Best Tool to Provide Stability between Flare 7.2.0 and TFS

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mnankin
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Best Tool to Provide Stability between Flare 7.2.0 and TFS

Post by mnankin »

I am experiencing problems when extensive changes are made (such as moving topics around) in Flare and those changes are checked back in to TFS. I have seen some discussion in this Forum regarding Tortoise and it looks like there have been some issues there, as well.

In spite of those difficulties, is Tortoise a tool I should be considering?

Are there other tools that someone could recommend to me?

Does Madap provide a solution to this instability issue?

Thank you for any suggestions you can provide.
RamonS
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Re: Best Tool to Provide Stability between Flare 7.2.0 and TFS

Post by RamonS »

Tortoise is a UI frontend to either Subversion or CVS. If you use TFS as source control Tortoise will not do any good, unless you want to abandon TFS entirely and try a different source control system. In that case Subversion would be a good choice, but it may or may not fix your problems. In the best case it replaces one set of issues with another one, which may be less annoying to deal with.
i-tietz
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Re: Best Tool to Provide Stability between Flare 7.2.0 and TFS

Post by i-tietz »

We're also experiencing problems with Source Control when moving files or folders or renaming them - in our case that's with MS VSS 2005.
Nobody knows yet what causes the problems but I'm more and more convinced it's our computers: They're too fast for Flare and the data exchange with the source control database. Maybe you should place a bug report? And if they tell you they cannot reproduce the problem, could you send them your hardware and software settings?
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RamonS
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Re: Best Tool to Provide Stability between Flare 7.2.0 and TFS

Post by RamonS »

Also, Flare is just another client to source control. What you can also do is use the native client. Check all (needed) files out in Flare, then do the work, then use the native client to check everything back in.

Inge - I somewhat doubt that computers are too fast, but it is possible. Did you try a native VSS client (such as one from within VisualStudio, there may be others) to see if that generates the same problem? Not proposing that as a workaround, but more as a troubleshooting step.
i-tietz
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Re: Best Tool to Provide Stability between Flare 7.2.0 and TFS

Post by i-tietz »

Since the VSS database is still on the same server using the same server software it just has to be a client problem ...
Never had problems with VSS db directly. I used it frequently in the last year to see where the problems are. But I do have problems with link updates, the status of objects and the merge tool, i.e.: with Flare communicating with the VSS db.

And yes: I also thought that a computer cannot be too fast for software. But I had to learn - obviously there's even a market for tools that slow down the computer in those cases ... I'm already working on my IT department to buy a licence for my computer to find out.
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mnankin
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Re: Best Tool to Provide Stability between Flare 7.2.0 and TFS

Post by mnankin »

We have Sharepoint, but in reviewing the messages in this forum, that does not seem to be an ideal option. What do you mean by "native client"?
i-tietz
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Re: Best Tool to Provide Stability between Flare 7.2.0 and TFS

Post by i-tietz »

mnankin wrote:What do you mean by "native client"?
The Source Sontrol Software on the client computers.

Apart from Flare we work with this configuration of MS Visual Source Safe 2005 (=MS VSS 2005):
- There's an ordinary network server which has the database on it - accessible for all users that are supposed to work on the database/projects in the database.
- And there's the client computer with the software. That software on the local client computer is necessary to access the database. You can use it to check in, check out, delete, administrate, ... for those tasks you don't need Flare, but: You need Flare e.g. to move files if you need a link update, because the client software doesn't give a damn on whether files contain links that need to be updated.
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mnankin
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Re: Best Tool to Provide Stability between Flare 7.2.0 and TFS

Post by mnankin »

I have been reading posts and researching Source Control of Flare files through Apache Subversion. Would that be a source control tool we could use to save updated Flare files and then upload them to TFS?
RamonS
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Re: Best Tool to Provide Stability between Flare 7.2.0 and TFS

Post by RamonS »

mnankin wrote:I have been reading posts and researching Source Control of Flare files through Apache Subversion. Would that be a source control tool we could use to save updated Flare files and then upload them to TFS?
No, Subversion IS a source control system. If you place files into Subversion you no longer need TFS. Which means if you currently use TFS then switching to Subversion isn't necessary unless it addresses a specific need.
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Re: Best Tool to Provide Stability between Flare 7.2.0 and TFS

Post by rheinlander »

Maybe it is not a bug or failure, neither of Flare nor the source control (Subversion, TFS, ...). It is just that the renamed or moved files are unknown to the source control until the move or rename operation has been checked in. Until the opreration was checked in, operations that include the checked-out renamed or moved files will lead to an error (maybe "File not found in repository" or something similar).

We use Flare 7.2 and Subversion with Tortoise and also experienced problems after file renames and moves. To be honest: Moving and renaming files has always been a critical task in Flare. Handling renames or moves ist best done with care anyway.

Best practise for a work around: After moving or renaming a file in Flare, immediately checkin this change before continuing with other operations. I suppose everything will work fine then. At least everything works fine with our projects.

Besides this, Subversion integration of Flare 7.2 works really well.

Kind regards
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jacknotarangelo
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Re: Best Tool to Provide Stability between Flare 7.2.0 and TFS

Post by jacknotarangelo »

We are finding that when required fields, such as check-in comments, aren't entered by the user of Flare at check-in time, Flare doesn't handle it gracefully and we need to untangle the mix up between Flare and TFS. Is there any advice you can provide to alleviate issues like this?
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Re: Best Tool to Provide Stability between Flare 7.2.0 and TFS

Post by SteveS »

I haven't used Flare with TFS for a number of years now, so my thoughts could be considered somewhat out of date...

Microsoft used to have some great toys called TFS power toys or similar. Basically allowed me to use a tool to check the files under TFS on my laptop and check in files I'd changed (even though I hadn't checked them out before going on the road). It might bee worth looking into the little apps the backroom boys at MS write 'in their spare time', some are quite handy...
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