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.
