Tutorial: QWin Basics

Defining the Default Access List for QWin

Before you can create your first QVCS archive with QWin, you must first define the default access list that QVCS will use for the archives that you create.

• First select the "QVCS Projects" node on the tree control in the left pane of the window.
• Then select the Project→Edit Settings menu command to bring up the following dialog:

  

• On the General tab, define the default access list by clicking on the [...] button next to the "Access List" field. This will cause the "Maintain Access List" dialog to appear. You can use this dialog to create QVCS users if necessary. Add as many users to the dialog's right hand list box as you deem appropriate, and then click the OK button. This will populate the Access List field on the General tab with those users that you defined.

  

• After you are satisfied with the contents of the Access List, click the Apply or OK button.

Valid access lists are made by taking QVCS user names and separating them with commas. QWin only allows you to define an access list by using the "Maintain Access List" dialog. For this tutorial, the simplest thing to do is define the default access list to consist of just your own QVCS user name.

Try to make your QVCS name and any other users you create the same as each person's Windows log-in name. If you are able to use your Windows user name as your QVCS user name, QWin won't require you to log in, since you have already authenticated yourself to Windows.

Defining Default Attributes for New Archives

For each archive file that you create, there are eight associated QVCS attributes that tell QVCS how it should treat that particular file. Although you can alter these attributes as you wish upon creation of an archive, it's easiest to define a set of defaults that you think will work for the majority of your files. QVCS has a reasonable set of default attributes defined initially, but you can change them how you will by accessing the Project→Edit Settings... menu and going to the QVCS Attributes tab. For the sake of this tutorial, we'll assume that these default settings are satisfactory for the majority of files.

However, it can be convenient to define a separate set of QVCS attributes that you want QVCS to use for specific file types. For example, you may want QVCS to expand keywords for a .txt file, but not for an .mdb file (the extension used for Microsoft Access database files).

To make it easy to assign different QVCS attributes to different file types, QVCS supports the notion of Attribute Groups. An Attribute Group is a set of file types (recognized by extension) that should share the same QVCS attributes when a QVCS archive is created for a file in that group. For example, a C++ developer creates .cpp and .h files as their source code. It makes sense for files with these extensions to be members of a single attribute group called "Source code."

For this tutorial, let's create an attribute group so that we can have QWin automatically assign useful QVCS attributes to the QVCS archives that we will soon create.

To create an attribute group, follow these steps:

• 1.Select the Admin→Edit Attribute Groups menu item to bring up the following dialog:

  

• On the Edit QVCS Attribute Groups dialog, enter the name that you want to associate with the attribute group into the "Attribute Group Name" edit box. For this tutorial, let's create a group called "Text Files."
• In the "Attribute Group Extensions" edit box, enter the file extensions that compose the attribute group. For the tutorial, just enter "txt" (no quotes).
• In the QVCS Attributes area, enable the following check boxes:

  Protect QVCS archive	to ensure write-protection of the QVCS archive
  Protect Workfile	to ensure write-protection of the work file following gets and check-ins.
  Journal Changes	to keep a journal file with a master record of all changes made to archives in the same directory
  Compress QVCS archive	to compress revisions as they are stored in the archive
  Check Locks	to enable locking operations

• Click the "Add Group" button.
• Click the OK button to exit the dialog. The "Text Files" group you just defined will now be active, and take effect when you create a QVCS archive.

QWin only allows file extensions to exist in one attribute group at a time. For example, it won't allow you to create a C++ file group that has "c,cpp,h" file extensions, and a C file group that has "c,h" extensions. Since the "c,h" extensions overlap between the two groups, QWin won't allow it.

When attribute groups are defined, creation of a QVCS archive for any file with a file extension that is defined by an attibute group will use that group's attributes for the new archive.

If you create an archive for a file that isn't in an attribute group, QVCS will use the project default attributes defined with the Project→Edit Settings... dialog.

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