How do I unshare a folder?

montek · Post by **montek** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 8:41 am

One of my developers, in her infinite wisdom, shared our main project into another project. We later decided we don't want/need this share at all, but I'm not sure how to get rid of it.

I read the help and it suggested that after all the files were deleted, this share would no longer exist, but I either didn't understand exactly what it said or I don't believe this because I went in and deleted one of the files (just as a test) in the share folder and the file was removed from both places (I sorta expected this).

So the question remains, how do I unshare this folder? I fear that if I delete the share, I will delete the whole main project and we can't have that. =)

dan · Post by **dan** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 8:47 am

You'll need to delete the root of the shared folder from one of the share locations, which will cause the other location to no longer be shared. Anything you do *within* the shared folder will be reflected in the other location, but deletion one of the shares entirely will not delete the other share locations.

montek · Post by **montek** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 8:53 am

Thanks Dan. It still makes me nervous, but I'll give it a go. I would suggest that you consider changing the "delete" option for shared folders to an "Unshare" option which would be much less confusing.

dan · Post by **dan** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 9:08 am

"Unshare" is called "branch", but that isn't what you want, because branch won't remove the folder from the tree, but cause it to become a separate branch. THen you would then have to delete it, after it created a bunch of new nodes in the tree. (Shared nodes are not really separate nodes - they just point to a single instance, whereas a branch creates new nodes)

montek · Post by **montek** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 9:14 am

Okay, so unshare might not be the best option, but you get my point, I presume. DELETING a file inside of a shared folder deletes the REAL file. DELETING a subfolder inside of a shared folder deletes the REAL folder. The dialog box for delete on a shared folder doesn't LOOK any different than the regular dialog box, so how would one just know that this is going to do something different? Logically, I don't think it's unreasonable for people to think that deleting the WHOLE folder might actually delete the REAL folder--which is exactly what I thought.

ericsink · Post by **ericsink** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 9:34 am

Just chiming in with my two cents:

Users of source control systems typically need to change their thinking about the word "delete". We are conditioned elsewhere to be nervous about this word, but in a source control tool, nothing ever really gets deleted.

Unless you use the "Obliterate" command, the name of which was specifically chosen to make people nervous.

montek · Post by **montek** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 5:13 pm

Eric - I understand your point, but I don't think it's valuable to suggest that I shouldn't be worried when we're talking about main project here. Even if it is recoverable because I didn't choose obliterate, either undeleting or restoring from a database backup (another form of recovery) are not expected options in this regard. All I'm doing is suggesting a different dialog/word to be used on shared folders vs. the files underneath.

And I have another question on this issue. After several attempts, it seems I am unable to actually delete the shared folder itself. Vault doesn't tell me why, specifically, but throws an error instead. I suspect the reason is because there are files underneath that are checked out.

First, can someone confirm that my suspicion is true? If so, so long as I can get to a point where everyone checks everything in, I can proceed with removing this annoying shared folder.

Second, if that is the case, I again, surprise =), object to the way this is handled. Just because someone accidentally created a shared folder shouldn't mean it's impossible to correct that mistake.

As always, thanks for your help.