Serena Dimensions Plugin in JDeveloper (Version Control)

Question

Hi,
I have several questions regarding Dimensions plugin in JDeveloper and was wondering if someone could help us with. I had contacted Dimesions support and was told to contact Oracle as the Dimensions plugin was developed by Oracle. These questions are as follows.
1.     Disabling Auto Checkout
The issue is that when we download a project/workspace in JDeveloper using the Dimensions plugin and start modifying the file, the plugin automatically checks-out the file and puts a lock on the file in the repository. For project and workspace files (.jpr and .jws) it becomes an issue because no one else in the team can work on the project simultaneously.
a.     Is there a way to disable auto check out through the plugin gui? I could not find anything.
b.     I played around with preferences.xml file’s autoCheckouts property by manually setting it to false. Using this does indeed ask one to check out a file. Can you please confirm whether this is the flag we should be modifying manually?
C:\Users\myName\AppData\Roaming\JDeveloper\system11.1.1.1.33.54.07\o.jdeveloper.dimensions\preferences.xml
<Item>
<Key>autoCheckouts</Key>
<Value class="java.lang.Boolean">false</Value>
</Item>
c. Assuming this is the property we should be modifying, and we have set it to false, is there a way to not checkout a file and still work on it? I think making the file writable on the local disk should work. Can you confirm?
2.     Auto writable files: Is there any way to automatically make files writeable when downloading through the JDeveloper plugin?
3.     Documentation and Icons
a.     Is there any documentation/guide regarding JDev/Dimensions plugin? The only one we can get our hands on is “Help” that is included as part of JDeveloper and it is not very helpful.
b.     There are a couple of application navigator icon types that are not explained even in help. I cannot upload them here, but it looks like they mean something like the following
i.     icon that looks like a lock, or a person: Looks like it means that one is not connected or Logged in
ii.     icon with X and no background + {null}: Looks like it means that either the file is not in version control or has been deleted from version control which are two different things.
Further details:
We are using JDeveloper 11.1.1.1.0 (Build JDEVADF_11.1.1.1.0_GENERIC_090615.0017.5407) with Dimensions Versioning Plugin (11.1.1.1.33.54.07).

Answer 1

Hi,
1. Disabling auto checkout
go to menu Tools -> Preferences -> Versioning -> Dimensions -> General
this is the GUI approach to manipulating the preferences xml file that you have found. You should never need to amend this file manually
1.c/2 We have an ER to provide a way to work on a file locally/writeable. It is not possible in this version. You could use the file system to set the file to writeable, but it is not supported
3.a the Help files are the only documentation that we provide. It is not expected to be a full tutorial on Dimensions, but to support using the JDEV UI to interact with Diremnsions.
What do you feel is missing from help?
I have noticed that the Tools - Preferences for Dimensions are not documented in help and I will get a bug raised for that.
b. the lock icon does, indeed, mean logged out. If you hover the mouse over the file in question the tool tip gives the meaning of the icon.
ii. I don't recognise this second icon. Can you reproduce it and hover over the file - let me know what it is, I will get the icons updated in Help
rgds
Susan
susanduncan.blogspot.com