> Just curious to hear if anyone who can do Visual C++ has started
> looking at the repository browsing function that is possible now
that
> CVSNT has the command cvs ls added?
>
> If I could do C++ I would have already started this, but I am a poor
> Pascal programmer (=Delphi) and I can't do anything decent in C++
:-(
Maybe we should team up. Do you remember my post about my dCVS
project? ;)
> What I have in mind is this:
> Replace the tab 'Explore' in the left hand pane (which is never used
> anyway) with a 'Browse repository' tab. (Or add a new tab)
> In this show the contents of the currently selected repository with
a
> refresh button somewhere so it won't have to constantly interrogate
> the server. Possibly also when connecting to the server it can
deduce
> if the ls command works by checking the cvs version.
An old rule from JavaScript'ing for browser compatibility: Never check
the
version, check the feature. I think simply issuing cvs ls -q should be
safer. If
this returns an error we could assume that the server doesn't support
it,
otherwise just go ahead.
> Then by sending cvs ls -l -R to the server it would receive output
> that will be enough to build a browseable representation of the
> repository. For speed reasons it could help omitting the -R switch
> (recurse) so it will list only the current folder on the repository.
I definitely think recursive browsing shouldn't be used. I'd like to
see it
work like a Windows network folder. Initially there's always the [+]
in
front of a folder. Just when you click that, will the contents be
retrieved
and the [+] eventually goes away because there are no subdirs.
> With such a tool it would be possible to find out if a folder has
been
> added to a module that is already checked out and if so get it. Also
> it is possible to selectively get new folders as needed (in some
cases
> all folders that exist are not really needed and will just slow down
> updates).
Here's another thing to ponder: How should we address branches or more
specifically, how do we translate the -r and -D options to the GUI?
Maybe
another combobox like the one we have for file name pattern filters?
> I imagine that once the browser has displayed the contents a right
> click on one item should bring up a context menu with an item
> 'checkout' so one can easily move this info into the checkout
dialog.
I think this might be the point where the MDI approach might come in
handy
after all. The repository file view could be displayed in its own MDI
form and files/folders could be checked out by simply dragging them to
the sandbox view.
> Since 'browsing' is the first thing the new CVS users coming from
> Windows are asking about (I did it too) it would be a good item to
put
> high on the wish list.
Personally(!) I'd like to see the configurable TCL/Python locations
first, so I could get rid of the additional TCL install altogether (by
reusing the TCL which comes with Python). The simulation mode I
discussed with Jerzy some time ago, would be a real time saver for me,
too. Then there's of course the "Remote Status" column and another
column for the file type.
I really don't miss the repository browsing currently but that's
probably because we're a very small shop where *real* concurrent
development is very very rare. Usually I simply know what I have to
check out because it was me who checked it in in the first place. Of
course if the drag&drop-checkout would be implemented the usability
value of this feature would increase dramatically.
Oliver
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