HCL VersionVault integration with NetBeans

NetBeans is an integrated development environment (IDE) for Java. In addition to Java development, it has extensions for other languages like PHP, C, C++, HTML5 and JavaScript.

The HCL VersionVault – NetBeans Integration provides features to do VersionVault basic operations from the NetBeans IDE.

Using VersionVault Support in NetBeans IDE

The IDE’s VersionVault support is designed to help you perform versioning tasks directly to your project when working in the IDE.

HCL VersionVault is a software configuration management tool developed by HCL. VersionVault forms the base of version control for projects of many large and medium-sized businesses.

To get the NetBeans VersionVault support,

1. Get the binaries from HCL marketplace NetBeans – HCL Plugins (hcltechsw.com) and un-zip it.
2. From NetBeans IDE, Go to the Plugin Manager in the IDE (Tools > Plugins from the main menu) àSelect ‘Downloaded’ tab à Configure ‘VersionVault’ and ‘Versioning Support Utilities’ plugins and install the plugins, as shown below:

VersionVault Support in NetBeans IDE

Setting up VersionVault

Before you can take advantage of the IDE’s VersionVault support, you need to have the VersionVault client software installed and running on your computer.

NetBeans VersionVault support works with both snapshot and dynamic views. Views have to be configured externally from the IDE and a connection to a VersionVault server must be properly set up. No extra work is needed to access files in snapshot views. If you want to access files from a dynamic view however, you must first start the view with the native VersionVault tools installed on your computer.

Note: Currently it is not possible to connect to a VersionVault Remote Client (VVRC).

The IDE’s VersionVault support works by interacting with the ‘cleartool’ command line interface (CLI) to carry out versioning commands. Depending on your system, and whether you install the cleartool client to a non-default location, you may also need to register the path to the cleartool executable in the IDE.

Specifying the path to the cleartool executable

         The NetBeans IDE automatically tries to identify the location of the cleartool executable file by using the $PATH system environment variable on your computer. Depending on your platform however, or whether you installed the VersionVault client to a different location, it may be necessary to specify the path to the executable file explicitly. To set the path to the VersionVault executable file in the IDE:

1. Choose Tools > Options from the main menu. The Options dialog opens.
2. Select the Miscellaneous icon along the top of the dialog, then click the Versioning tab. In the left pane under Versioning Systems, select VersionVault. User-defined options for VersionVault display in the main window of the dialog:

Specifying the path to the cleartool executable

1. In the Executable Path text field, either type in the path to the executable file or click Browse to navigate to it on your system.
2. Click OK, then restart the IDE to allow changes to take effect.

Starting to work with Versioned Files

When working with VersionVault in the IDE for the first time, you need to begin by opening an existing versioned project, or by creating a new project within a VersionVault view on your computer.

• Opening an Existing Project in the IDE
• Creating a New Project and Placing it under Source Control

Opening an Existing Project in the IDE

If you already have a VersionVault versioned project which you have been working with, you can open it in the IDE and versioning features will automatically become available to you. The IDE scans your open projects and if they are located in a VersionVault view directory, file status and context-sensitive menu support automatically become active.

To open a VersionVault versioned project:

• Choose File > Open Project from the main menu and work your way through the Open Project wizard. When specifying the project location, navigate to the location within a VersionVault view directory on your computer. When you complete the wizard, the project displays in the Projects window (Ctrl-1), and versioning support becomes active.

                            (or)

• You can also open a project or directory in the Favorites window. This may be necessary if your VersionVault directory is not a NetBeans project. To do so, right-click in the Favorites window (Ctrl-3) and choose Add to Favorites. In the Add to Favorites dialog that displays, navigate to the top-level VersionVault view directory on your computer and click Add. A tree view of the directory is added to the Favorites window.

Creating a New Project and Placing it under Source Control

Alternately, you can create a new project and place it under VersionVault source control, then continue to work on it in the IDE. When you create a new project, you need to specify its location within a VersionVault view. This allows the IDE to recognize that versioning support is required. When the project is created, all files are initially view-private. You can then add the project to the VersionVault server using the IDE’s Add to Source Control command.

To create a new project:

1. Choose File > New Project from the main menu and work your way through the New Project wizard.
2. In Step 2, Name and Location, select a directory in a VersionVault view.
3. When you click Finish, the project is created, and a tree view of its directory is added to the Projects window (Ctrl-1). Upon creation, the IDE automatically recognizes that the project is in a view and all relevant VersionVault actions and file status information become available.

When a versioned project is opened in the IDE, all file and folder names are rendered green, indicating that they have ‘new’ status. (Any files displayed in grey have ‘ignored’ status. See Badges and Color Encoding below for more information.) The IDE automatically decides for each versioned project file whether it is a candidate for version control or not (i.e., Source files in packages are usually meant to be versioned, whereas project private files are generally ignored).

Now that your project is created, you can synchronize it with a VersionVault server using the IDE’s Add to Source Control command:

1. Right-click the project node in the Projects window and choose Add to source control. The Add dialog opens listing all new view-private files which are not automatically ignored by the IDE:

Add to source control

1. Type in a message in the Describing Message text area. Alternatively, click the Recent Messages ( ) icon located in the upper right corner to view and select from a list of messages that you have previously used.
2. After specifying actions for individual files, click Add. The IDE’s status bar, located in the bottom right of the interface, displays as the Add action takes place. Upon a successful Add, versioning badges disappear in the Projects, Files and Favorites windows, and the color encoding of checked-in files becomes black.

Note: From the Add dialog, it is possible to specify whether to exclude individual files from the Add action. To do so, click the Action column of a selected file and choose Do not Add from the drop-down list.

Checking out Sources

Once you have a VersionVault versioned project opened in the IDE, you can begin making changes to sources. Modifying VersionVault versioned files requires them to be checked out or hijacked first. NetBeans VersionVault support provides two ways to achieve this:

• Manually: Simply right-click a file node and choose VersionVault > Checkout (or VersionVault > Hijack).
• Using the On Demand Checkout feature: Each time an action occurs that requires a file to be writable (e.g. changing file contents in the editor for the first time or running a refactoring action), the IDE automatically runs the relevant VersionVault command.

The On Demand Checkout feature can be fine-tuned using the On Demand checkout option in VersionVault Options dialog.

Editing Sources

As with any project opened in NetBeans IDE, you can open files in the Source Editor by double-clicking their nodes, as they appear in the IDE’s windows (e.g. Projects (Ctrl-1), Files (Ctrl-2), Favorites (Ctrl-3) windows).

When working with sources in the IDE, there are various UI components at your disposal, which aid in both viewing and operating version control commands:

• Viewing Changes in the Source Editor
• Viewing File Status Information
• Comparing File Versions

Viewing Changes in the Source Editor

When you open a versioned file in the IDE’s Source Editor, you can view real-time changes occurring to your file as you modify it against your previously checked-out version from the repository. As you work, the IDE uses color encoding in the Source Editor’s margins to convey the following information:

The Source Editor’s left margin shows changes occurring on a line-by-line basis. When you modify a given line, changes are immediately shown in the left margin.

You can click on a color grouping in the margin to revert the newly made changes. For example, the screen capture below left shows widgets available to you when clicking a red icon, indicating that lines have been removed from your checked out file.

The Source Editor’s right margin provides you with an overview that displays changes made to your file as a whole, from top to bottom. Color encoding is generated immediately when you make changes to your file.

Note that you can click on a specific point within the margin to bring your inline cursor immediately to that location in the file. To view the number of lines affected, hover your mouse over the colored icons in the right margin:

Left Margin

Left Margin

Viewing File Status Information

 Right Margin

Figure 1. blue versioning badge displays in Favorites window

Badges, color coding, file status labels, and perhaps most importantly, the Versioning window all contribute to your ability to effectively view and manage and versioning information in the IDE.

• Badges and Color Coding
• File Status Labels
• The Versioning Window

Badges and Color Coding

Badges are applied to project, folder, and package nodes and inform you of the status of files contained within that node:

The following table displays the color scheme used for badges:

Color coding is applied to file names in order to indicate their current status:

File Status Labels

File status labels provide a textual indication of the status of versioned files in the IDE’s windows. By default, the IDE displays status (new, reserved, unreserved, ignored, etc.) information in gray text to the right of files, as they are listed in windows. You can, however, modify this format to suit your own needs. For example, if you want to add version selectors to status labels, do the following:

1. Choose Tools > Options from the main menu. The Options window opens.
2. Select the Miscellaneous button along the top of the window, then click the Versioning tab beneath it. Make sure VersionVault is selected beneath Versioning Systems in the left panel. (See the above screen capturefor reference.)
3. Click the Add Variable button to the right of the status label Format text field. In the Add Variable dialog that displays, select the v2.6.5 variable, then click OK. The version variable is added to the status label Format text field.
4. To reformat status labels so that only status and version selector display to the right of files, rearrange the contents of the Status Label Format text field to the following:

[{status}; {version}]

Click OK. Status labels now list file status and version selector (where applicable):

File Status Labels

Figure 2. file labels display next to file names

File status labels can be toggled on and off by choosing View > Show Versioning Labels from the main menu.

The Versioning Window

The VersionVault Versioning window provides you with a real-time list of all of the changes made to files within a selected folder of your local working copy. It opens by default in the bottom panel of the IDE, listing new, checked out, or hijacked files.

To open the Versioning window, select a versioned file or folder (e.g. from the Projects, Files, or Favorites window) and either choose VersionVault > Show Changes from the right-click menu, or choose Versioning > Show Changes from the main menu. The following window appears in the bottom of the IDE:

The Versioning Window

By default, the Versioning window displays a list of all files within the selected package or folder that exhibit a noteworthy status (i.e., new, reserved, unreserved, etc.). You can click the column headings above the listed files to sort the files by name, status, location or rule.

The Versioning window toolbar also includes buttons that enable you to invoke the most common VersionVault tasks on all files displayed in the list. The following table lists the VersionVault commands available in the toolbar of the Versioning window:

You can access other VersionVault commands in the Versioning window by selecting a table row that corresponds to a file, and choosing a command from the right-click menu:

VersionVault commands

Figure 3. Right-click menu displays on a selected file in the Versioning window

For example, you can perform the following actions on a file:

* Show Annotations:

Displays author and revision number information in the left margin of files opened in the Source Editor.

Show Annotations

* Exclude from Checkin:

Allows you to mark the file to be excluded when performing a checkin

Exclude from Checkin

When you perform a diff, a graphical Diff Viewer opens for the selected file(s) in the IDE’s main window. The Diff Viewer displays two copies in side-by-side panels:

Comparing File Versions

The Diff Viewer makes use of the same color encoding used elsewhere to display version control changes. In the screen capture displayed above, the green block indicates content that has been added to the more current version. The red block indicates that content from the earlier version has been removed from the later. Blue indicates that changes have occurred within the highlighted line(s).

Also, when performing a diff on a group of files, such as on a project, package, or folder, or when clicking Diff All (), you can switch between diffs by clicking files listed in the upper region of the Diff Viewer.

The Diff Viewer also provides you with the following functionality:

• Make Changes to your checked out file
• Navigate Among Differences

Make Changes to your checked out file

If you are performing a diff on checked out files, it is possible to make changes directly from within the Diff Viewer. To do so, you can either place your cursor within the right pane of the Diff Viewer and modify your file accordingly, otherwise make use of the inline icons that display adjacent to each highlighted change:

Replace ():	Inserts the highlighted text from the previous versions into the checked out version
Move All ():	Reverts the file’s checkedout version to the state of the selected previous version
Remove ():	Removes the highlighted text from the checked out version so that it mirrors the previous version

Navigate among Differences between Compared Files

If your diff contains multiple differences, you can navigate among them by using the arrow icons displayed in the toolbar. The arrow icons enable you to view differences as they appear from top to bottom:

Previous ():	Goes to previous difference displayed in the diff
Next ():	Goes to next difference displayed in the diff

Checking in Sources

After making changes to sources, you check them in to the repository. The IDE enables you to call the checkin command in the following ways:

• From the Projects, Files or Favorites windows, right-click new or checked-out items and choose VersionVault > Checkin.
• From the Versioning window or Diff Viewer, click the Checkin All () button located in the toolbar.

The Checkin dialog opens, listing:

• all checked-out files
• all new files, which will be automatically added to source control first (i.e., view-private files which are not yet versioned and are not ignored by the IDE).

Checking in Sources

From the Checkin dialog, it is possible to specify whether to exclude individual files from the checkin. To do so, click the Checkin Action column of a selected file and choose Exclude from Checkin from the drop-down list.

To perform the checkin:

Type in a checkin message in the Checkin Message text area. Alternatively, click the Recent Messages (  ) icon located in the upper right corner to view and select from a list of messages that you have previously used.

After specifying actions for individual files, click Checkin. The IDE executes the checkin. The IDE’s status bar, located in the bottom right of the interface, displays as the checkin action takes place. Upon a successful checkin, versioning badges disappear in the Projects, Files and Favorites windows, and the color encoding of checked-in files returns to black.