In a recent blog post, an AccuRev user praised the AccuRev server architecture, but had several criticisms of the AccuRev GUI. AccuRev appreciates and encourages this level of feedback. We’d like to update the user community on the current state of the AccuRev 4.6 GUI and how it addresses many of the blogger’s comments about AccuRev 4.5.4.

1.    “From time to time it starts rendering everything in gray.” This is due to a known Java bug, the so-called ‘gray rect’ issue. AccuRev 4.6 now ships with a Java 6 JVM, in which this issue has been resolved for most operating systems. 

2.    “AccuRev comes with its own vocabulary that describes the source code management.”   

Common term	AccuRev term
update	update & populate
check in/commit	promote
delete	defunct
move	cut & paste
conflict	overlap

We understand that these vocabulary differences can present short-term challenges for new AccuRev users, yet the benefits of the added functionality generally outweigh the differences. AccuRev provides all of the functionality of legacy SCM systems (ones that use the ‘common terms’ above); but we also have many innovative features that require new terminology. For example, ‘promote’ is new to some users of legacy SCM systems that don’t support private workspaces. An AccuRev product review went into more detail about the Promote feature. Also, since AccuRev is TimeSafe^®, nothing ever gets deleted, so ‘defunct’ is a more accurate term for the operation of removing an element from a stream. 

3.        “In order to make sure that you’ve got all recent changes you need to update and populate your workspace…The update button is the best hidden button I’ve ever seen.” 

Actually, Update is sufficient for most operations where a user wants to obtain the latest changes from the AccuRev repository. Populate is a different operation that normally shouldn’t be required as part of a standard update operation.  There is an update menu item on the File menu, and no one has pointed this out before, but the user is absolutely correct in noting that Update could be made easier to identify from the AccuRev GUI – great feedback! 

4.        “Whenever AccuRev can not update your workspace because there is something wrong with it you get a cryptic error message.”  

In AccuRev 4.6 we’ve improved the update command so that trivial merges to modified files are handled automatically. This gets rid of the Warning message that the user refers to. 

5.        “When someone promotes changes to the parent stream then all children get it by inheritance. From time to time the changes introduce conflicts that need to be resolved. The problem is that in order to find them you need to look for them using two different searches – overlap and deep overlap.” 

Deep overlap results from changes to files above the parent stream.  These do not interfere with update operations. As for overlaps in the parent stream, AccuRev takes the approach of assuming that developers want to keep their private workspaces clean and up-to-date, so we do require that overlaps be merged in your workspace as part of completing the update operation. This also helps to improve performance. Simplifying this is also in our product backlog. 

6.        “ …you can include other streams into you stream. The problem is that the window that lists all available streams is just a list view without any way of filtering items in the current view” 

We agree that searching for streams in some of the dialogs can be improved. We are actively working on providing more options. One existing option that users may find helpful is to go to the StreamBrowser and use the zoom in feature to zoom down to just the sub-tree that is usually used. Then, only that subset will be listed in stream dialogs. 

7.        “Whenever you edit a text box the Ctrl-Z shortcut does not work.” 

The user is right about this. Undo/Redo is a common feature in UIs that we don’t support. It is already ranked high in our product backlog of features to implement. 

8.        “Let’s say you are done with your task and you want to promote all your changes. In order to do this you need to remember to execute 3 different searches (external, modified, pending) to find all your changes.” 

You can use the Pending filter to find all files that are ready to push up to the repository, including modified, kept and defunct files.  The user is correct in that External files are not part of this filter. Partly due to feedback such as this, AccuRev is agressively updating the AccuBridge series of IDE integrations (recent comments on AccuBridge for Eclipse) to better support developers in their day-to-day work. For example, the Synchronize View in the AccuBridge for Eclipse product provides users with a single view for managing private workspaces. This view includes the results of both the Pending and External filters.  

9.        “When you want to move a file that is already in the repository you need to right click on it, choose cut, navigate to the new location, right click and choose paste.  Why is there no explicit move command?” 

See the response to item 2 above. Cut and paste is such a common GUI operation, and it fits nicely into the underlying namespace operation that AccuRev is performing from within the GUI on behalf of the user. 

10.     “…unfortunately the AccuRev UI does not let you exclude neither files nor folders. Instead you need to create an environment variable where you specify all patterns for files and folders that AccuRev should ignore.” 

The user is correct. AccuRev currently looks at an environment variable to decide which external files to exclude from filters and certain operations.  We have received similar feedback before, so the ability to edit the excluded file types from the UI is also ranked high in our product backlog. 

11.     “My biggest problem with the AccuRev [Visual Studio] plugin is the fact that from time to time when I compile my solution it does something in the background that causes the compilation process to freeze for a few seconds…” 

This issue has been reported to AccuRev support; however, we’ll need more data on how to reproduce the problem.

Overall, the improvements in AccuRev 4.6 go a long way towards addressing these concerns.  As always, please continue to share all of your thoughts on AccuRev with us. The AccuRev Customer Community is available to answer questions and share ideas with the other AccuRev users, and our Support organization continues to get top marks, but the entire company is here to support your needs.

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