Vault 2.0

Eric Sink announced what is to be included in Vault 2.0 today. Some pretty interesting and useful stuff in there.

One of my favorites is the inclusion of lightweight tags for those of us who label like madmen and don’t need the full power of the previous version’s label solution. Vault 1.x labels are actually “pinned branches”. It is a very cool concept (unpin a label and, poof, you have a full-fledged branch) but it was often overkill. So now we have the lightweight tag called a “Label” and a pinned-branch called a “Snapshot” (and the standard “Branch” of course).

Eric and his crew just keep reinforcing my decision to buy their product. All things considered, they have the best product on the market right now.

Here is a more complete list of the changes:

  • SourceGear DiffMerge: New diff and merge applications replaces the diff and merge windows which were previously built-in to Vault.
  • Show Differences allows several choices of how to compare the working file:
  • To its corresponding repository file
  • To a labeled version of the file
  • To another file on the local disk
  • To another repository file
  • External merge app: Users who want to configure a different application for external merge can now do so.
  • Repository level security: Allows a repository to be completely hidden from a user or group of users.
  • Web client: Allows basic browsing of the contents and history of a repository using any web browser.
  • Needs Merge: Files in a Needs Merge status are more obvious.  They are shown in red in the pending changeset.  At checkin time, a warning dialog reminds the user of the need to resolve the merge.
  • Obliterate: Much, much faster.  (This improvement will also be released in version 1.2.3)
  • Shadow folders: Automatically maintain a synchronized copy of the contents of a repository folder.
  • Lightweight labels: SourceSafe-style labels (aka "tags"):
  • Very lightweight
  • Supported by the VSS Import Tool
  • Includes VSS-style "label promotion" feature
  • Snapshots: Vault 1.x labels are still supported, and are now known as "snapshots".
  • Login Profiles: Login faster by saving commonly used username/password information in profiles.
  • Prompt for overwrite: During a Get Latest Version, specify that you want to be prompted before overwriting any edited file.
  • Unknown files: By default, don't overwrite files with Unknown status.
  • Proxy authentication: Support authentication for proxy servers which require it.
  • Copy from pending changeset: The pending changeset panel allows copying the list of change items to the clipboard.
  • Ctrl-A: For consistency with other Windows applications, Ctrl-A now maps to Select All.
  • Non-Windows platforms: Using Mono, run the Vault command-line client under various Unix-ish platforms, including Linux, Solaris, and MacOS X.
  • Command-line client: Lots of improvements to the Vault command-line client, including wildcards.
  • Merge Branches Wizard: A new Merge Branches feature replaces the Merge Branch into Trunk feature.
  • Merge changes between branch and trunk in either direction.
  • Merge changes from any folder to any other repository folder, even if neither is a branch of the other.
  • Specify exactly which changes you want to merge from the origin folder to the target.
  • Option to automatically merge individual files or leave them in Needs Merge status for manual examination using the SourceGear DiffMerge app.
  • Failed login: Better error message avoids password-guessing attack.
  • Failed connection to SQL Server: Better error message helps with resolution of common configuration problem.
  • Checkin dialog: When invoked from a context menu on a folder, the checkin dialog only lists the pending items which appear under that folder.

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