBC table references now require the OJ keyword (previously an identifier was allowed).
- The equal sign (=) operator for aliases is no longer allowed.
- CHANGE MASTER supports NETWORK_NAMESPACE and channels.
- The CREATE DATABASE statement permits a default encryption to be specified.
- Roles now support exception lists and GRANT AS. Grant identifiers can be qualified with a schema name.
- MEMBER OF is allowed in expressions.
- AS ARRAY is allowed in CAST expressions.
- Passwords in user statements can now also be hexadecimal numbers.
- Hexadecimal numbers are also allowed in many numeric expressions.
- Minor items, such as, permit data types in number expressions, and reorganize keywords to lower conflicts in the server parser generation.
Removed support for MySQL 5.5 in the MySQL Workbench 8.0 release series. Minimum version now is MySQL 5.6.

If you still need to use MySQL Workbench on a MySQL 5.5 server, you can use MySQL Workbench 6.3, which is available from MySQL Product Archives.

Character Set Changes

MySQL Workbench now uses utf8mb4 as the connection and client character set, replacing utf8mb3.
Support for the Chinese character set gb18030 was added.

Home Tab Changes

As of MySQL Workbench 8.0.14, keyboard access was added to the home screen tab to enable navigation using Tab and Enter keys. In addition, the screen view now scrolls to display a selected item if the item was off-screen when highlighted with the Tab key.

On Windows and Linux hosts, the Application key and Ctrl+F10 now open a menu of commands (context menu) related to the selection.

MySQL Workbench Editors: Query, Object, and More

Starting with MySQL Workbench 8.0.22, visual explain diagrams use the phrase hash join within the diamond symbol instead of block nested loop when the server version is 8.0.20 or higher.
For consistency with other MySQL products, RapidJSON replaces the native JSON parser in the MySQL Workbench 8.0.18 release.
Important change: MySQL model files last saved before MySQL Workbench 6.3 are no longer supported unless the models can be upgraded for use with the 6.3 release series.
Beginning with MySQL Workbench 8.0.16, the script editor highlights matching pairs of parentheses when one of the pair is selected.
SQL context help was enhanced to eliminate the requirement of having a valid MySQL connection to view the help topics and to improve the presentation of each help topic.
A new auto-completion engine was added for use with object editors (triggers, views, stored procedures, and functions) in the visual SQL editor and in models.
Geometry fields displayed in the result grid now include a context-menu item that opens the specific location value in a browser. The selected point opens in openstreetmap.org by default, but an alternative online service can be used (see Section 3.2.7, “Other Preferences” ).
Support for invisible indexes was added for use when the active server supports the feature and the index is neither a primary key index nor a unique column (see Invisible Indexes). A new option in the Indexes subtab of the table editor (for both the SQL and modeling editors) provides index visibility when it is selected.

SQL Export Options

A new SQL export option in the Forward Engineering SQL Script wizard sorts tables alphabetically in the generated script, rather than sorting tables according to foreign-key references by default (see Section 9.4.1.1.1, “Creating a Schema”).
The OmitSchemas option replaces both the UseShortNames and OmitSchemata options to eliminate the schema name from table names when using the Python API to generate a schema from an .mwb file automatically.

MySQL Model Changes

Output from schema validation plugins for MySQL models now is shown in a single location and reorganized to provide informational, warning, and error messages by category. A new Validate tab also provides a simple way to reselect and rerun validation tests from the output area in the right side panel (see Section 9.2.3, “Schema Validation Plugins”).

MySQL Enterprise Backup (MEB)

Support for the --incremental-with-redo-log-only option was added to create backups directly from the redo log (see Options Tab).

SET PERSIST and SET PERSIST ONLY Functionality

MySQL Workbench now provides a simple way to enable or disable the persisted global system variable settings introduced in MySQL 8.0 (see SET Syntax for Variable Assignment). For variables that can be persisted, a new check box enables configuration changes at runtime that also persist across server restarts and applies the persisted value, if one exists. Persistent system variables can be reset (to not persist) individually or collectively. For additional information, see Persist System Variables.

Platform and Source Code Changes

With Python 2 reaching end-of-life, MySQL Workbench 8.0.23 is the first release to use Python 3 for scripting-related features, such as:
- MySQL Workbench Migration Wizard
- Workbench Scripting Shell
- Administration: MySQL Enterprise Firewall, MySQL Enterprise Audit, MySQL Enterprise Audit, performance, startup/shutdown, server logs, options file, server status, client connections, users and privileges, status and system variables, data export, and data import
- SQL IDE: power import/export, reformatter, run script, import spatial, text output, query analysis, and visual explain
The %cmake_build macro replaces %cmake for running the make command to build MySQL Workbench from source code on Fedora 33 (and later) using the RPM package. For additional information about the change, see the Fedora upstream documentation.
The requirement to install the EPEL repository on enterprise Linux systems, such as Oracle Linux and Red Hat, is removed for general use with the MySQL Workbench 8.0.18 release. Working with spatial data is an exception and you can still install the repository if needed (see Installing Oracle Enterprise Linux and Similar).
MySQL Workbench 8.0.18 switched to the C++17 programming language.
MySQL Workbench source code has been reformatted according to Google style.
MySQL Workbench 8.0.28 supports Apple macOS Monterey 12.
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS is supported.
Support for Microsoft Windows 11 and Microsoft Windows Server 2022 were added in the MySQL Workbench 8.0.28 release.
Support for Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 was added in the MySQL Workbench 8.0.19 release. Microsoft Visual Studio support was upgraded from Visual Studio 15 to Visual Studio 17 in the MySQL Workbench 8.0.16 release.

Security Changes

In MySQL Workbench 8.0.27, the following new connection methods for use with LDAP pluggable authentication and Kerberos pluggable authentication are supported:
- The LDAP User/Password connection method for simple LDAP authorization on Linux and Windows hosts.
- The LDAP Sasl/Kerberos connection method, which uses GSSAPI/Kerberos to authenticate users and passwords on Linux hosts.
- The Native Kerberos connection method, using authentication tokens generated by the kinit command, on Linux and Windows hosts.
The new authentication-based connection methods are not supported on macOS hosts. For requirement and setup information, see Section 5.3.4, “LDAP and Kerberos Connection Methods”.
libgnome-keyring was depreciated and replaced with libsecret in the MySQL Workbench 8.0.12 release on Linux platforms. The libsecret library provides enhanced cross-platform password storage and lookup.

Important

Some users with existing stored passwords will be prompted to enter a password after upgrading.
SSH tunneling support was added to the MySQL Workbench Migration Wizard and also to the wbcopytables command-line utility for copying data.
Setting an encryption password is required to perform MySQL Enterprise Backup operations on encrypted tables (see Options Tab).
The SSH implementation based on Paramiko was replaced with the one based on libssh.
MySQL Workbench now supports the caching_sha2_password authentication plugin introduced in MySQL 8.0 (see Caching SHA-2 Pluggable Authentication).

Generic RunTime (GRT) Module Changes

As of MySQL Workbench 8.0.14, the following new functions are included in the Workbench GRT module:

activateDiagram(<Diagram>)

Opens the selected EER diagram for use with the exportPNG, exportSVG, exportPS, and exportPDF functions.
exportDiagramToPng(<Diagram>, <path>)

Performs a PNG export of an EER diagram to the path provided without activating it.