Binding? Importing? I'm confused.

[lauraj]

Sometime last year (you can see my post a little further down this page) I tried to bind one of my Flare projects to TFS, but the performance was hopelessly bad. I want to try it again with the newest version.

My project is, and always has been, *in* TFS. The content and project files are checked i. I check files in & out manually, since the project is not bound. And:
1. When I try to "bind" this project to TFS through Flare, I get an error that the project files are already in the target directory (in my workspace). Yes they are, duh.
2. So I tried to "import from source control", but then Flare wanted to put the project into a different place entirely.

I want it to live in the same place, in my workspace; I don't want a new copy of the files, different location, anything like that. What do I do? Flare's conceptual model seems to be that projects are either in TFS and bound via Flare, or not in TFS at all, and that doesn't match my reality.

I'm working in an "Experimental" zone in the source hierarchy in TFS, so I can play around with this a bit. Ideas are welcome. I hope I'm missing something simple.

[alaltenburg]

I had the same trouble when I put my files in source control before realizing that I could bind them through Flare. What I ended up doing was making a copy to my desktop and then deleted all the files from source control. Then after a fresh reboot, I bound each of the chapters separately through Flare to the same place the files were originally. You may have to try it that way?

HTH
Andrea

[lauraj]

No, I'm not going to do it that way. I don't want to lose all the history of the files -- the checkin comments have helped me solve problems/find stuff more times than I can count.

I've figured out a workaround for rearranging the project: I think that if I make a copy of the project outside of source control (e.g. copy it to my desktop), use Flare to rearrange the files and fix up the links, move the files in the "real" project in TFS, check out the whole project, then copy the desktop copy over the TFS copy, I'll get the links correct and keep the history. Convoluted, but workable.

But thanks for the suggestion! I would like to find a way to do this properly, so that I could have Flare be source-control aware.

[alaltenburg]

I don't know if you are having a similar issue that I have within source control. Now that my files are bound to Source Control, I can check files out through Flare and everything works fine, but if I check the files out through source control directly then Flare doesn't seem to notice and I end up with all types of problems until I reboot.

[rkirkhart]

I see this thread is a little old, so hopefully you've worked it out.

In Flare 7, the help files about Source Control point out that you only need to Bind source control once to the repository (in our case, SVN Subversion). In this step, you are taking files locally on your computer and putting them into the repository (again, SVN specific case but others might work the same way).

After that, each writer starts Flare and Import from Source Control to get a local copy to edit. When you edit the topic, Flare notices it and has reminds you to check in your change.

As always, and especially in this case, read the help files. The covered this fairly well in Flare 7 release.

[lauraj]

We worked it out by reducing our writing staff to the point that I don't share any projects with anybody.

My situation is that my projects are ALREADY IN the repository and I want to tell Flare that this is the case, without having to move my project, remove it from source control, or otherwise modify what's already working. The Flare doc (back in whatever rev I was working with when this first came up) addressed the base use case you're describing just fine (your files are local and you want to bind them via Flare), but didn't address my use case at all.

[rkirkhart]

Ugh, I hate those kind of solutions.... (force reduced).

Anyway, if it's in the repository already, then open Flare and Import from SOurce Control seems to be the only experience that's worked for us - on small projects. From then on, it seems to work. (Again, your Source Control may not be SVN and your experience may be different that what we saw.) None the less, hope it's helpful.

[lauraj]

Thanks! That actually does seem like the right path. I think that back in the wayback, when I tried this, I didn't think that option was available till the project had already been bound via Flare. (Maybe it wasn't, back then? Or maybe I just missed it. )

For some reason, though, when I go through the Import from Source Control path, I'm only seeing the projects in one of the two collections on our TFS server. And as I mentioned, I'm not too motivated to work this out at this point. I'll give it a try another time, or try one of the projects I can see, when I'm working on one of them. Anyway that's farther than I got before, so thanks again!

[siskamoens]

This is brilliant!
You don't want to know what trouble I've gone through to get projects locally and bound again after a branching or project move in TFS. Import from source control works like a charm!

Just curious: in which version of Flare was this added? I can't seem to find it in the release notes...

[NorthEast]

This is brilliant!
You don't want to know what trouble I've gone through to get projects locally and bound again after a branching or project move in TFS. Import from source control works like a charm!

Just curious: in which version of Flare was this added? I can't seem to find it in the release notes...

I'm pretty sure it has been there all the time, since source control was added in v3.

It is covered in the help too; v3 isn't online, but it's there in v4.