Release Notes

Linux - Plastic: We added the Incoming Changes Plastic SCM for Linux!

We are happy to announce that we added Incoming Changes functionality to Plastic SCM GUI on Linux.

What is the Incoming Changes?

A typical workflow can involve multiple developers checking in changes on the same branch. When someone else checks in a change on the branch you are working on, it means your local workspace is out of date. To get your workspace up to date, you need to download the lastet changesets from the server. We call these new changesets "Incoming Changes".

Incoming Changes in Plastic SCM makes the process of updating your workspace with other people's changes as easy and painless as possible.

The first addition is a notification bar which alerts you when there are new changesets on the server. This appears at the top of the screen and lets you know how many new changesets there are, and also if they conflict with your local changes.

Here is what the notification bar looks like:

Or, if there are conflicts:

Of course, you can ignore the notification until you are ready to update your workspace. At that point you can click on the button in the notification and launch the Incoming Changes view.

The Incoming Changes view shows all the pending changes on the server and lets you resolve any conflicts between the incoming changes and your local changes.

If there are no conflicts, simple updating the workspace will get you up to date. Otherwise the Incoming Changes view allows you to resolve the conflicts and get your workspace up to date. You are then free to check in your changes.

Here is an an example of what the Incoming Changes view looks like:

The client also launches the Incoming Changes view if you try to check in when there are other changes on the server. This is so you can resolve any conflicts before the checkin.

Linux - Plastic: We greatly improved the UX of the Merge View!

We made some visual changes in the four merge view tabs, to match the design of Windows and macOS applications. All texts, icons, and behaviors are now the same in the three platforms.

This is a detailed description of changes done on different merge view tabs:

== "Directory conflicts" tab ==

Now the first directory conflict is automatically selected.

The "unsolved" icon has been removed.

There is a red counter telling the user the number of pending directory conflicts to resolve vs total directory conflicts.

The "Resolve directory conflict" button for the selected conflict is moved to the top of the pane, to make it more visible

When resolving all the directory conflicts, the merge view jumps to the "file conflicts" tab (just if there are pending file conflicts to resolve).

The counter turns green when no pending directory conflicts left.

== "File conflicts" tab ==

There is a red counter telling the user the number of pending file conflicts to resolve vs total file conflicts.

The counter turns green when no pending file conflicts left.

The "unsolved" icon has been removed.

== "Automatic merges" tab ==

Apart from text changes and icon removal, the categories in this tab (Deletes to apply, Moves to apply, etc) will be collapsed if the number of items is >= 10.

== Discarded conflicts" tab ==

Just text changes and icon removal.

All platforms - Command line client: We updated the help of the 'merge' command!

It now includes documentation of the following options:

* --resolveconflict - Used to solve a particular directory conflict. This option must be used in conjunction with some other parameters to indicate the index of the conflict to solve (--conflict), the type of conflict resolution (--resolutionoption) and the files (--mergeresultfile and --solvedconflictsfile) to output the information of the merge result and the conflicts solved;

* --nointeractiveresolution - To avoid prompting the user for manual conflict;

* --machinereadable - Used in conjunction with some other parameters, outputs the result in an easy-to-parse format.

These options are mainly used by plugins or integrations. We think they can be useful also for those users that want to extend the Plastic functionality.

All platforms - Plastic, Gluon: More intuitive incoming changes notification

We modified the text for the "incoming changes" notification button. Now, instead of "Update" or "Resolve", the button says "View", making clear that pressing it will not change anything in your workspace.

This button appears at the top right corner of Plastic and Gluon when the current workspace can be updated with new changes.

When you click the notification button, Plastic shows a window from which you can update your workspace or resolve any possible conflicts.

Windows - P4Sync: We applied sharding to distribution of pulled files!

As storing a huge amount of files in the same folder affects FileSystem Performance, we have applied folder sharding so the client now distributes the downloaded files in subfolders, boosting the FileSystem performance.

Windows - P4Sync: The client now removes any generated temp file after P4 sync!

The client did not delete Temp files after pulling files from P4. We've changed it so now the client removes any temp files used during the synchronization.