Working Folder Oddities

[tbreyman]

I encountered a couple of working folder oddities that I thought I would document. Some of these have been documented (as by design) already. Still the behavior is a little non-intuitive and, since several others have posted similar issues in these forums, I thought that you might want to consider making a few changes.

Using the Vault Client ...

- When you tell Vault to not overwrite changes in the working folder, it still does. It was only after looking at the documentation that I found that it preserved my changes in the backup folder. This wasn't what I expected, based on the UI and it was a bit of a pain. I would have thought that if I told Vault not to overwrite my changes that it wouldn't overwrite my changes.

- It doesn't appear that when I delete a file or folder in the repository and perform a GET that the change is propagated to my working folder. I played with some of the check boxes but the files / folders didn't seem to update correctly. I could be doing something wrong in this case. However, unless I have made a change to my working folder, I would expect deletes to pass through from the repository when I do a get.

Adds and Deletes are a little awkward in general.

- It would be nice if there was an easy way in the UI to compare the structure of the the working folder and the vault repository. As it stands, I need to recursively walk the folder hierarchy and select Add Files to display new folders and files.

- Also, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to see deleted folders in the working folder.

- In the same fashion, it would be nice if there was an easy way to see deleted folders / files in the repository that still existed my the working folder.

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Overall, I am very happy with the product. The above issues only come up because I am preparing to train our team on using it (and fitting it into the way we do things here) and I want to make sure that I cover things that may not work entirely as expected.

Vault 2.0.5
Windows XP Professional Client
Windows 2003 Server

Todd Breyman
SunGard Insurance Systems

[dan]

Thanks for the feedback Todd - we do use comments and suggestions like yours to prioritize our tasks.

- When you tell Vault to not overwrite changes in the working folder, it still does. It was only after looking at the documentation that I found that it preserved my changes in the backup folder. This wasn't what I expected, based on the UI and it was a bit of a pain. I would have thought that if I told Vault not to overwrite my changes that it wouldn't overwrite my changes.

I believe the only time it does this is if the file is Unknown, and actually that is a bug that we plan to address. I think the documenation refers to the fact that the option only applies to <b>modified</b> files, and that if a file is merely old, it will overwrite it with a newer version. If it isn't one of these two cases, let me know.

- It doesn't appear that when I delete a file or folder in the repository and perform a GET that the change is propagated to my working folder. I played with some of the check boxes but the files / folders didn't seem to update correctly. I could be doing something wrong in this case. However, unless I have made a change to my working folder, I would expect deletes to pass through from the repository when I do a get.

The "Repository Deletions" option should handle this, but it is possible there are bugs in it for specific cases. If you find something reproducible, let us know.

- It would be nice if there was an easy way in the UI to compare the structure of the the working folder and the vault repository. As it stands, I need to recursively walk the folder hierarchy and select Add Files to display new folders and files.

Yes, this will be addressed in 2.1, with a completely redesigned Add dialog.

- Also, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to see deleted folders in the working folder.

- In the same fashion, it would be nice if there was an easy way to see deleted folders / files in the repository that still existed my the working folder.

You could try a folder diff to compare the working folder with the repository folder. It can be very slow, but it would show discrepencies both ways.

Hope this helps,

[tbreyman]

Dan,

Once again, thanks for the feedback. Glad to know that there are good things in the pipeline.

In the case of the overwrite, the file status was Unknown.

I'll try and reproduce the delete scenario.

I'll take a look at the Folder Diff to see how we can use it to meet our needs.

Todd