QVCS Product Family Newsletter - October 2007

Publication date: October 10, 2007

Contents

• QVCS-Enterprise 2.1.10 Released
• QVCS-Enterprise: What's a Cemetery?

QVCS-Enterprise 2.1.10 Released

Whew! This release has been long in the making. The first 'official' release of 2.1 is now available. You can download it from the standard download page.

This release includes a lot of changes. Most notable are:

• Move a file from one directory in a project to another directory in the same project (via drag-and-drop).
• Rename a file.
• Delete a directory (privileged users only). You can do this if the directory is empty, and the directory has no subdirectories.
• Several types of 'View' support. Views are a pretty big deal (and required a lot of work to put in to the product). They allow you to create a different 'view' of a project. For example, using a date-based view, you can see exactly what a project looked like at some point in time in the past.... including any file moves, directory changes, file renames, etc... Just like a time machine. This release supports 4 types of views:
  1. The Trunk view, which is the default view, and identical to what you see in the 2.0 release of QVCS-Enterprise.
  2. A Read-Only date-based view. Choose a base date, and this view will show you exactly what the project looked like at that point in time.
  3. A Read-only label-based view. Choose a label, and this view will show you what a project based on that label looks like.
  4. A Read-write label-based view. Like #3, except you can check out and checkin files. The changes you make automatically remain part of this view.
• Improved Mac OS X support.
• An improved and much more flexible authorization model. The old roles (WRITER, READER, PROJECT_ADMIN) are still available, but the new release allows you to modify these roles and define new roles as well. For example, suppose you have junior developers on your team and don't want to allow them to apply labels to files. With the new authorization model, you can create a new role (called JUNIOR_DEVELOPER perhaps), and limit the actions assigned to that role so the allowed actions exclude the ability to apply a label.
• A new tutorial section in the online documentation to help you get started.

This release lays the foundation for other later feature additions as well, since it is the first release that captures directory meta-data. In 2.1, a directory is now a version controlled object, just like files are version controlled. This allows 2.1 to support data-based views (for example), and will allow future support for renaming a directory and moving a directory.

The 2.1 release is a free update to those who purchased their QVCS-Enterprise license within the past year. If your license is older than that, you'll need to update your license ($20/user) in order to use the 2.1 release.

For those new to QVCS-Enterprise, the price is $69/user.

QVCS-Enterprise: What's a Cemetery?

In earlier QVCS-Enterprise releases, when you 'deleted' a file, the server just marked the associated archive file as obsolete, and the client deleted the associated workfile.

In the 2.1 release that behavior changes -- obsolete files are now obsolete. Instead of marking an archive file as obsolete, the server moves the archive file to the project's 'Cemetery' directory. Along the way, it renames the archive file to a unique filename (based on the archive file's 'qvcs file id').

Normally this cemetery directory is hidden from view. However, there is a privilege (new to 2.1) that causes the cemetery to become visible. If a user who logs in to the server has this 'Show cemetery' privilege, they will see the cemetery directory. They can then select a file in the cemetery, and 'undelete' it -- which will cause the deleted file to be restored to its original location.