Explorer 0.10.0 release plans - call for testing and translations

[A. S. Budden]

2009/12/11 Alexander Belchenko <bialix at ukr.net>:
> A. S. Budden пишет:
>>
[snip]
>
> I think current automated way to build installer (modulo TBZR, perhaps you
> don't use it?) will work for you.

Thanks: that might be worth a look (I don't use Tortoise Bazaar as it
seems to slow down access to network drives rather a lot).

>> As an unrelated aside, I was wondering about writing a patch to the
>> Bazaar Explorer checkout dialog to add an additional option to allow
>> heavyweight or lightweight checkouts (as we generally use the
>> heavyweight ones).  I realise that this could be considered to add
>> 'clutter' to the dialog, so before I write it I was wondering: would
>> you have any objection to this?
>
> I don't have any objections, but you'd better ping and push Ian when he will
> back.

Okay, will do.

> That was his idea to push checkouts to be lightweights always, and call
> heavyweight as bound branches. I think there was discussion re user model
> cleanup in the main bzr list, but I don't remember details.
>
> I think what you need is actually possible to achieve by branch+bound, so in
> the terms of bound branches you'd better extend current branch dialog
> (qbranch or qgetnew in QBzr, depending on what bzr-explorer uses). As QBzr
> developer I won't object against checkbox in qbranch to run `bzr bind
> :parent` after successful branch. Our current architecture makes it easy and
> possible. Wanna try?

Short answer: No.  Long answer:

Although I appreciate the suggestion, I'd rather not put it in qbranch
to be honest.  The most important criteria for a working folder for us
is that it is directly linked to our (extremely regularly and
incrementally backed up) server.  Therefore, either a lightweight or
heavyweight checkout is acceptable.  I like heavyweight ones as they
give the option of doing local commits when the network is being slow
or when working on a laptop, but the default is ALWAYS to go to the
server.

With a lightweight/heavyweight option in the checkout dialog, we would
show the users in the department that they must always use the
checkout dialog and then they can choose one of two options.  With the
option in qbranch, they either go to checkout or branch but if they go
to branch they MUST configure it in a non-default way.  In my mind,
there's much more room for error in the latter case and it could cause
me a lot of headaches in the future.

I can work round the checkout aspect by suggesting that users uncheck
the "Use custom checkout dialog" button and use QBzr's checkout dialog
instead.  It's just a shame that Bazaar Explorer doesn't automatically
open the checkout.  It also doesn't (obviously) get around my ongoing
desire for the "Remote Feature Branches" initialisation.

I guess the user model issues are very different depending on how you
work: we chose Bazaar because it allows the server-linked model.  The
distinction of bound (lightweight or heavyweight checkout) and unbound
(standalone branch) is _far_ more important than the distinction
between has-history (heavyweight checkout or unbound branch) and
no-history (lightweight checkout).  Therefore, the (in Bazaar as
opposed to Bazaar Explorer) current naming convention of checkouts vs
branches suits us perfectly.

As an aside, the one thing I would love to see in the branch dialog (I
guess) is a way to take an existing (no-trees) branch on the server
and create a new (no-trees) repository/trunk on the server with a new
local checkout.  If I understand it correctly, I think that this is
also what John A. Meinel was suggesting with Bug #430251.  I guess at
the moment it's not too bad as you can create the repository without
working trees and then use qswitch to do the rest.

Apologies for another very long email!

Al

-- 
http://sites.google.com/site/abudden