Creating, Editing and Deleting files – check in vs local save
After the system administrator has successfully configured the appliance and a project owner has invited you to join the project as a developer, you are excited to start interacting with elements (files and folders). This article will describe how you can access, create, modify and delete elements in VersionVault Express.
But where do elements live?
VersionVault express elements reside in the “Code” tab of a stream view. You can access that tab in 3 simple steps.
- After logging in, navigate to the stream view by clicking on the project tile
- On the top left of your stream view, in the “Switch or create stream” input box, enter the name of your developer stream
- Click on the stream name to navigate to that stream view.
You should now see the “Code” tab selected by default with a “Readme” file in it if the project was created with a Readme file. If you do not see one, fear not. We will next see how to create our first file next.
Creating element(s)
Creating elements can be achieved in two ways. You can either create them explicitly in via the “Add” button at the top right of the “Code” section or upload them via drag and drop anywhere in the code section.
- Manually creating elements
Once you click on the “Add” button, you will be given the option to create different element types as illustrated below.
Once you select an option and fill the required fields, you will be able to perform a local save or a check in of the element. Locally saved files are only visible to you while checked in files will be visible by any developer who is part of the project that views your stream.
- Uploading existing elements
To upload elements, you simply need to drag and drop them in the code section. The files will be checked in and listed after they are successfully uploaded.
Editing element(s)
Each row in the code section’s primary table contains an individual element’s data. Clicking on a row element will open a view with an “Edit” dropdown option on the top right (as illustrated below). You can click on that button and select either of the two options to proceed. While the “Edit file” will simply checkout the file for you to modify, the “Comment and edit” option, does the same thing as the “Edit file” option but also provides you with a possibility to add a checkout comment.
You will notice that the “Check-outs” link at the top right of your code view is now active and displaying the number one in parentheses. This is because when you click on the “Edit” button to edit a file, the file gets checked out. The beforementioned number, in this case one, will reflect the number of files currently checked out in your view.
Deleting elements(s)
Hovering over an element in the table will give you the option to delete that element via a delete icon. Once that icon is clicked, you will see a confirmation dialog and the option to “check in” that change to complete the delete operation. You also have the option to delete multiple elements at the time. Each table element entry has a checkbox in its first column that can be used to select it. To delete multiple files, you can select multiple elements and click the delete icon at the top right of the table to confirm the delete operation.
It is important to know that deleting elements removes them from visibility in your stream, but the prior history is retained. Anywhere the element was used, such as in previous baselines, is unchanged. And the removal of the file will flow like any other change through deliver and rebase operations. For more details about streams and baselines, please visit Overview of Streams.
As a recap, we have seen how to create, modify and delete elements in VersionVault Express. We have also explored the difference between a local save and a check in. To explore some of these concepts in more detail, please refer to our blog site.
