Label File (see also)

You use the Label tool to apply a label to a file revision. Labels are useful for grouping revisions of different files together, e.g., all the various revisions which make up a particular release of your product. You can also apply floating labels to keep files you are working on grouped together even as you continue making revisions.

Labels are analogous to to the annual ritual of class pictures taken in elementary school. Individual photographs correspond to revisions, and while each student may have had their picture taken any number of times over the course of the year, every student in the class appears in the class picture at the same moment. The class picture preserves a snapshot of the individuals who existed in the class at that moment; it also preserves what the individuals looked like and the association they had with each other.

In the same way that a class picture is a snapshot of all the individuals that make up a class, a QVCS label is a snapshot of all the individual revisions that make up a given release of a product.

As an example, suppose you're working on a project that includes 10 separate files, each with its own associated QVCS archive. As you work on these files, you make a different number of edits to each file, so some files may only have one revision, while others have as many as five or six. When it's time to wrap up work for a release of the product, you want to make a snapshot of the revisions of the 10 separate files that compose this release.

You could write all the various revision numbers down manual to keep track of which revisions are in use at the time of the product release, or you could simply apply a label to them. If you associate a label with the revisions that make up the release, QVCS can group them together in the event that you need to perform an action on this particular group of files. The group can be arbitrarily large.

To label a file or group of files, simply select the desired files and click the Label File toolbar button. This will bring up a dialog which by default labels the default revision with the specified label. For multi-file and project-level operations, the label is always applied to the default revision. With single file operations, however, you can elect to label an older revision.

Labels can also be applied from the Add File and Check-in dialogs.

Label File Dialog

This is the dialog which appears when you click the Label File toolbar button.

You can alter the default settings on this dialog using the Label Dialog tab of the User Preferences dialog.

Each field has the following meanings:

You've elected to label revision:

This selection list allows you to select which revision you wish to label. Normally, you'll want to label the default revision.

With the Label:

Use this field to define the label that you wish to apply. If you've already applied a label, QWin will automatically initialize this field with the most recently used label string. For file operations, QWin will populate the selection list with whatever labels exist within the selected archives. For project operations, if the project has already been scanned for labels, QWin will populate the selection list will the labels used within the project. Typically, label strings include a date, and some descriptive text. For example, a beta release might be labeled "3.10.16 Beta"

Label strings can be up to 80 characters in length.

Reuse existing label

Enable this check box if the label you are applying has already been used. Typically, you enable this check box when you are moving a label from one revision within an archive to point to a different revision within that same archive.

Make this a floating label

Clicking this check box will make the label you apply a floating label. If you don't specify a revision, QWin will assume that the default revision will be used to define the branch to which the floating label should be applied (most likely this will be the TRUNK, the branch beginning with revision 1.0). If you select a revision, QWin will apply the floating label to the branch containing the selected revision. This check box cannot be used with the "Duplicate this label" check box.

Duplicate this label:

Clicking this check box will enable the selection list that contains a list of existing labels that can be duplicated. To duplicate a label, just select the label you want to duplicate from the combo box, and enter the new label into the "with the label" edit box. Duplicating a label will essentially apply the new label to all revisions that have already been marked with the indicated label. This is useful if, for example, you have a product release 2.1 and need to produce a bug fix release. In this way, you could easily add a "2.1 bug fix" label to all the 2.1 files, reuse that label for any revisions required to fix the bug, and still have all the necessary files grouped for a product build.

Remove Label (see also)

The Remove Label option allows you to remove an existing label from the selected file. To access this dialog, select the desired file(s), right click, and select Remove Label from the context menu. You can also access the same option from the File menu of the window.

Remove a Label from a File Dialog

This is the dialog that appears when you elect to remove a label from a specified file.

Remove Label Dialog

The list of labels is initialized with those labels present in the selected file(s). The OK button remains disabled until you select a label to remove.

For project-level operations, there is a "Scan for labels" button that appears. Clicking on it will cause QWin to scan all the project files for labels. This can take some time. If you know the label you want to remove, you can type it directly into the edit field and click OK without going through the scanning process.

Toolbar Operations

Get Check Out Add Check In Undo Check-out Lock Label File Groups Sort Revisions Filter Revisions Filter Files Compare

See also: the corresponding qstamp and qunstamp command line utility.