Ten Random Things You May Or May Not Be Aware of in the AccuRev GUI
… in no particular order …
1) In a workspace or stream view, you can right-click the column header bar and choose from a number of non-default columns to display; ID, ElemType, Last Modified, Size, and Lock Type are the fields available that are not displayed by default.

2) You can display how your stream hierarchy looked at any point in the past; in Tools, Preferences select the Stream Browser tab and select “Enable Stream Browser History” – you can now walk the browser to any historical time. A nice way to see how things have evolved over time, or to find out what process you were using last year, for example.

3) While we’re in Preferences, you can use any Diff/Merge tool that you prefer; simply enter the correct path and parameters by overwriting the value in the Diff or Merge dropdown.

4) For those using Issue Tracking, in the Query editor you can create queries using appropriate variables (like CUR_USER) and set them as Public; now all users in AccuRev have access to this query by default, write once, use anywhere.

5) Back in the stream or workspace view (and other views as well, for that matter) you can select rows or cells for copying and pasting externally, like into a Word or Excel document; select the appropriate areas, right-click in the column header, choose Copy Rows or Copy Cells.

6) AccuRev smart tabs defaults to the existing tab if it’s already open. Want a second copy of any given tab? Right-click the tab, select Clone tab. This way, for e.g., you can have two copies of a single workspace, open to different places in the source tree.

7) Once again back to any view that has column headers. You can sort by multiple rows instead of a single row; right-click the column header, select Multiple Columns mode.

8) Changing your primary workstation and want to redeploy your workspaces? Easy from the CLI, but you can do this from the GUI as well; from your new workstation select View, Workspaces, choose the correct workspace and right-click, select Edit. By walking through this dialogue, the new hostname will be applied.

9) Have an extensive stream hierarchy and can’t find the stream you’re looking for? Select the Graphical/Tabular view of the Stream Browser, sort in the tabular view by the column you want to search on, then click the stream row in Tabular view: you are brought to the correct place in the Graphical view automatically. You can also do this by using the binoculars icon in the Stream Browser view.

10) Want to learn what CLI commands are being run by the GUI? Launch the GUI in verbose debug mode; (Windows version) Create a batch file and put in the following contents:
cd C:\Program Files\AccuRev\bin
java -Daccurev.debug.acapi -cp “oro.jar;xercesImpl.jar;xml-apis.jar;fw.jar” fw.MainApp

Executing the batch file launches the GUI along with a DOS shell that spits out the operations.

Okay, so maybe you knew some or all of those already. Maybe every single one was a momentous revelation! In either case, I’ve found that there is always someone who knows a trick or two that I was unaware of to help increase my productivity.

Let me hear from you. What are your favorite “tricks of the trade” within/using AccuRev?