Plastic SCM WEB UI

Plastic SCM WEB UI

Monday, October 15, 2012 Amalia 2 Comments

We’re glad to announce Plastic SCM 4.1.10.357. The most important feature in this new release is the new WebUI beta! The WebUI is finally here and ready to install! But remember it is still in Beta status, so it will still have some rough edges. We’ll be more than happy to hear from your suggestions.

We published it as part of the 4.1 series instead of waiting for the next major release, so you can try it out on your current environment and we can get your feedback asap

Remember you can find the latest installer here.

What is the Plastic SCM WebUI?

We’ve developed a Web User Interface to enable Plastic SCM users to browse repositories online. The new WebUI (as we named it internally) features a repository view, items view, it lets you browse branches and changesets and also run code reviews online, which is one of its most useful capabilities.

We’ve also included a statistics module that calculates some interesting graphs from your repository data.

This is how the repository view shows up on the WebUI:

Installation and Setup Guide

The Plastic SCM WebUI needs to be configured as a client. We have performed the application install for IIS (Microsoft Windows). Carry out these steps to set up Plastic SCM WebUI, and you will be ready for browsing in no time.

First things first: if you haven't got the Web Deploy component up and running, carry out the following steps:

• Download the Web Deploy component from here.
  Note: This is the direct download link. Web Deploy simplifies the deployment of web applications and websites to IIS servers.
• Now, the option to import and export packages is available in the IIS7 management console. Follow these steps:
• Open IIS manager:
  
• Click on the server, then the site where you want the application installed.
• Click on "Import Application" in the Deploy actions on the actions bar on the right side of the screen.
  
• Select the Plastic SCM WebUI package zip file:
  
• Confirm the path where the application will be installed:
  
• Fill in the application name inside the web site
• Fill in the server hostname and port (server::port) of the Plastic SCM server to which this WebUI client will connect to:
  
• Select the Plastic SCM server authentication method from the list:
  • LDAP
  • AD
  • Plastic's own user and password database
  
• Finish the setup. The package will be extracted and the installation will be ready:
  

To test the installation, connect to the machine where the package has just been installed on the URL: http://server/site/plastic

WEBUI

The Plastic SCM WebUI is the representation of all the features of your repositories on a web page. A user-friendly web interface means it can be used by anyone, even if they have no deep knowledge of it. The WebUI shows your repository from different points of view.

At the top of the page, there are the different options where you can choose to see the information of your repository. Every one shows the same thing from different points of view.

Items

Items consist of files, directories, and symbolic links that are under source control, that is, whose changes are monitored by Plastic SCM, and whose revisions are to be preserved in a repository.

In this web page you can see for every item:

• Changeset: shows all information about the changeset in which you made the item
• Branch: branch where the item exists.
• Date: date of the last modification
• Author: user-assigned name.

Changesets

Each time you check in a set of new revisions, whether it's a single file or an entire source tree, Plastic SCM records the entire set of revisions as a changeset. Changesets are automatically assigned integer changeset numbers, so you can choose which you want to see on the Web UI.

In this web page you can filter by date. All the information, by default, is shown in ascending dates. On each date, you can see groups of the changesets recorded on that day.

In this web page, you can see:

• Author: each branch will have a user-assigned name.
• Changeset: the number of changesets.
• Comment: a short bit of text which explains the meaning of the changeset.
• Date: the last date of modification.
• Actions: in this column, you can find three different kinds of actions:
  • CR: code review of the current branch.
  • Css: changeset of the current branch.
  • Brw: items of the current branch.

Branches

Branches are the core of the developer's work. Plastic SCM supports parallel development or concurrent development with branches.

• Author: each branch will have a user-assigned name.
• Branch: any branch can have sub-branches, creating a hierarchy of branches. All of them will be showed here
• Comment: a short bit of text which explains the meaning of the branch
• Date: the last date of modification
• Actions: in this column, you can find three different kinds of actions:
  • CR: code review of the current branch
  • Css: changeset of the current branch
  • Brw: items of the current branch

Labels

A label is a user-defined name that can be attached to a changeset. It’s a great feature because names are easier to remember than changeset numbers.

In this web page, you can see:

• Author: each branch will have a user-assigned name
• Changeset: the number of the changeset
• Comment: a short bit of text which explains the name of the label
• Date: the last date of modification.
• Actions: in this column, you can find only this one action:
  • Brw: items of the current branch

There are another two options at the top menu:

Code reviews

A code review is essentially about reading code and leaving comments. You can do it from:

• Changesets
• Branches: choose one of the items belonging to the current branch

You can filter the code reviews you want to see:

• All code reviews
• Assigned to me
• Created by me
• All pending reviews

The following image shows how to create a new code review for a changeset:

There are three status for a code Review:

• Pending
• Approved
• Discarded

Charts

A chart is useful way to present and display information. There are three kinds of charts:

• Branch charts
• Changeset charts
• Revision charts

In every option, you can find a lot of different charts. By default, you see a thumbnail image, but if click on it, you enlarge it.

Revision charts: there are special charts in this option

In all charts where in the legend you can see the names of the developers you can pick up a name to: add in the chart, if the name is in color (selected) or subtractive in the chart if the name is in grey color (unselected)

For example, another chart where you can see the changeset per developer

So what?

The Plastic SCM WebUI is an attractive product makes viewing information easier. Its design is not only functional, but effective and efficient. Just have a quick look at it, to see all the information about your repositories, branches, items, labels, and so on.

The Plastic SCM WebUI is the place where you can make quick consults. It shows you clear data about the evolution of your work.

We hope you appreciate the Plastic SCM WebUI and most importantly, have fun with it!

Note: Hope you enjoy our pictures in flickr