Release Notes

Windows - PlasticFS: Upgrade to WinFSP 2023 Beta1

Among other changes, the next version of WinFSP does not require to reboot for upgrading.

You can find the WinFSP release notes in https://github.com/winfsp/winfsp/releases.

Windows - PlasticFS: Junction support for dynamic workspaces

We added support for junctions to PlasticFS! Tools that create temporary junctions on disk can now run on dynamic workspaces.

Before:

> mklink /J assets ..\..\game_tree\assets

Local NTFS volumes are required to complete the operation

After:

> mklink /J assets ..\..\game_tree\assets
>

In PlasticFS, junctions have the same limitations and capabilities that symlinks have, with the following exceptions:

* Junctions, they can only be used with directories. The flip side is that, unlike symlinks, junctions always have the right type.

* Junctions only support absolute paths.

* Plastic itself does not distinguish between "junctions" and "symlinks". Adding a junction to source control will eventually replace it with a symlink.

== REQUIREMENTS ==

Besides PlasticFS, you might want to enable symlinks in the GUI and the command-line interface.

To do so, add the following to your client.conf:

<EnableSymlinkSupportOnWindows>yes</EnableSymlinkSupportOnWindows>

== LIMITATIONS ==

1) This feature is in an early stage of development, so you can expect minor bugs to happen.

2) Currently, junctions are not allowed to point to the dynamic workspace directory nor anything outside it.

All clients: Incoming Changes only checks-out local changes involved in conflicts.

Before, the Incoming Changes & merge operations applied all the local changes in the workspace before running the operation. It didn't matter whether these local changes were in conflict with the changes to update/merge or not.

This could end up locking exclusively some files that were only locally modified (unrelated to the merge/update) and preventing other users to modify those files due to an undesired lock.

Now, only the local changes that are in conflict with the server changes to update/merge are applied in the workspace.

This new behavior applies to PlasticX, Plastic and the command line client (it's not available or partial/Gluon workspaces yet).

All platforms - PlasticX, Command-Line Client: Triggers are not accepting URIs on Windows servers

Due to the possibility of working cross-platform, sometimes Plastic is performing paths correction to fit the different OS's syntax. Therefore, anything that might be considered as a path can be altered by replacing slashes with backslashes on Windows. That was affecting the trigger commands, which can receive arguments. Usually, these arguments are expected to be paths, many times the executable itself, but it is also possible to use Internet addresses and endpoints. These addresses were being altered when parsing the command arguments (replacing the slash). That was leading to unexecutable triggers on Windows servers.

Now it is fixed and it will be possible to create triggers receiving valid URIs as arguments.

For instance:

cm tr mk before-update TryToLoginTrigger "curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/login ./secret.key" --server=localhost:8084

When creating the command on a Windows machine, it will fix the "./secret.key" path to convert it to ".\\secret.key" but the localhost endpoint will remain the same.

This allows new possibilities of interaction through triggers on Windows machines.

NOTE: to be able to distinguish between local paths and external URI, it is advisable to use absolute URIs.

A known limitation for this would be the following syntax:

cm tr mk before-update UnityTrigger "curl -X POST unity.com/amazing" --server=localhost:8084

Under the hood, Plastic will modify the "unity.com/amazing" and use the "unity.com\\amazing" endpoint instead, because the literal complies with the local path formation rules.

The way to avoid the issue would be to use the absolute URI referring to the same endpoint: "https://unity.com/amazing", which will remain unaltered.

Command-line client: status command now gives changed/unchanged info for checkouts

Unlike in the GUIs, the command line was only able to show an item as either checked-out or changed, but not both at once. This made hard to tell if a file was actually modified or not:

> cm status --noheader
Changed
    Status         Size        Last Modified     Path

    Checked-out    10 bytes    12 minutes ago    checked-out-CHANGED.txt
    Checked-out    11 bytes    13 minutes ago    checked-out-unchanged.txt

> cm status --noheader --compact
Modified items (CH = changed, CO = checked-out, CP = copied (new), RP = replaced)
 CO checked-out-CHANGED.txt
 CO checked-out-unchanged.txt

Now, additional detail is given when changes are found:

> cm status --noheader
Changed
    Status                     Size        Last Modified     Path

    Checked-out (changed)      12 bytes     1 minute ago     checked-out-CHANGED.txt
    Checked-out (unchanged)    11 bytes    21 seconds ago    checked-out-unchanged.txt

The "--compact", "--xml" and "--machinereadable" options don't display these details by default. It is so to not break existing integrations/automations. You need to combine them with the "--iscochanged" option to see the additional information.

> cm status --noheaders  --noheader --compact
Modified items (CH = changed, CO = checked-out, CP = copied (new), RP = replaced)
 CO checked-out-CHANGED.txt
 CO checked-out-unchanged.txt

> cm status --noheaders --noheader --compact --iscochanged
 CO+CH checked-out-CHANGED.txt
 CO checked-out-unchanged.txt

Note that this information is only provided when the status command is searching for changed items (see the --changed option in --help for details). For instance, in case you only need to find whether items are or not checked-out, you can filter the search by using the --checkout option. That way, those details will be omitted as before.

All platforms - Command-line client: the diff command allows now to see the branch changes pending to integrate

You can use the new diff option --integration (e.g.: 'cm diff br:/main/task --integration') to see the branch changes pending to be integrated into its parent branch.

See some scenarios when it's useful:

* You are working on a child branch, and you make a rebase, a merge from /main. The regular 'cm diff br:/main/task' command will show the child branch changes combined with the rebased changes. Now, with the 'cm diff br:/main/task --integration', the command will skip the rebased changes. You will see a cleaner, more focused view of the actual branch changes.

* You are working on br:/main/task and you merge it into br:/main. Then you realize that you need additional changes in the branch and make them. The 'cm diff br:/main/task --integration' command will show those additional changes that you didn't merge yet.

All platforms - All clients: Pending changes: "Copied" items are now listed in "added" category

A "copied" is an existing item that is copied from a source changeset into the current one where it doesn't exist. It could happen due to a merge or revert operation.

Previously the copied changes were inside the modified category:

$cm status --noheader
Pending merge links
    Cherry pick from cs:3 at /main/added_file@change_delete_tests@localhost:7777

Changed
    Status                              Size       Last Modified    Path

    Copied (new) (Cherrypick from 3)    7.95 KB    7 minutes ago    FindMerge.cs

Now they are inside the added category, as the item is a new one on the current changeset even if it already exists on the repository:

$cm status --noheader
Pending merge links
    Cherry pick from cs:3 at /main/added_file@change_delete_tests@localhost:7777

Added
    Status                              Size       Last Modified    Path

    Copied (new) (Cherrypick from 3)    7.95 KB    4 minutes ago    FindMerge.cs

All platforms - All clients: New "change - not loaded" conflicts for cherry-picking merge & apply shelve

The old "change - delete" conflicts were replaced by the new "change - not loaded" conflicts for the cherry-picking merge, and apply shelve, where the changed item is not deleted on the destination, it's simply not loaded.

These new conflicts give a more accurate description and actions for these types of conflicts:

* Changed file on the source that doesn't exist on the destination:

* Changed file on the source whose parent doesn't exist on the destination:

* Added file on the source whose parent doesn't exist on the destination:

All platforms - PlasticX, Command-Line Client: Basic Auth now working with webtriggers

Webtriggers requiring basic authentication were not supported. There was a workaround to create a script with the call (using curl for instance inside a *.bat or *.sh file) including the authentication and then wrapping that script call within a regular trigger. Now it is possible to directly use webtriggers with basic authentication instead.

For example, imagine you have a configured Jenkins with a job named "MyProject" and you would like to call Jenkins to build the project after a check-in has been successfully completed. You could create a trigger like the following:

cm trigger mk after-checkin buildJenkins "webtrigger http://user:pass@localhost:8080/job/MyProject/build" --server=localhost:8084

All platforms - Plastic, Gluon: Added new arguments

The following arguments were available in legacy Windows GUI. Now we added them to the new cross-platform GUI:

* --clientconf: Lets you use a custom client.conf file, instead of the one at the default location

* --branchexplorer: Opens the branch explorer view of the specified workspace

* --preferences: Opens the preferences view when Plastic starts

* --createworkspace: Opens the dialog to create a new workspace when Plastic starts

In addition, arguments used to open the legacy GUI are now passed to the new GUI when clicking the "Try new GUI" button

All platforms - Plastic, Gluon: Provided better description in User Profile Tab

We renamed Preferences "User Profile" tab to "DevOps User Profile" to avoid confusion with "Connection Profiles"

Also, a explanation text and additional help hyperlinks were added, improving the documentation of this tab and giving better descriptions to the users

macOS, Linux - Plastic: Cross-platform semantic merge tool enabled by default

From now on, in macOS and Linux, when there is a non-automatic merge conflict on a code file, the cross-platform semantic merge tool will be launched to solve the conflict. Until now, you had to manually enable it by adding a flag in the client.conf file.

On Windows the native tool is still the default one, so you need to add the flag in client.conf if you want to use the new cross-platform tool:

<EnableSemanticMergeCrossPlatform>true</EnableSemanticMergeCrossPlatform>

All platforms - Plastic: shelvesets can now be filtered

We've improved the shelving workflow in Plastic by adding flexibility when applying a shelveset to your workspace. Now you can pick and choose individual files from a shelveset and apply only those that you want.

Shelvesets are chosen from the Shelves view, accessed using the "Show Shelves" button on the Pending Changes view, in the usual way:

Check the files in the shelveset that you want to apply to your workspace. Unchecked files will be ignored:

DevOps: TrunkBot now deletes shelvesets for Xlinks

When merging a task, the TrunkBot creates a shelveset that gets deleted when done. If the repository contains Xlinks, shelves are potentially created for each "xlinked" repository.

Before, the TrunkBot only removed the shelveset of the root repository, so the shelves of the "xlinked" repositories were left behind.

Now server and TrunkBot were improved so all shelvesets are properly cleaned.

Command-line client: Automatic shelve before switch (with pending changes).

The 'cm switch' and 'cm partial switch' commands now ask about shelving the workspace changes before continuing with the switch operation when there are pending changes in the workspace.

If the answer to the question is yes, it automatically shelves and undo your local changes before continuing with the switch operation.

This new behavior only happens if the following option is set in the client.conf configuration file.

<PendingChangesOnSwitchAction>Shelve</PendingChangesOnSwitchAction>

The shelve question can be skipped if the switch commands are executed with the '--noinput' option. In this case, the shelve + undo are run by default before the switch operation.

MacOS - Plastic: Automated update workflow

The update workflow has been improved on MacOS! It automatically downloads the latest release and executes it, whenever an update is available, and the user wishes to update.

All Platforms - Plastic/PlasticX/GluonX: Semantic supports C# 9, and 10 versions!

We modified Semantic Diff/Merge to support the new features introduced in the C# (9, and 10), and VB (16.9) languages for all platforms.

Here is a sample for C# 9 files with target-typed new expressions, and top-level statements (program without Main method):

Here is a sample for C# 10 files with global using, file-scoped namespace, and constant interpolated strings:

All platforms - PlasticX, GluonX: Removed the repositories view from the switcher window

When you clicked on the workspaces drop down at the top and selected "View repositories..." you would see the switcher window with a list of all the repositories you can access. This information was redundant, because you can also see the repositories from the home view. We removed the repositories view from the switcher window, and now it only displays the list of your workspaces

All Platforms - Plastic: Check for update option

You can now to check for a new update at any time, by selecting it from the application context menu.

Command-line client: Update command improved for automation

Several adjustments have been made to the update command:

Before:

* Using the --xml option was not meant to be used in a pipeline.

* Using the --silent option was meant to trim all output.

Now:

* Using the --xml option with no file implies --silent. Informative output gets trimmed.

* Using the --silent option removes informative output only. Warning and error messages are still written through standard error output. You can silence those messages by using output redirection.

All clients: Incoming Changes respects the cloaked rules.

Before, the Incoming Changes operation downloaded the files/directories although they were under cloaked paths. This was inconsistent with the update operation behavior and with the cloaked semantics themselves.

Now, the changes under cloaked paths are skipped like the update operation does.

The Gluon Incoming changes is not affected by this behavior (cloaked rules don't make sense in Gluon) since the operation works in a different way.

All Platforms - DevOps: Jenkins plug now shows the link to the build job

The Jenkins plug now notifies the URL to the build job. This way users are able to get the details about what failed while building the task in Jenkins.

Find below a sample of this notification using a local Jenkins plug with a TrunkBot mergebot on Slack:

Command-line client: Switch command improved for automation

Several options have been added to the switch command, mirroring the update command: --silent, --verbose, --xml and --encoding.

See --usage for details:

> cm switch --usage

Command-line client: Undo controlled changes and preserve local content

Added the option -k | --keepchanges to the cm unco & cm partial unco to allow undo checkout and preserve all local changes.

It could be very useful when you have a checked-out file with some changes for testing that you don't want to check in. So, now, you can undo the checkout (that releases the lock), and preserve local changes just to continue with your local tests.

$cm status --noheader
Changed
    Status         Size         Last Modified    Path

    Checked-out    319.30 KB    1 minute ago     body.png


$cm unco -k
c:\tmp\quake\body.png unchecked out correctly

$cm status --noheader
Changed
    Status     Size         Last Modified    Path

    Changed    319.30 KB    1 minute ago     body.png

The unco -k command can be applied to all kinds of controlled changes, turning them into local changes. This is complementary to using the checkout command to promote local changes into controlled ones.

*Added are left as private

*Checked-out are left as changed

*Deleted are left as locally-deleted

*Moved are left as locally-moved

Note this option is incompatible with dynamic workspaces.

All platforms - Plastic, Gluon: Improved app stability

We've improved app stability in some scenarios, preventing the app from crash when an exception is thrown

Command-line client: Update --xml now includes deleted items

Before, the --xml output of the update command was meant to only report items with added or updated revisions.

Deleted items are now included:

<UpdatedItems>
  <List>
    <UpdatedItem>
      <Path>/wkspaces/SuperRacing/Assets/wheels.png</Path>
      <User>Kit</User>
      <Changeset>122</Changeset>
      <Date>2022-11-27T20:30:44+01:00</Date>
    </UpdatedItem>
  </List>
</UpdatedItems>

All platforms - Plastic: Disabled Semantic History option for unsupported text files

We've disabled Semantic History menu option in Annotate View for all unsupported text files in semantic history (for example, .txt files)

macOS - Plastic: Removed mono-based GUI's

We finally removed the mono-based GUI's that were deprecated months ago, in favor of net(core) based counterparts: plasticgui and gluon.

This way we ease the setup of the Plastic SCM GUI applications, since no more "mono/xamarin" and related dependencies will be a requirement anymore.

All platforms - PlasticX, GluonX: Updated Avalonia version

In this release we've updated Avalonia, our cross-platform UI framework, to the latest public release

This update brings many stability improvements under the hood, and also addresses the following macOS issues:

- Sometimes a dialog could hang the app, this issue is fixed

- Merge links are now clickable again in Branch Explorer

- Fixed strange issue where buttons could disappear

- Fixed flickering in the Home View

All Platforms - PlasticX: Jira task details on branch explorer

You can now see and navigate to a Jira task when using the Jira extension to create a branch.

All platforms - PlasticX: Launch Semantic Merge as standalone

The Semantic Merge tool could be launched from the command line using:

plasticx semanticmerge -s=source -d=destination -b=base

For unsupported file formats the merge tool will be launched instead of semantic merge. If the base argument is missing in the command line, the diff tool will be launched instead.

All platforms - PlasticX: Clarification message for deleted repositories

Improved description of how long repositories are kept in storage after being deleted.

All platforms - DevOps: TrunkBot adds tasks' title to the check-in comment when merging

Now TrunkBot mergebot will add the task' title from the configured issue tracker to the check-in comment when a merge is successfully performed. If there is no configured issue tracker, it will add the branch comments instead.

All platforms - Server: Deleting an object now deletes the associated code review data.

Now, when deleting a changeset, a shelve, or a branch, all the associated code review data gets deleted as well. This means that all code reviews targetting a changeset or a shelve, as well as all the code review comments made on a changeset or a shelve, will be deleted along with the changeset or shelve. When deleting a branch, all the code reviews targetting the branch will be deleted too.

Until now, the only thing that happened (regarding code reviews) when deleting a changeset was that all the change requests applied on said changeset were marked as not addressed. Now, the cleanup is complete.

All platforms - Command line client: Now you can create code reviews for shelves!

If you want your colleagues' feedback on some code, but don't want to actually check in the changes, now you can create a shelve and ask them to review the changes with the integrated code review functionality! Bear in mind that creating the code review only works (from now) from the cm command line client, but once created, you can open the code review from the GUIs.

To do so, you will need the shelve ID of your shelve. You can obtain that from the "ID" column in the "Show shelves" view in the GUIs, or by running a cm find command:

cm find "shelves where owner = 'me' on repository 'secretproject@coolorg@cloud"

Then, create the code review specifying the shelve:

cm codereview sh:1354@secretproject@coolorg@cloud "Please review this change with care!"

The code review can then be opened and edited from the GUIs.

Server: Deny temporary access for some specific users

Now you can deny access to certain users. To do so, create a deniedusers.conf file inside the server directory and add a user per line.

You don't need to restart the server, but note it might take some seconds until the server reloads the list of users with access denied.

Examples:

alice
bob

Note users might look different, as it depends on the configured authentication:

alice@mail.com
bob@mail.com

Windows - PlasticX: PlasticX is now the official GUI on Windows

We are happy to announce that our new, cross-platform, GUI is now the official GUI on Windows.

To launch the new GUI simply run plastic.exe as before. The old windows gui has been renamed to LegacyPlastic.exe.

Windows - PlasticFS: Symlink support for dynamic workspaces

We added support for symlinks to PlasticFS!

Now symlinks are supported everywhere in the Plastic ecosystem: Windows, Linux, macOS and PlasticFS.

== REQUIREMENTS ==

1) While PlasticFS does not need anything to support it, you might want to enable the Windows client support. This will allow the command line and PlasticX/GluonX to work with symlinks on Windows.

To do that, add the following configuration setting to your client.conf:

<EnableSymlinkSupportOnWindows>yes</EnableSymlinkSupportOnWindows>

2) If you update an existing dynamic workspace, you will find placeholder files where symlinks should be. To get the actual symlinks, you can delete the placeholder files, then tell Plastic to undo changes so they are recreated.

Be sure to read the LIMITATIONS section before using.

== HOW TO USE THEM ==

You can use mklink as usual to create some symlinks:

mklink filelink file.txt
mklink /D dirlink dir

Note that, unlike with static workspaces, you don't need to enable Developer Mode to make it work!

== LIMITATIONS ==

1) This feature is in an early stage of development, so you can expect minor bugs to happen.

2) PlasticFS always creates symlinks as files. By trying to access them, they will be automatically solved and converted to directories. However, this step might confuse external programs that do not expect it.

* This happens anytime you create a new workspace or after undoing a placeholder file (see REQUIREMENTS section).

* Windows Explorer will force this conversion, but you will have to refresh the window the first time it shows a symlink.

3) Currently, relative symlinks are not allowed to link the mount point directory or anything above it.

All platforms - PlasticX: View deleted repositories on home view

You can now see the recently deleted repositories on the home view!

It is accessible by clicking on the cog icon near the search bar.

To restore a deleted repository, simply right click on the deleted repository and select the "undelete" option

All platforms - Plastic: Semantic Visual Differences are here!

We ported the Visual Diff feature from the Windows Legacy GUI to the new (multiplatform) GUI, which means that now, the Visual Diff feature is available on three platforms, Windows, macOS, and Linux!

The Visual Diff is a diagram that helps to understand the changes made to a file, in a semantic way. Visual Differences are available for those file formats that support semantic differences (.NET, Java, PHP, C, C++). When the semantic differences are calculated, the Visual Diff displays a graphical representation of them. The diagram displays, classes, usings, methods, members, fields, etc, and some decorations indicating if an entity was added, changed, moved, or deleted. It also helps to display the differences between them.

The Visual Diff is available in three places:

1- The Diff Control (note that we also implemented a couple of options for the semantic diff):

* Skip format changes: This option ignores the indentation and EOL changes when the semantic diffs are calculated.

* Reformat: This option automatically reformats the source code:

2- The Diff Window, when clicking a Refactor Group when using our "analyze refactors" feature:

3- The Semantic Merge tool:

All platforms - PlasticX: Visual diff window new design

Some colors and layout design has been changed for the Visual diff window in order to improve legibility and visibility for both themes.

Linux - Plastic: removed mono-based GUI's

We finally removed the mono-based GUI's that were deprecated months ago, in favor of netcore-based counterparts: plasticgui and gluon.

This way we ease the setup of the Plastic SCM GUI applications, since no more "mono" and related packages will be a requirement anymore.

The final goal is to support newer distros, and for that goal, this removal of mono-based applications is a must.

REMARK: The package name was renamed from plasticscm-client-gtk to plasticscm-client-gui, but your package manager should care automatically of this renaming.

Linux - Client and Server: Added support for Ubuntu 22

Now you can install Plastic SCM on Ubuntu 22 using the package manager! Instructions here, "Ubuntu" tab.

Easy to say, long road until we made it! This Ubuntu 22 support pulls some relevant changes in the Plastic SCM software stack:

1. Mono removal: We don't require installing mono runtime anymore. We now rely on .NET specific OS-targeted self-contained executables for all Plastic SCM applications, even client-GUI applications (server was already compiled this way since early 2021).

2. Legacy GUI's removal (gtkplastic, gtkgluon, gtkmergetool). Since they were based in mono, they need to be removed and replaced by .NET counterparts: plasticgui and gluonx (mergetool is now part of plasticgui application and can be launched using plasticgui xmerge).

3. Move server from .NET 5 to .NET 6

All these changes were required in order to meet dependencies needs for Ubuntu 22, specially on ssl libraries and graphical toolkit libraries.

All platforms - PlasticX, GluonX: Damaged image file won't show error pop up in Pending/Checkin Changes Views.

Selecting a damaged image file won't show error pop up message in Pending Changes/Checkin Changes Views.

The error message will still be visible to the user as a label notification, and also in the Details Panel (GluonX only)

All platforms - GluonX: Visual feedback when cutting items

When cutting items from the workspace explorer view, now there is a transparency effect in the icon of the elements that have been cut.

This feature was already available on Plastic, and now it's on Gluon too.

All platforms - Plastic: Allow changing the editor font.

Now, the diff/merge font can be changed.

NOTE for windows users. The default monospaced font in Windows OS (if available) is Cascadia Code, which enables font ligatures, so if you want to disable them, you can change the font to use Cascadia Mono, or other available font in your system.

All platforms - Plastic: Full Unicode support and IME.

Previous versions of Plastic didn't fully support double-byte languages (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc ...). This Plastic version supports, not only double-byte languages and emojis, but also supports IME (Input Method Editor) for these languages, and right-to-left input support for Arabic and other languages.

NOTE for Open Suse Linux users: After this changes, Open Suse 15.2 is no longer supported. An upgrade to Open Suse 15.3 is required in order to run Plastic.

Server - Merge and Incoming Changes are much faster tons of ChangeDelete conflicts.

The calculation of the merge or the incoming changes was very slow when there were tons of ChangeDelete conflicts involved in the operation.

In the studied case, 2 million of items were added in the source of the merge but all of them were added under a deleted directory in destination. It initially took more than 2 hours to calculate the merge. Now, the same scenario takes less than 15 seconds to complete it. So, it's 500 times faster.

All platforms - PlasticX: added tooltip to Branch Explorer

Branches, changesets and labels on the Branch Explorer now have a tooltip which looks something like this:

.

Clicking the links on the tooltip will open a diff of the specified branch or changeset.

All Platforms - Command-Line Client: New information to display on revision history command

A new option has been added: --limit. It displays the N last revisions regarding the specified items. If N is bigger than the number of available revisions, it will display the existing ones (limit will take no effect); if N = 0, it will display every revision; if N < 0 the displayed list will be empty; if 0 < N < numRevisions will display the N most recent revisions, sorted by date and changeset id.

For example:

cm.exe hist foo.c bar.c --format='{path}: {itemid}' --limit=5

Will display the path and itemid regarding the last 5 revisions of foo.c and bar.c

foo.c: 8
foo.c: 16
bar.c: 12
bar.c: 13
bar.c: 15
bar.c: 21
bar.c: 24

Note that, in the example, foo.c only has 2 revisions.

All platforms - PlasticX: Changes in Semantic Merge Window

We changed the Semantic Merge Window icon, now the window will now show legacy Semantic Merge tool icon

We added MinWidth and MaxWidth properties to the window

All Platforms - Command-Line Client: New information to display on revision history command --format

Two more fields have been added to the revision history command in order to display information such as the revision size in bytes and the revision hash code. The --long option will also regard these new fields.

Now it is possible to use both {size} and {hash} in order to display that information along with the --format option.

For example:

cm.exe hist ./dir/foo.c bar.c --format='{path}: {size} bytes ({hash})'

Will display the review history of both foo.c and bar.c files, outputting the item id, the size of the file at each specific revision and, in between parenthesis, the hash code identifying the content of each revision.

./dir/foo.c: 5 bytes (RKaq9oJlXsU2xCXiO7zSjg==)
./dir/foo.c: 15 bytes (qNJWW77XzCApIMdT13jzkw==)
./dir/foo.c: 203 bytes (NnqIk33R+eUMaewTjAVrqQ==)
bar.c: 2031 bytes (aaHWt78weCApIMHa53jz22==)

In addition, the --long format will also display the new fields:

cm.exe hist bar.c --long

Will display something like the following, considering bar.c file had only 1 revision:

REVISION HISTORY OF C:\wkspaces\default\bar.c
--------------------------
Revision spec: bar.c#cs:1
Located on branch: /main
Created: 9/27/2022 17:53
Revision type: txt
Changeset number: 1
Owner: newuser
Repository: default
Server: localhost:8084
Repository spec: default@localhost:8084
Data status: Available
Item ID: 21
Item path or spec: bar.c
ItemSize: 2031
Item hash code: aaHWt78weCApIMHa53jz22==
Comment: bar.c now is managing HTTP connections

All Platforms - PlasticX, GluonX: Application Zoom Support

You can now apply a zoom level to the whole application!

Change it via the ⋮ (triple vertical dot) menu on the top right corner -> Zoom or by pressing Ctrl + Plus, Ctrl + Minus, to increase or decrease the application zoom.

All platforms - Plastic: Added text editor options.

Now, the diff tool and the merge window have new options to customize the text editors. Those options allow to:

- Show/hide the tabs and the whitespace.

- Show/hide the line ending (EOL) characters.

- Convert tabs to spaces while editing.

- Customize the indent size (tab size) to 4 or 8 characters.

- Add column rulers.

Demo:

Command-line client: New env variables in codereview edit

Previously there was no way to create a [before | after]-editreview trigger and retrieve

information about what editing was being done: the assignee or the status or both of them.

Now there are two new environment variables related to [before | after]-editreview triggers:

PLASTIC_REVIEW_ACTION: edit assignee or edit status or both separated by ';')

PLASTIC_REVIEW_ACTION_INFO (detailing "previous value" "->" "new value" for the assignee, the status or both, separated by ';').

Mind that only when editing the code review from the CLI both fields can be edited at the same time.

For instance, if you have a script which is dumping the environment variables passed as arguments to an output file (DumpEnvVars.exe), the following trigger creation:

cm trigger create before-editreview before-editreview-trigger "C:\wkspaces\scripts\DumpEnvVars.exe -env=PLASTIC_REVIEW_ACTION;PLASTIC_REVIEW_ACTION_INFO C:\wkspaces\outputs\before-editreview-trigger-result.txt" --server=localhost:8084

And you do a code review edit like this one:

cm codereview -e 19 --status="Under review" --assignee="Michaella"

The script would write a file with the following content:

PLASTIC_REVIEW_ACTION = edit status;edit assignee
PLASTIC_REVIEW_ACTION_INFO = Rework required->Under review;Thormund->Michaella

All platforms - PlasticX: Edit accounts

We added a new option in the home panel that lets you modify on-prem servers accounts. When using it, you will be able to authenticate again to the server, updating the stored credentials

All platforms - Command line client: Now you can list group members from cm!

Doing so is easy: just specify the group name in the --group option of the cm listusers command.

If a group is a member of a group, the command will solve its users recursively too.

So take this scenario as an example: Users 'sergio' and 'brenda' are part of the Developers group. User 'paula' is part of the QA group, and so is the Developers group. So QA users are 'paula' and 'Developers', and 'Developers' users are 'sergio' and 'brenda'. By solving groups recursively, the command output will look as follows:

> cm listusers --group=QA myorg@cloud
sergio
brenda
paula

All platforms - PlasticX: License notifications

Plastic will display user notifications about the license status. An information message will be shown when the current license is going to expire indicating the remaining days and how to renew it. On the other hand, when the license has been expired then an error message will be shown.

For extended trial licenses the notification panel will allow users to start the license registration process, so users could extend their licenses for 30 days.

All platforms - Command-line client: Better cm status with tables!

Modern times arrive for our command line, with a much better way to display workspace changes: cm status --pretty

Check how it looks like now:

And compare with how it looked like before:

Now also check how it looks like in Windows Terminal:

And the good old cmd.exe:

Enjoy!

Command-line client: Apply only the desired changes from a shelve

From now on, the cm allows you to choose which changes do you want to apply from a shelve. You no longer need to apply all the changes done on the shelve.

You can see which changes are going to apply by the shelve without applying them using:

$cm shelveset apply sh:2 --preview
The file /q3radiant/Z.CPP#sh:2 was modified on source and will replace the destination version
The file /ui/hud2.txt#sh:2 was modified on source and will replace the destination version

You can apply only the desired changes indicating the changes paths to apply:

$cm shelveset apply sh:2 /ui/hud2.txt
The file /ui/hud2.txt#sh:2 was modified on source and will replace the destination version
Merging c:\tmp\quake\ui\hud2.txt
The revision c:\tmp\quake\ui\hud2.txt@sh:2 has been loaded

Linux, macOS - PlasticX, GluonX: removed "Switch to Legacy GUI" option for Linux and macOS users

This release marks the end of support for the legacy (pre-avalonia framework) Linux and macOS GUIs for all users.

We have removed the "Switch to Legacy GUI" option for Linux and macOS users, and soon their executables won't be included in the package

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All platforms - PlasticX, GluonX: Added merge tracking colors to diff view

When you are seeing the differences of a branch with merges, sometimes is difficult to know where each change came from. To make this easier, we added colors to the diff view to differentiate between source, destination, and conflict changes. You can modify these colors and even show/hide them depending on what you want to see.

This feature was already available for Windows users in the legacy GUI. Now it's available in all platforms in the new Plastic GUI.

All platforms - PlasticX: Added ESC key close shortcuts in overlapped Browse Repository and Changesets Views

We've added new ESC key close shortcuts in the following overlapped views in PlasticX

*Browse Repository

*Changesets (only when Changesets View is called as a overlapped View)

All platforms - Command line client: 'cm rm controlled' now removes items in block.

Removing a controlled item involves a few operations: locking the workspace, starting a new workspace transaction, look for the item in the tree metadata, removing said node, checking out the parent (if necessary), removing the content from disk (if necessary), and finally commiting the transaction and unlocking the workspace.

Before, the command cm rm controlled would do all of these steps for each item, regardless of them belonging to the same workspace. This would incur on a big overhead when trying to delete many items in a row.

Now the command deletes all items belonging to the same workspace in block.

However, this forced some changes in how cm rm controlled reports removed items through standard output. If you use this command in an automation script or plugin, and you don't use the --format or --errorformat flags, you might need to consider these changes.

Consider the following scenario: we are going to delete a controlled directory (src), a private file (ignore.conf), and a file that is outside of the workspace (README.txt). This would be the output in previous Plastic SCM versions:

sergio:/wkspaces/Project$ cm rm ignore.conf src ../README.txt

/wkspaces/Project/ignore.conf is not in a workspace.

Item ./src/ has been removed

/wkspaces/README.txt is not in a workspace

Now paths are reported in the following order: first, all the paths that were correctly removed. Then, all the paths that were skipped because of an error (for example, the item not being in a workspace). Finally, all the paths that were skipped because they are not in a workspace. Now we also always use the item's full path:

sergio:/wkspaces/Project$ cm rm ignore.conf src ../README.txt

Item /wkspaces/Project/src/ has been removed.

/wkspaces/Project/ignore.conf is not in a workspace.

/wkspaces/README.txt is not in a workspace.

We honor the behavior of the --format and --errorformat flags.

sergio:/wkspaces/Project$ cm rm ignore.conf src ../README.txt --format="{0} - DELETED" --errorformat="{0} - NOT DELETED"

/wkspaces/Project/src/ - DELETED

/wkspaces/Project/ignore.conf - NOT DELETED

/wkspaces/README.txt - NOT DELETED

We also honor the command's exit code. Before, if an item could not be removed for whatever reason, command's exit code was 1. The same behavior applies here.

All Platforms - PlasticX: Merge files from command line with XMerge

You can now use PlasticX for merging and diffing any files using XMerge!

A quick way to get started is to run PlasticX with a single argument, xmerge. As shown below:

* For Windows:

[plastic|winplasticx] xmerge

* For MacOS:

plasticgui xmerge

* For Linux:

plasticgui xmerge

Now, some quick examples

* To diff two files:

[plasticgui|winplasticx|plastic] xmerge -s=fileA.txt -d=fileB.txt

* To merge two files a common base file is also required:

[plasticgui|winplasticx|plastic] xmerge -s=fileA.txt -d=fileB.txt -b=base.txt

In order to determine if a merge was successful, PlasticX will return 0 or 1 as the application exit code. 0 means a merge was successfully performed and the result file has been save, 1 means that a merge has been aborted or not saved.

All platforms - PlasticX: Open Merge view from command line

The merge-to view could be open from command line to solve the branches merge conflicts, it can be invoked like this: plasticx --merge=/main/task001@myrep@myserver:8084 --to=/main@myrep@myserver:8084

This command has 2 arguments, "–-merge" for indicate the source branch and "–to" for indicate the destiny branch in merge.

When this command is executed from command line a new plastic window will be displayed with the merge view opened, and the merge conflicts will be shown in this view.

All platforms - PlasticX, GluonX: Proxy configuration

When connecting to an on-premises server for the first time, we added an option to use a proxy. This option was already available on Windows, and now you can use it on the three platforms from the new GUI:

Learn more about proxy servers here: https://www.plasticscm.com/documentation/administration/plastic-scm-version-control-administrator-guide#Chapter4:Usingaproxyserver

All platforms - PlasticX: show code moves between files in diff window

Plastic can detect code refactors where code blocks have been moved from one file to another.

When you diff a branch or changeset a notification will be shown in the Diff window if such a refactor is detected.

Clicking the Show button will group the changes related to the refactor in the diff window file list.

If the diff contains a large number of items, rather than run a potentially long calculation, we show a notification with the option to run the refactor analysis.

All platforms - DevOps: TrunkBot learnt to pass user defined branch attributes to the CI plan.

Now it is possible to configure the TrunkBot mergebot with a list of user-defined branch attribute names. When TrunkBot processes a branch, it will calculate the branch attribute values and it will forward them to the underlying Continuous Integration plan, triggered to build & test the branch being processed, as key-value parameters (attribute name-attribute value).

See how this feature looks like:

1- First of all, let's open the configuration of an instance of a TrunkBot mergebot, "CI Integration" section.

Here you can see new text fields where you're able to specify a comma-separated list of branch attribute names to forward to both the build & test plan and, if defined, to the "after-checkin" plan if the branch is successfully merged.

In the example above, 'product-type' and 'arch' attributes will be considered for the build & test plan, whereas the after-checkin plan will consider the 'deploy-type' attribute.

REMARK: The TrunkBot won't create any of these attribute names in the repository automatically. This has to be done by the user or the repository administrator.

These attributes can be easily created throught the attributes view of the Plastic SCM GUI:

2- Now let's create some changes in the repo monitored by the TrunkBot instance. Let's create branch 'main/scm003', submit a new changeset, set some values for the user-defined branch attributes we're using in this example, and finally mark the branch status as 'resolved', enabling the TrunkBot instance to process it and try to merge it to the specified 'trunk' branch: the 'main' branch:

3- We're using Jenkins in this example as the CI system. When the TrunkBot processed branch 'main/scm003', it forwarded the 'product-type-to-build' and 'arch' attributes and their values on 'main/scm003' to the execution of the 'build-tools-plan' we have defined in Jenkins (see step #1):

This way, the 'build-tools-plan' is able to read these properties and customize its steps depending on these values, if required.

4- Let's suppose the 'build-tools-plan' ran successfully for 'main/scm003' and the branch got merged into the defined 'trunk' branch: the 'main' branch:

We also defined a plan to run after a successful merge of a branch in the "CI Integration" section of the TrunkBot instance (see step #1).

In this example, it will pick the 'deploy-type' attribute value of branch 'main/scm003' just merged, and will forward it to the plan to run after checking a branch in, named 'deploy-tools-plan':

Remarks:

* In case the attribute does not exist, or a branch does not have such attribute set, the trunkbot will create and sent the property with empty value to the CI plan anyway. Each CI system may behave differently when a plan is triggered and a property is set to an empty value.

* Also notice that Jenkins will add the 'PLASTICSCM_MERGEBOT_' prefix to the property name (the name of the attribute).

Windows - PlasticFS: New WinFSP version improves Python support

Some Python scripts failed when trying to solve virtual paths with Pathlib.

> solvemypath.py
[WinError 1005] The volume does not contain a recognized file system.

This happened as the implementation relies on the Windows Mount Point Manager to solve the path, but WinFSP didn't support registering virtual file systems in that facility... until now!

> solvemypath.py
Full path: C:\Workspaces\DynamicWk

To use this feature, you will need to uninstall WinFSP, reboot your computer and start PlasticFS as usual. The new version of the WinFSP driver will be automatically installed.

All platforms - PlasticX: Filter code reviews

A new combobox has been added to Code reviews view in order to apply filters to the displayed items list.

All platforms - PlasticX: Added "Close merge view and open pending changes view" preferences option

We have added a new option in Diff and Merge Preferences: "close merge view and open pending changes view when a merge is completed"

If this option is checked, when a merge is completed, the Merge View will be

automatically closed and Pending Changes View will be shown, improving the user workflow.

Also, when a merge is completed and this new option is not checked, we modified the "merge finished" message adding two links in order to open Pending Changes View or open Preferences Window.

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Command-line client: Creating workspaces is simpler than ever

Until now, to create a workspace using cm you had to give it a name and indicate the path and the repository:

$ cm wk mk project ./project rep:project@mydefaultserver

Often, the three are named the same. For that reason, now it is possible to use a shortened syntax:

$ cm wk mk project

This command will create a workspace infering the name and path from the repository spec you pass as argument!

And advanced use of the command also allows you to specify a different server:

$ cm wk mk project@myorg@cloud

All platforms - PlasticX, GluonX: Mark unviewed diffs in bold

The list of differences in Diff window will display viewed items in normal text style and non viewed in bold text style. It'll apply just to the path column for each difference from the list.

All platforms - PlasticX: Added new semantic history view

We added a new view to PlasticX: the semantic history. From this view you can see the history of individual methods or classes inside each file. This view was available on the Windows legacy GUI, and now you can use it from every platform in PlasticX. Check it out:

All clients: GitSync doesn't fail anymore if it cannot access to a revision data.

GitSync won't fail anymore if for whatever reason it can't access the contents of a given revision. It will add an empty revision in the Git package instead.

This way we allow syncing with Git even if an old revision is not present due to any old or weird issue.

All platforms - PlasticX: Code review skip merge tracking

A new button to group the diffs by merge has been added to Code review window. This button will be available only when the selected branch/changeset has merges in the differences list.

All platforms - PlasticX, GluonX: Added "Scan network" button

Added a new "Scan network..." button below the server entry, when connecting to an on-premises server. This button will show a dialog that allows you to easily find Plastic servers in your local network

All platforms: Moves with changes are now reflected by after-checkin and after-clientcheckin triggers

When you modify a file on the top of moving it, both changes are reflected in the workspace status and in the Pending Changes view. However, the checkout was not notified to triggers:

# E.g.: after-checkin (server-side) trigger
MV "/ALICE.TXT" FILE#br:/main;changeset:16@rep:Project@repserver:Organization@cloud ->"/BOB.TXT" FILE#br:/main;changeset:15@rep:Project@repserver:Organization@cloud

We added that information to the input data:

# E.g.: after-checkin (server-side) trigger
MV "/ALICE.TXT" FILE#br:/main;changeset:16@rep:Project@repserver:Organization@cloud ->"/BOB.TXT" FILE#br:/main;changeset:15@rep:Project@repserver:Organization@cloud
MV "/BOB.TXT" FILE#br:/main;changeset:16@rep:Project@repserver:Organization@cloud ->"/BOB.TXT" FILE#br:/main;changeset:15@rep:Project@repserver:Organization@cloud

All platforms - PlasticX, GluonX: Delete current workspace could throw non-controlled exceptions

If the user deleted the current workspace in use in the GUI (using the GUI or delete workspace command), further operations with that deleted workspace would throw non-controlled exceptions that could close the program; we fixed this issue.

All platforms - PlasticX: Show warning when the user tries to delete changeset involved in a pending merge

We now show a warning message and stop the delete changeset operation if you try to delete a changeset that is the source of a pending merge link. We do it because deleting the merge source puts you in an invalid state where you cannot later check in the merge.

All platforms - All client applications: Upgraded interface assembly consumed by issue tracker extensions

We support connecting any client application to an issue tracker to retrieve a user's list of assigned tasks, create a proper branch, or open a task in the issue tracker.

We provide built-in connectors for many issue trackers, such as Jira, Bugzilla, etc.

And we also published an interface so you can write your own connector for a custom issue tracker. This interface is located at issuetrackerinterface.dll file, in the client binaries folder of a Plastic SCM installation.

We've upgraded the issuetrackerinterface.dll and now is compiled in netstandard2.0 (instead of net framework 2.0). This will enable further improvements in the issue tracker subsystem of plastic.

Just in case you have a custom extension compiled in net framework 2.0, you will have two options:

* Upgrade your custom extension and compile it in net framework 4.0 or above

* Use the legacy issuetrackerinterface.dll compiled in net framework 2.0, located at client/extensions directory of a windows installation of Plastic SCM

All platforms - PlasticX, GluonX: added warning for an empty check-in comment

We have added an optional warning if you accidentally try to check in with no check-in comment. It looks like this.

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You can activate it in Preferences -> Comments:

Command-line client: 'cm history' shows if the revision was archived.

The 'cm history' command shows whether the revision's data was archived. It adds a new entry for each history entry specifying the data status. The possible values are 'Available' or 'Archived'. The value is empty for the moved/removed history entries.

Default output:

D:08/09/2022 10:26 CS:1   B:/main
DATA:Archived
C: my comment

Long output (--long):

...
Repository spec: repo@server:8087
Data status: Available

Xml output (--xml):

...
<RepositorySpec>repo@server:8087</RepositorySpec>
<DataStatus>Archived</DataStatus>

All platforms - PlasticX: Branch filtering on new history view

Further improving the new history view, a dedicated branch filtering popup has been added!

Filtering by one or as many branches as needed is now possible. You can try it out by viewing the history of any file or directory and clicking the 'branch' button near the search bar.

All platforms - GluonX: Remark current loaded revision

The current loaded history revision will be remarked in bold style in the History Panel.

All platforms - PlasticX, GluonX: Issue tracker configuration

A new preference option has been added to the Preferences window for the issue tracker configuration.

Some features will be available if this preference is enabled:

* Create new branch from a existing task.

* Checkin operations record attached to tasks.

* Automatic status transitions.

* Display linked tasks in pending changes view.

All platforms - Server: GUIDs storage is 5 times faster

We improved the performance of reading GUIDs in our Jet backend. Now reading a GUID is 5 times faster than before!

Taking into account that many objects in the Plastic SCM data model contain a GUID, almost all read operations (and especially those in bulk) will take advantage of this improvement. But not only that, the new method of reading GUIDs does not allocate any memory at all - so we also (slightly) reduced the memory footprint of the Plastic SCM Server. Good news overall!

Command-line client: GetWorkspaceFromPath command now displays workspace type

Workspaces can be of two different types: regular or partial (Gluon). In addition to that, Windows users can choose between static or dynamic workspaces (virtualized with PlasticFS).

Now, the GetWorkspaceFromPath command can display this extended information if the option --extended is provided to the command:

cm gwp C:\mygluonwk\ --extended
mywk C:\mygluonwk mymachine dca2b0fc-07ce-434f-949a-009d8c62034d partial dynamic

It is also possible to get this information through the --format option by using the 'type' and 'dynamic' keywords:

cm gwp C:\mysourcewk\ --format="Name: {wkname} | Type: {type} | Is: {dynamic}"
Name: mysourcewk | Type: regular | Is: static

More information in the help (cm [gwp | getworkspacefrompath] --help)

Server - DevOps: Code Review gating for Multiliner mergebot

The built-in multiliner-bot is now able to use embedded Plastic code reviews to drive the CI/CD lifecycle.

Enable the following "Process reviewed branches only" toggle button in multiliner-bot configuration to activate this feature:

The feature works as follows:

* When a code review of a tracked branch(*) is created, or its status changes, the task branch is queued in multiliner-bot.

* Then, multiliner-bot will eventually dequeue this task branch. But before continue its processing in the CI cycle, multiliner-bot will check whether there is at least a "Reviewed" code review for this branch. Otherwise, the branch processing is skipped, and the branch is queued again at the end of the queue.

* If there are more than a code review linked to this task branch, all of them need to be approved before processing the task branch.

* If all the code reviews are approved, the task branch continues its processing by the multiliner-bot:

* a)If the merge fails (manual conflicts detected), or the branch build in the configured CI system fails, the status of the linked code reviews of the branch will be set to "Under review".

* b)If the merge succeeds and the branch build succeeds too, the task branch is merged, and the "status" attribute of the branch is set to "merged" (these fields must be filled in the multiliner-bot configuration).

((*) tracked branch: those that starts with the configured branch prefix in multiliner-bot config)

All platforms - PlasticX: Checkin & Undo shortcuts

Checkin and Undo operations from pending changes view will be now available using key gestures, Alt+I for Checkin button and Alt+U for Undo button.

All platforms - PlasticX, GluonX: Fix date formatting for languages different than English

When the system language was not set to English, we were forcing some date and number fields to the English formatting. We did this to fix some issues with Turkish characters.

We addressed each issue individually, so now we can take the system language for date fields again, instead of forcing it to English.

All platforms, PlasticX, GluonX: Various diff improvements

* Updated the syntax highlight grammars to the latest version, which brings the latest language features for major languages like C#, Python, Java, etc...

* fixed some syntax highlight exceptions registered in the log coloring some documents.

* Improve the behavior when changing a file in the pending changes view or the diff view. Previously, when selecting another file, the diff viewer scrolled to the first line, and then it went to the first diff. Now the first line is not scrolled. See before and after:

Before:

After:

All platforms - PlasticX: Create top-level branch

A new menu item has been added to branches context menu in Branches view and Branch explorer. This new option will allow to create new branch in level 0, a top-level branch.

All platforms - PlasticX: Color changesets by server in the Branch Explorer.

We ported the "Color changesets - replication source" functionality, already existing in the Legacy GUI, to the new GUI. It allows to set up custom colors for all the changesets belonging to a certain server.

This is how it works:

All platforms - PlasticX: Color changesets by user in the Branch Explorer

We ported the "Color changesets - users" functionality, already existing in the Legacy GUI, to the new GUI. It allows to set up custom colors for all the changesets created by a certain user.

This is how it works:

All platforms - PlasticX, GluonX: Automatically detect local server

When configuring Plastic for the first time, if you select the on-premises mode, you will see an empty server field that you must fill with the server you want to connect to.

Now, if there is a local server running on a well-known port, this field automatically filled:

All platforms - PlastiX, GluonX: Object GUID in Diff window

The object GUID has been included in diff window as diff metadata.

All platforms - PlasticX: Auto-refresh Sync to Cloud view after opening

In Plastic X, when selecting "Sync to Cloud" view, the view was not refreshed. Now it's automatically done, helping to improve the workflow.

All platforms - PlasticX, GluonX: Removed Plastic SCM prefix from release name

All Plastic releases have a release name, which is a song name and the artist. This name can be seen in the about window.

A few releases back we added a "Plastic SCM" prefix before this name. We removed it, so now you see just the name as before.

All platforms - PlasticX: Improved history view

We re-wrote the history view from scratch. The new history view has the following features:

* Improved the revision list layout. Now it optimizes the horizontal space. We also display the avatar for the revision creator (note that it displays the Gravatar image when the username is an email).

* Setup a new panel that allows displaying diffs/annotate for the selected revision.

* Support history for text, image, binary, and directories revisions.

* Note that in this version of the history view, we display the changeset comment for the moved and removed revisions (previously the comment was not displayed).

* We also improved the way we display the changeset comments in the details panel. Long comments are split in two chunks, and the second chunk can be expanded/collapsed.

See it in action:

And now for images:

Note that you can still use the legacy history view by setting up the following setting in the plasticgui.conf file, placed in the user config folder:

UseLegacyHistoryView=True

All platforms - PlasticX: Added Merge options

We brought back this feature from the legacy GUI to PlasticX

This feature will allow PlasticX users to define merge options for each merge:

*Merge from both contributors, or only from one side

*Automatic merge conflict, or manual merge conflict (always launch the merge tool event with 0 unsolved conflicts)

*Ignore Merge Tracking

*Advance options: ancestors

Command-line client: Annotate command options update

The command to annotate files (cm annotate) was using, among others, the --ignore option, with (eol | whitespaces | "eol&whitespaces" | none) as possible values. Due to other commands are using another interface, it has been decided to homogenize them all. Now, --ignore will become --comparisonmethod and its regarding options will be (ignoreeol | ignorewhitespaces | ignoreeolandwhitespaces | recognizeall).

NOTE:

Old syntax will be deprecated, but it is still working. Therefore, scripts or other programs using this command will continue working as before. Despite of this, we encourage to update its usage to the new interface. More details in the command help.

Example: in case we want to annotate a foo.c file which has been created and checked-in on a unix system and after that some changes were done and checked-in on a Windows platform, we might want to ignore the EOL:

cm annotate foo.c --comparisonmethod=ignoreeolandwhitespaces

Command-line client: Diff command options update

The command to show differences (cm diff) was using, among others, the --ignore option, with (eol | whitespaces | "eol&whitespaces" | none) as possible values. Due to other commands are using another interface, it has been decided to homogenize them all. Now, --ignore will become --comparisonmethod and its regarding options will be (ignoreeol | ignorewhitespaces | ignoreeolandwhitespaces | recognizeall).

NOTE:

Old syntax will be deprecated, but it is still working. Therefore, scripts or other programs using this command will continue working as before. Despite of this, we encourage to update its usage to the new interface. More details in the command help.

Example: in case we want to check a foo.c file which has been created and checked-in on a unix system and after that some changes were done and checked-in on a Windows platform, we might want to ignore the EOL:

cm diff rev:foo.c#cs:1 rev:foo.c#cs:2 --comparisonmethod=ignoreeol

Command-line client: Shelveset apply command options update

The command to apply shelvesets (cm shelveset apply) was using the --comparisonmethod with (ignoreeol | ignorewhitespaces | ignoreeolwhitespaces | notignore) as possible values. Due to other commands are using another interface, it has been decided to homogenize them all. Now, "ignoreeolwhitespaces" will become "ignoreeolandwhitespaces" and "notignore" will become "recognizeall".

NOTE:

Old syntax will be deprecated, but it is still working. Therefore, scripts or other programs using this command will continue working as before. Despite of this, we encourage to update its usage to the new interface. More details in the command help.

Example: in case we want to apply a shelveset and, when comparing actual with previous contents for merging the changeset, we might want to ignore the EOL and whitespaces:

cm shelveset apply sh:2 --comparisonmethod=ignoreeolandwhitespaces

Command-line client: Diffmetrics command options update

The command to print metrics of differences between two revs (cm diffmetrics) was using, among others, the --ignore option, with (eol | whitespaces | "eol&whitespaces" | none) as possible values. Due to other commands are using another interface, it has been decided to homogenize them all. Now, --ignore will become --comparisonmethod and its regarding options will be (ignoreeol | ignorewhitespaces | ignoreeolandwhitespaces | recognizeall).

NOTE:

Old syntax will be deprecated, but it is still working. Therefore, scripts or other programs using this command will continue working as before. Despite of this, we encourage to update its usage to the new interface. More details in the command help.

Example: in case we want to see how many added, modified and deleted lines in a foo.c file and compare them with its version from a different branch, recognizing all, including EOL and whitespaces:

cm diffmetrics foo.c#cs:2 foo.c#br:/main/scm007 --comparisonmethod=recogniseall \
    --format="There are {0} changed, {1} added and {2} deleted lines."

Server: Server backups no longer block read-only web calls

The web calls were not allowed while the server was running a backup. Now the web calls that are read-only calls are allowed during the backup. This applies to the web client, the web admin, and also mergebots.

Command-line client: After-checkin trigger payload: move operations were not displaying move reference information

Previously, after-checkin triggers were generating a JSON content with several variables. One of these variables is named INPUT, which contains information about the changes checked in. These changes might be one of the following: AD, CH, DE and MV, indicating the type of operation which was performed regarding one item. MV operation has a particularity, as it involves not only one file but two.

Now it has been fixed and displays both source and destination of the moved file in the proper order (src->dst).

For example, let's imaagine we have a workspace with the following controlled contents: "./foo.c" and "./FooFolder" and we perform the following operations:

cm mv ./foo.c ./fooFolder/foo2.c
cm ci -c="foo belongs to fooFolder"

The INPUT variable will now display:

 'INPUT':'CH \"/\" DIR#br:/main;changeset:59@rep:default@repserver:localhost:8084
CH "/fooFolder" DIR#br:/main;changeset:59@rep:default@repserver:localhost:8084
MV "/foo.c" FILE#br:/main;changeset:2@rep:default@repserver:localhost:8084->"/fooFolder/foo2.c" FILE#br:/main;changeset:2@rep:default@repserver:localhost:8084'

As you can see, there are two changes corresponding the changes in the root directory and the change in the fooFolder and a MV operation, which now details both source file and destination file of that operation, separated by a "->" operand and both displaying all the information re the change.

Therefore, for the move operation, the specification will become:

status src_item_path item_type#br:branch;changeset:cset_id@rep:rep_name@repserver:server->status dst_item_path item_type#br:branch;changeset:cset_id@rep:rep_name@repserver:server

IMPORTANT NOTE: it is possible that users already parsing this output will perceive their parsers start to fail. We are sorry for any inconvenience this might cause. We balanced different options and finally decided to give you more information for you to use, despite of it might be needed to retouch existing parsers at this moment.

All platforms - PlasticX: New Details panel in Workspace Explorer

The Details panel has been added to the right side of the Workspace Explorer in PlasticX. This panel contains the image preview and properties of the selected item in the workspace tree, so it will be refreshed on every new selection. It is a collapsible panel, by default it's collapsed and can be expanded by using the new button "Show details" at the top right.

All platforms - PlasticX: Added comments auto-text feature

We added comments auto-text feature to Plastic. This allows the user to use predefined variables (Date, UserName, Branch Name) or a custom string in the comments textbox in Pending Changes view:

Also, the icons in Preferences Window were updated.

Command-line client: Upgraded changelist command now allows specifying files for the name and the description.

Changelist command has been upgraded with new verbs for management ("create" and "delete" substituting "add" and "rm"). Now it is possible to use new options in changelist commands: --namefile, --descriptionfile, --newnamefile. These options allow to replace the literals used to specify the name of the changelist or its description and to use a path to a file containing the changelist name or description instead.

For instance

cm changelist add "Physics-related changes" "Changes related to the game world environment and the implemented physics"

Could be updated to

cm changelist create "Physics-related changes" --descriptionfile="desc.txt"

Or also could be updated to

cm changelist create --filename="name.txt" --descriptionfile="desc.txt"

Or you could also rename a pre-existing changelist with something like the following:

cm changelist edit --filename="name.txt" rename --newnamefile="newname.txt"

Bear in mind:

- Old command syntax is still working but tagged as deprecated and the help has been updated. If you have automated scripts using this command, they will work, but we encourage you to update those and test the new amazing functionalities

- You can still use the same literals or use the options, whatever the combination that best suits your needs (options + literals, literals + options, all options, all literals).

- The --namefile and --newnamefile options do not allow invalid files or content (non-existing file, empty or multilined texts); in addition, if an non-existing file is supplied to --descriptionfile, it will also fail, but no content validity will be done.

DevOps: Remove branches from Trunkbot processing queue

If you accidentally set the status attribute to a branch, your Trunkbot might enqueue it and eventually merge it.

Before, you could remove it from the processing queue by changing the value of the attribute to something else. Now, removing the attribute from the branch will have the same effect.

Server: Edit cset comment now checks branch perm

When you edit the comment of a changeset, the “change comment” permission needs to be set in the branch that contains the changeset.Before this change, the repo permission was checked, which wasn’t as good solution as checking the permission in the branch.

All platforms - PlasticX: Remark current working item

The bold text style has been applied to the current working item, for the "Name" column of the Changesets and Branches views tables, in order to indicate which item on the list is currently loaded.

Command-line client: Configure data encryption for remote servers

As the owner of a Plastic server, you can configure encryption when trying to pull data from repository inside a remote encrypted server for the first time.

This was true for the Plastic GUIs, but now it is also possible within the command line:

> cm pull br:/main@donuts@homer@cloud dotnuts@marge:8084
...
The 'homer@cloud' source server requires data encryption.
Your server (aka 'marge:8084') is not yet configured to handle encrypted data from it.

Remarks:
* Be very careful with the encryption password; it's the only way to decrypt your data on 'homer@cloud'.
* If you're decrypting data and you enter a wrong password, the data will fail to decrypt and you will have to edit cryptedservers.conf on your server to fix it.
* Be careful to use the same password (encryption key) company-wide to work with 'homer@cloud'. Otherwise, data will be encrypted differently in each server.

Enter a password to generate the encryption key (leave empty to cancel):
***********

Encryption configuration added for server 'homer@cloud'.
...

All platforms - PlasticX: Added search textbox in MergeView

We added a new search textbox in MergeView, now it is possible to filter results

All platforms - PlasticX: Expandable symlinks directories

Symlinks that points to a directory are now expandable from plastic itself!

This feature allows for easier navigation when the workspace contains symlinks. If a symlink points to a directory that is inside the workspace, it behaves like any other directory in the workspace, however if a symlink points to a directory that is outside the workspace, actions like "add to source control" are disabled for these files.

All platforms - Plastic, Gluon: Better error handling for plastic links

When opening a plastic link, if there are any issues while processing it (because it's in the wrong format, or the server specified can't be accessed) we were just exiting the application without showing any error report.

We improved this behavior, and now we show a message with the reason why the plastic link could not be opened.

All platforms: Added "Plastic SCM" prefix to assembly product name metadata

Before we were just setting the Release song name as "Product name" field in the assembly info of all the applications. Now we add the "Plastic SCM" prefix so some antivirus security reports using this "Product name" field can identify in a snap they belong to Plastic SCM.

All Platforms - PlasticX: Added context menu actions to Code Editor.

The Code Editors displayed in the DiffViewer, the File Content Viewer, Annotate view and the Merge view, now have available the following extra context menu actions:

* Undo

* Redo

* Copy

* Cut

* Paste

* Delete

* Go to line

* Select all

* Find

Note that all the actions can be executed using the shortcuts.

Note that Undo/Redo/Cut/Paste/Delete actions are not available in the AnnotateView since it's always a read-only editor.

All clients: Only the *.xxx rules are considered as extension rules.

Before, we considered the .xxx as an extension rule. This could lead to weird behaviors when trying to ignore a folder that started with . such as .vs.

Now, the .vs rule only matches files / directories with that exact name. It doesn't match paths with the .vs extension like project.vs

This applies to all files that use path rules (ignored.conf, cloaked.conf, etc.)

All platforms - GluonX: Added shelves view

Now you can create and view shelves from the Gluon GUI.

There is a new "Shelve" button in the "Checkin changes" view that lets you create a shelveset with your pending changes in the same way as you do in Plastic.

There's also a "Show shelves" button that opens a side view with the list of shelves, from where you can diff, remove or apply them to your current workspace.

Windows - Plastic, PlasticX: auto-upgrade enabled for DVCS Edition

Auto-upgrade was previously only available for Enterprise and Cloud Edition. Now it is also available for Dvcs Edition. When a new version of the client is available, you will receive a notification in the help panel, with a link to initiate the upgrade.

All platforms - PlasticX, GluonX: Improve readability of disabled text boxes.

The contrast between the background and the foreground colors was not good enough for disabled textboxes. Now it's better:

All platforms - GluonX: Improve UI for recent check-in comments.

We moved the "check-in recent comments" button inside the textbox. This way we clear a bit the pending changes toolbar.

This is how it looks now:

Windows - PlasticX: Added diff arguments

In the legacy GUI you could open Plastic specifying arguments like the following:

plastic --diffchangesetsrc=cs:437@validations@alvaro_test@cloud --diffchangesetdst=cs:436@validations@alvaro_test@cloud

When switching to the new GUI this feature was lost. We fixed this issue and now you can specify the arguments in both GUIs

All platforms - Server: Add extra protection to the server's Accept Loop.

The Accept Loop is the entry point of every single connection to the Plastic SCM Server. It is at the very heart of our custom network protocol (plasticpipe), and it can handle thousands of new connections per minute. But if the Accept Loop exits for whatever reason, the server is unable of accepting new requests. And a server unable of attending to new requests is useless.

Now the accept errors are handled and the loop is restarted if needed. If the accept loop cannot be started on 3 tries the server will exist in a safe way.

This is beneficial not only to your local and Enterprise Plastic SCM setups but also to the Plastic SCM Cloud Regional Servers.

Command-line client: Shelvesets can be applied to partial workspaces.

Previously, it was not possible to apply a shelveset in partial workspaces (such as Gluon workspaces). Now we fully allow them (from the creation to the application).

c:\wkspaces\partialwk> cm partial shelveset apply sh:2

The apply operation tries to apply all the shelveset changes in the workspace if possible. However, changes can be skipped if they are related to items that are not configured in the workspace (they are silently ignored) or if they collide with local workspace changes (they are properly reported)

c:\wkspaces\partialwk> cm partial shelveset apply sh:2
The item won't be downloaded/moved because there is another item loaded in the same path: 'asset/texture/forest'. Please unload the item and retry the operation.

For more examples, you can check the help:

cm partial shelveset apply --help

Server: Log the web call in the ChannelCall

Now the Server monitors and log all the web calls too, so you can see those call with their stats on the ChannelCall log as you see for any other Plastic call. See a new log sample:

2022-06-03 10:27:23,722 INFO  ChannelCall - conn:     0 protocol:web          sec:none recb:       0|rect:   0|sentb:     309|sendt:   0|queuedt:       0|prt:       8|rq:  122|dest:   0|mt:       4|sert:   0|zip:   0|       127.0.0.1|user:tester|GET-/api/v1/repos/quake3/branches
2022-06-03 10:27:25,571 INFO  ChannelCall - conn:     0 protocol:web          sec:none recb:       0|rect:   0|sentb:     307|sendt:   0|queuedt:       0|prt:       3|rq:  123|dest:   0|mt:       1|sert:   0|zip:   0|       127.0.0.1|user:tester|GET-/api/v1/repos/quake3/main-branch
2022-06-03 10:27:27,287 INFO  ChannelCall - conn:     0 protocol:web          sec:none recb:       0|rect:   0|sentb:    6590|sendt:   0|queuedt:       0|prt:       3|rq:  126|dest:   0|mt:       1|sert:   0|zip:   0|       127.0.0.1|user:tester|GET-/api/v1/repos/quake3/branch/main/items/q3map
2022-06-03 10:35:29,707 INFO  ChannelCall - conn:     0 protocol:web          sec:none recb:       0|rect:   0|sentb:     729|sendt:   0|queuedt:       0|prt:    1532|rq:  210|dest:   0|mt:       2|sert:   0|zip:   0|       127.0.0.1|user:tester|GET-/api/v1/repos/quake3/changesets
2022-06-03 10:36:40,516 INFO  ChannelCall - conn:     1 protocol:plastic      sec:none recb:     111|rect:   0|sentb:       3|sendt:   0|queuedt:      16|prt:      11|rq:  216|dest:   0|mt:       2|sert:   0|zip:   0|       127.0.0.1|user:tester|CheckRepositoryExists
2022-06-03 10:38:11,002 INFO  ChannelCall - conn:     2 protocol:plastic      sec:none recb:     103|rect:   0|sentb:      85|sendt:   0|queuedt:       0|prt:       6|rq:  217|dest:   1|mt:       1|sert:   1|zip:   0|       127.0.0.1|user:tester|GetBranchInfoByName
2022-06-03 10:38:11,005 INFO  ChannelCall - conn:     2 protocol:plastic      sec:none recb:      18|rect:   0|sentb:      84|sendt:   0|queuedt:       0|prt:       2|rq:  218|dest:   1|mt:       0|sert:   0|zip:   0|       127.0.0.1|user:tester|GetChangesetInfoByNumber

See an example of how it was before:

2022-06-02 09:14:33,868 INFO ChannelCall - conn: 9 protocol:plasticproto sec:none recb: 912|rect: 134|sentb: 3645|sendt: 0|queuedt: 0|prt: 361|th: 65|dest: 0|mt: 158|sert: 0|zip: 0|cpu: 0| 127.0.0.1|user:tester|GetLockRule

2022-06-02 09:14:33,869 INFO ChannelCall - conn: 11 protocol:plasticproto sec:none recb: 809|rect: 162|sentb: 3612|sendt: 0|queuedt: 0|prt: 317|th: 67|dest: 0|mt: 2|sert: 0|zip: 0|cpu: 0| 127.0.0.1|user:tester|CheckRepositoryExists

2022-06-02 09:14:34,197 INFO ChannelCall - conn: 7 protocol:plasticproto sec:none recb: 913|rect: 126|sentb: 3742|sendt: 0|queuedt: 0|prt: 719|th: 63|dest: 0|mt: 489|sert: 0|zip: 0|cpu: 0| 127.0.0.1|user:tester|GetBranchInfoByName

2022-06-02 09:14:34,198 INFO ChannelCall - conn: 5 protocol:plasticproto sec:none recb: 793|rect: 447|sentb: 3680|sendt: 0|queuedt: 0|prt: 1269|th: 61|dest: 0|mt: 792|sert: 0|zip: 0|cpu: 0| 127.0.0.1|user:tester|GetRepositoryInfoByName

All Platforms: Command-line client

To list with the "--tree" option now displays the result regardless of some selector cannot be resolved

Previously, if several arguments were fed to the ls command in order to display their related trees, if one of them was not able to resolve the selector (i.e., there was a typo), the other trees were not displayed either. Now it is fixed and, regardless of the validity of each selector, it will display the results.

For example:

cm ls -r /existingDir /unexistingDir --tree=br:/main@myrepo@localhost:8084
NOT_DEFINED cS63/xl4G39inoaBFDLNzQ==           0 13/06/2022 12:20 dir           2 /main                      20       19 /existingDir
NOT_DEFINED T/zbMvjqdPBx+XMMAbnrZA==         9 13/06/2022 12:20 txt           2 /main                      17       23 /existingDir/foo.txt
Can't resolve the selector for the item /unexistingDir
CommandResult 1

As you can see, the CommandResult will remain 1 (error), but the output will be dumped accordingly.

All platforms - all clients: display language no longer overriden on APAC systems

Previously, when the configured language was English "en" but the system language was Chinese, Japanese or Korean, we would force the client to use the system language.

We no longer do this, and the configured language is always used.

Windows - Plastic, PlasticX: Auto-upgrade enabled in Enterprise Edition for non-admin users

For a while the auto-upgrade feature has been available for all Cloud Edition users, but administrators in Enterprise Edition. We have now made auto-upgrade available for all users in all editions.

You will be notified of available version upgrades in the help panel:

If you click on the Download link, the installer will download:

Simply click 'Restart and Upgrade' to install the latest version:

Command-line client: Shelvesets can be deleted from partial workspaces.

Previously, it was not possible to perform a shelve operation in partial workspaces (such as Gluon workspaces). Now we fully allow every operation (create/apply/delete).

It is possible to delete an existing partial shelveset with shelveset id 3 doing the following

c:\wkspaces\partialwk> cm partial shelveset delete sh:3

Mind there is no confirmation message. In case you would like to see it was deleted you can execute the following command to list every existing shelve created in the repository:

c:\wkspaces\partialwk> cm find shelve

The creation subcommand (create | mk) is the default operation, so bear in mind that, if no subcommand is specified, it will try to perform the creation of a new shelveset.

For more examples, you can check the help:

cm partial shelveset --help

cm partial shelveset delete --help

All platforms - PlasticX, GluonX: Added select all shortcut

Added a new shortcut to select all rows in the tables and trees where the multiple selection is allowed:

- Ctrl + A (Windows and Linux)

- Cmd + A (MacOS)

Due to conflicts with existing keyboard shortcuts, the following shortcuts have been modified:

* "Annotate" shortcut, replaced with Ctrl + T (Windows/Linux), Cmd + T in MacOs

* "Apply label to workspace content" shortcut, replaced with Ctrl + L (Windows/Linux), Cmd + L in MacOs