How can I ask MySQL Workbench to submit queries asynchronously, when performing long operations (e.g. table alterations)?

Albeit all its greatness, it is very annoying that MySQL Workbench 5.2 freezes each time it submits a query, instead of allowing it to be performed asynchronously. It is not even possible to launch a second instance to do other tasks in the mean time.

Do you know if there is a setting some开发者_如何学运维where to adjust this behaviour, or is it a "feature"?

Pretty sure it's a feature. You can run more than one query in a script. There are a lot of cases where you would want/need queries to run sequentially. I don't know of any query editor tools that allow for what you want.

If you're using php you could fire off several AJAX requests to pages that each ran one of the queries you need ran, but unless you are doing something like this often; it wouldn't be worth the time to set up.