Vault - new to this forum, urgent enh. requests

M Wickardt · Post by **M Wickardt** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 4:42 am

Hi Sourcegear support,

I'm continuing the following thread in this Gold forum;

http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic ... highlight=

We've evaluated your program thoroughly, and made a pro/con comparison to MS VSS. I really like many features of Vault, it takes care of most of the major hassles of VSS (no multiple non-permanent delete, no transactions, only one shadow folder, db not that steady, etc.).

So, bravo!

My colleagues and me have just decided to buy Vault. But we all hope that at least one option that is present in VSS and not in Vault, is soon added to Vault;

Shadow Folder: date=Modification (just as you can choose in VSS)

I must stress this is very important to our way of working, many other processes of putting sources into production, compiling etc. rely on this setting. For the time being I made a nasty workaround (look below in this post).

I'd also like to request a few other enhancements that would make our workflow a lot easier:

01. In the Find Tab, add "Pinned" to the search options
02. Add an "Attribute" column that can contain "Shared", "Pinned", "Shared, Pinned" or ""
03. Make it possible to edit check-out comments
04. Make it possible to pin a shared checked-out file from a location where it's not originally checked out
05. Everywhere, use sensitive read-only textboxes. Now I have to -urgh- type over for example the sourcefile name. urgh. Please start with the properties dialog. MS out-thought you here.
06. Please remember the History -> Tab "Action" checkboxes. I have to uncheck 'Labels' each time, since this is a real (30 seconds!!) performance hog.
07. Please store paths (like to the preferred file editor) per user per machine, not only per user. If I log in from another workstation, I need to keep changing the preferences back and forth. Please also make an option to copy all of your preferences to or from another user.
08. If I ask "History" from the command line, file-names aren't shown in the XML file... this seems a bug to me. Clearly not of much use now.
09. Command-line performance is way too slow.
10. Plz add a com automation interface, not everyone is using .net. It isn't hard to implement from within .net.
11. Plz add a "Differences" button to the check-in dialog.
12. Plz make "Differences" possible always (i.e. check the current version in the repository to an os file or another file in the repository). We now have to make workarounds with Labels which we have to delete later.
13. If you do a repository folder to repository folder difference, All you can see now is "Different". I'd like to see which version is where, and directly pin/unpin/branche/share from there. Performance is quite bad too, seems like you are flushing the whole thing to temp files or something.
14. Plz show the Modification Date from the history (as well as the checkin date)
15. Plz put the popup menu of a file also in the popup-menu of the tab search results and the tab Pending. And also in the diff result mentioned in enh.req. #13.
16. Plz make the GUI more customizable. I.e. a menu with your own tools (why is your own sgdm.exe not in the menu btw?), and actions to do at startup client, shutdown client, connect rep, disconnect rep, etc.
17. Customizable options (like #16) for the server side. I.e. put a message to a tcp port when something changes. You could use this yourself for the GUI clients, to get rid of the horrible polling (refresh each 10 minutes).
18. If one workstation does a get from root, performance for other workstations drop (even stalls). I think you don't start a new thread for client requests. Please do.
19. Plz add some basic reporting options to the GUI client. I gather the client-server exchange is xml based (looking at the command line interface, and since it's .net based), so you could easily supply an xsl or xslt and show it locally as an html page. Simple output to clipboard would also be useful. Now it has *nothing*.
20. Plz stop giving branched files the "Current" date, or make it at least optional. If we branch historical files, we want them to keep their filedates. Now we have to manually fix those dates in the repository (extra get and check in).
21. Plz make a 'log all transactions' option (server side).
22. Plz make a separate authorisation level for Pin/Share/Branch/Delete (apart from Checkin/Checkout). My developers are allowed to do check-in / check-out in a $/dev folder. They should be allowed to share it to $/release, and pin it at a version of their choice in $/release. Even delete it. But they musn't be able to check-in or check-out at the $/release folder. I can't configure that now. Btw I like your group authorisation scheme.

Thanks for listening, I hope you can help us out.

Best regards, M Wickardt, Bertus Distributie

System:
Vault client is version 3.1.9.3798
Vault server is version 3.1.9.3798
Server: XP Pro SP2 / SQL Express 2005

Nasty workaround shadow folder to modified timestamp:
I made a program that constantly monitors changes to the Vault shadow folders (from each repository, at root level). If it detects a change, it manually deletes, adds, or overwrites files in another folder. In the case of add and overwrite operations, for each file seperately I have to do a command-line "Get" from vault, just to get the correct Modified date. This is processor intensive (especially if someone checks in say 200 files) but alas Necessary as long as Vault doesn't have this rather simple option.

Beth · Post by **Beth** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 1:45 pm

Thank you for all the detailed feedback. It will take some time for me to get through all of this. Please bear with me.

I reviewed your previous post. As Linda had mentioned there, a feature request was made. I will follow up on the current status of that feature. I will also post a follow-up to your previous post on the items there.

On your first two numbered items below:

01. In the Find Tab, add "Pinned" to the search options

-----I'm assuming you mean the Search tab in the main window. I will add a feature request. Currently you could do a view history for where items were pinned.

02. Add an "Attribute" column that can contain "Shared", "Pinned", "Shared, Pinned" or ""

----I will add a feature request on that.

There is more to follow as I get through each item.

Thanks
Beth

Beth · Post by **Beth** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 3:36 pm

03. Make it possible to edit check-out comments

It is possible to edit check-out comments in the GUI currently.

04. Make it possible to pin a shared checked-out file from a location where it's not originally checked out

I can add a feature request on this.

05. Everywhere, use sensitive read-only textboxes. Now I have to -urgh- type over for example the sourcefile name. urgh. Please start with the properties dialog. MS out-thought you here.

Could you clarify this one further? I'm not sure I'm understanding what you mean.

06. Please remember the History -> Tab "Action" checkboxes. I have to uncheck 'Labels' each time, since this is a real (30 seconds!!) performance hog.

In Vault 3.5, you can get this in History Favorites.

07. Please store paths (like to the preferred file editor) per user per machine, not only per user. If I log in from another workstation, I need to keep changing the preferences back and forth. Please also make an option to copy all of your preferences to or from another user.

This is currently logged as a feature request. I will add your vote.

08. If I ask "History" from the command line, file-names aren't shown in the XML file... this seems a bug to me. Clearly not of much use now.

Can you show me your command-line client command?

09. Command-line performance is way too slow.

Are you using multiple commands? If so, you might want to look into using the command line in batch mode.

10. Plz add a com automation interface, not everyone is using .net. It isn't hard to implement from within .net.

I will add this as a feature request. Can you tell me what program or language you will be using?

Beth · Post by **Beth** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 3:56 pm

11. Plz add a "Differences" button to the check-in dialog.

This is in the Vault GUI Client.

12. Plz make "Differences" possible always (i.e. check the current version in the repository to an os file or another file in the repository). We now have to make workarounds with Labels which we have to delete later.

Could you please explain further on this one. I think we already have what you are looking for. One thing you might want to check that Diff is checked for both files and folders options in the Tools-Options-Command Dialogs.

M Wickardt · Post by **M Wickardt** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 3:16 am

Hi Beth, thanks again for your quick and eleborate answer.

Quote:
01. In the Find Tab, add "Pinned" to the search options

-----I'm assuming you mean the Search tab in the main window. I will add a feature request. Currently you could do a view history for where items were pinned.

Yes, I did mean the Search tab. Thanks for mentioning the history, but my feature request still stands - I want to see what's Pinned right now, jump to it, and quickly Unpin it if it's needed. So the Search tab would be way more practical.

Quote:
02. Add an "Attribute" column that can contain "Shared", "Pinned", "Shared, Pinned" or ""

----I will add a feature request on that.

Thank you.

Quote:
03. Make it possible to edit check-out comments

It is possible to edit check-out comments in the GUI currently.

Sorry, what I meant wasn't clear at all. I meant: If you select "Properties" from the main window, the comment at "Check out status" isn't updated when the check-outtee edits the comment.

Quote:
04. Make it possible to pin a shared checked-out file from a location where it's not originally checked out

I can add a feature request on this.

Please do, thank you.

Quote:
05. Everywhere, use sensitive read-only textboxes. Now I have to -urgh- type over for example the sourcefile name. urgh. Please start with the properties dialog. MS out-thought you here.

Could you clarify this one further? I'm not sure I'm understanding what you mean.

Just enabled/sensitive read-only textboxes. So you can select any tekst and copy it (but not edit it). Example: properties on any file in windows explorer (or MS VSS for that matter).

Quote:
06. Please remember the History -> Tab "Action" checkboxes. I have to uncheck 'Labels' each time, since this is a real (30 seconds!!) performance hog.

In Vault 3.5, you can get this in History Favorites.

I'll explore 3.5 as soon as I can, that will probably be monday.

From the previous "closed" thread:

Quote:
And, another thing: "Branch" sets the Modified date to current! That also gives problems, since our "most recent modified" compiler sees it as a different file, which it's not. Could you make this optional?

---There is currently a feature request to use the modification time instead. Would you like your vote thrown in for that possibly? If not, I can put in another feature request to make either optional.

Please add my feature request. I was only mentioning "optional" if you have other Vault users who want this date set specifically to Current, so it has to become an option. You can skip nr. 20 in this thread, it's the same request.

Thank you very much so far, especially for your reply in the post in the other board about trying to implement the Shadow: Modified date in 3.5.1. I'll reply to the rest of your replies ( #06 and upwards) soon.

Best Regards, M Wickardt, Bertus Distributie

Beth · Post by **Beth** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 9:21 pm

13. If you do a repository folder to repository folder difference, All you can see now is "Different". I'd like to see which version is where, and directly pin/unpin/branche/share from there.

I can make a feature request for this.

Performance is quite bad too, seems like you are flushing the whole thing to temp files or something.

This has been addressed in Vault 3.5.

14. Plz show the Modification Date from the history (as well as the checkin date)

I can make a feature request for this.

15. Plz put the popup menu of a file also in the popup-menu of the tab search results and the tab Pending. And also in the diff result mentioned in enh.req. #13.

I believe more commands are now available in Vault 3.5.

16. Plz make the GUI more customizable. I.e. a menu with your own tools (why is your own sgdm.exe not in the menu btw?), and actions to do at startup client, shutdown client, connect rep, disconnect rep, etc.

I can make a feature request for this.

17. Customizable options (like #16) for the server side. I.e. put a message to a tcp port when something changes. You could use this yourself for the GUI clients, to get rid of the horrible polling (refresh each 10 minutes).

I can make a feature request for this.

18. If one workstation does a get from root, performance for other workstations drop (even stalls). I think you don't start a new thread for client requests. Please do.

It is multithreaded. I think I'd need more information before I could come up with what might be happening. What IIS version are you using?

19. Plz add some basic reporting options to the GUI client. I gather the client-server exchange is xml based (looking at the command line interface, and since it's .net based), so you could easily supply an xsl or xslt and show it locally as an html page. Simple output to clipboard would also be useful. Now it has *nothing*.

Currently one can save the history to a .html, .csv, or tab separated file.

20. Plz stop giving branched files the "Current" date, or make it at least optional. If we branch historical files, we want them to keep their filedates. Now we have to manually fix those dates in the repository (extra get and check in).

A feature request is already logged. I'll add your vote.

21. Plz make a 'log all transactions' option (server side).

You can put the server in debug mode and that will provide a lot more information. If it doesn't cover what you are looking for, I can make a feature request.

22. Plz make a separate authorisation level for Pin/Share/Branch/Delete (apart from Checkin/Checkout). My developers are allowed to do check-in / check-out in a $/dev folder. They should be allowed to share it to $/release, and pin it at a version of their choice in $/release. Even delete it. But they musn't be able to check-in or check-out at the $/release folder. I can't configure that now. Btw I like your group authorisation scheme.

I can make a feature request for this.

For more information on what has been added in our latest release, please check out our release notes here: http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic.php?t=6423

Thanks again for all the good feedback.

Beth Kieler

M Wickardt · Post by **M Wickardt** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 2:29 pm

Hi Beth, thanks again for all your quick and detailed answers. Btw, call me Tijs if you'd like

Quote:

Quote:
06. Please remember the History -> Tab "Action" checkboxes. I have to uncheck 'Labels' each time, since this is a real (30 seconds!!) performance hog.

In Vault 3.5, you can get this in History Favorites.

The performance has improved significantly in 3.5, so you can scratch my remark.

In Vault 3.5, you can get this in History Favorites.

Quote:
07. Please store paths (like to the preferred file editor) per user per machine, not only per user. If I log in from another workstation, I need to keep changing the preferences back and forth. Please also make an option to copy all of your preferences to or from another user.

This is currently logged as a feature request. I will add your vote.

Thank you.

Quote:
08. If I ask "History" from the command line, file-names aren't shown in the XML file... this seems a bug to me. Clearly not of much use now.

Can you show me your command-line client command?

Oops, I meant "getlabeldiffs" instead of "history".

Here's my command:

Code: Select all

"C:\Program Files\SourceGear\Vault Client\vault.exe" getlabeldiffs "$/" -host localhost -user Admin -password <password here> -repository baspas "20060716a init 1" > labeldiffs.xml

where I want to see differences from the label "20060716a init 1" to current. The result is something like this:

Code: Select all

 <item txid="39" date="16-7-2006 11:33:45" name="$/prod/s/in" version="2" user="Production" action="Share" comment="init" />
 <item txid="39" date="16-7-2006 11:33:45" name="$/prod/s/in" version="2" user="Production" action="Share" comment="init" />
 <item txid="39" date="16-7-2006 11:33:45" name="$/prod/s/in" version="2" user="Production" action="Share" comment="init" />
 <item txid="39" date="16-7-2006 11:33:45" name="$/prod/s/in" version="2" user="Production" action="Share" comment="init" />
 <item txid="39" date="16-7-2006 11:33:45" name="$/prod/s/in" version="2" user="Production" action="Share" comment="init" />
 <item txid="39" date="16-7-2006 11:33:45" name="$/prod/s/in" version="2" user="Production" action="Share" comment="init" />
 <item txid="39" date="16-7-2006 11:33:45" name="$/prod/s/in" version="2" user="Production" action="Share" comment="init" />
 <item txid="39" date="16-7-2006 11:33:45" name="$/prod/s/in" version="2" user="Production" action="Share" comment="init" />
etc... etc...

which clearly isn't of much use. Is it a bug?

Quote:
09. Command-line performance is way too slow.

Are you using multiple commands? If so, you might want to look into using the command line in batch mode.

Thanks for pointing that out, batch mode is indeed in many cases the way to go here. Scratch my remark.

Quote:
10. Plz add a com automation interface, not everyone is using .net. It isn't hard to implement from within .net.

I will add this as a feature request. Can you tell me what program or language you will be using?

We are mostly programming in a language called "Progress". It's a oracle-like dbmrs, with it's own 4gl. It's easy for us to talk to a com interface, and that would be far better than the character client (with repetatively logging in if you want to continue from the last action forward). I mentioned com because it's relatively easy for you to implement, since you work in dotnet. A raw tcp socket interface of your own design would in my opinion even be better; better performance and unix interchangeable, but that would take you more time to program.

Quote:
11. Plz add a "Differences" button to the check-in dialog.

This is in the Vault GUI Client

Yes, it's in the gui client. However, it would be nice to have an actual button on the checkin dialog to see the differences without having to go back, selecting differences en go to check in again. Just a matter of workflow.

Quote:
12. Plz make "Differences" possible always (i.e. check the current version in the repository to an os file or another file in the repository). We now have to make workarounds with Labels which we have to delete later.

Could you please explain further on this one. I think we already have what you are looking for. One thing you might want to check that Diff is checked for both files and folders options in the Tools-Options-Command Dialogs.

See my reply on # 13.

Quote:
13. If you do a repository folder to repository folder difference, All you can see now is "Different". I'd like to see which version is where, and directly pin/unpin/branche/share from there.

I can make a feature request for this

I made a more detailed version of this request in the following thread:

http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic.php?t=6480

Quote:
14. Plz show the Modification Date from the history (as well as the checkin date)

I can make a feature request for this.

Thank you.

Quote:
15. Plz put the popup menu of a file also in the popup-menu of the tab search results and the tab Pending. And also in the diff result mentioned in enh.req. #13.

I believe more commands are now available in Vault 3.5.

You are right, but not all. And... why not? Dotnet has a simple command to copy all items to another menu:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... emenu.aspx

Please put this in the Search tab, the Pending tab, and in the Folder diff results window (see my other link in remark #14).

Quote:
16. Plz make the GUI more customizable. I.e. a menu with your own tools (why is your own sgdm.exe not in the menu btw?), and actions to do at startup client, shutdown client, connect rep, disconnect rep, etc.

I can make a feature request for this.

Thank you.

Quote:
17. Customizable options (like #16) for the server side. I.e. put a message to a tcp port when something changes. You could use this yourself for the GUI clients, to get rid of the horrible polling (refresh each 10 minutes).

I can make a feature request for this.

Thank you. A tcp interface (mb an RSS feed) would be very nice indeed, also usable in our unix environment.

Quote:
18. If one workstation does a get from root, performance for other workstations drop (even stalls). I think you don't start a new thread for client requests. Please do.

It is multithreaded. I think I'd need more information before I could come up with what might be happening. What IIS version are you using?

We're using IIS 5.1 (xp pro sp2). Good to hear it's multithreaded. Scratch my remark for now, I'll give you a more detailed report when we run into concurrency performance issues again. Vault 3.5 performce seems better overall.

Quote:
19. Plz add some basic reporting options to the GUI client. I gather the client-server exchange is xml based (looking at the command line interface, and since it's .net based), so you could easily supply an xsl or xslt and show it locally as an html page. Simple output to clipboard would also be useful. Now it has *nothing*.

Currently one can save the history to a .html, .csv, or tab separated file.

Totally missed that one. Scratch my remark.

Quote:
20. Plz stop giving branched files the "Current" date, or make it at least optional. If we branch historical files, we want them to keep their filedates. Now we have to manually fix those dates in the repository (extra get and check in).

A feature request is already logged. I'll add your vote.

Thank you.

Quote:
21. Plz make a 'log all transactions' option (server side).

You can put the server in debug mode and that will provide a lot more information. If it doesn't cover what you are looking for, I can make a feature request.

I'll investigate this further. Put my remark on hold.

Quote:
22. Plz make a separate authorisation level for Pin/Share/Branch/Delete (apart from Checkin/Checkout). My developers are allowed to do check-in / check-out in a $/dev folder. They should be allowed to share it to $/release, and pin it at a version of their choice in $/release. Even delete it. But they musn't be able to check-in or check-out at the $/release folder. I can't configure that now. Btw I like your group authorisation scheme.

I can make a feature request for this.

Please do, thank you.

-- end of comments on # 01 to # 22 --

In my first post you also gave the following remark:

Quote:
Is there any way to subscribe to Vault server events? So I can do it only on a check-in, add, or delete event?

---Emails can be sent for any modification to the database, including rename, share, branch, etc. That feature is set-up in the Admin tool in the Server Options tab under Email Settings. We have a feature request logged to send notifications on checkout.

This is a good tip, thank you. I might emulate a mail server on a localhost port, that should give me a trigger. So I'd only have to monitor the root folder as Admin, and every change is sent by the vault server as an e-mail to the supplied e-mail server?

Thanks for all your support, hope to speak to you soon.

Best regards, Tijs Wickardt, Bertus Distributie