Visual Basic and Source Safe question. 1

[Mavors]

Hello,

The company I work for has just invested in Source Safe to allow multiple programmers to work on one application at the same time. I was unable to find a forum here that specialized on Source Safe so I figured this would be the best place to post. We seem to be having problems getting each users working folder to stay something other than the location of the Visual basic project. Every time we start up the project we must run Source Safe and update the working folder. We are still in the learing stages and are teaching ourselfs how to use Source Safe which may be most of our problem. If anyone has experience with Source safe and VB or can please point me in the direction of a good site for information I would really appreciate it.

Thank you for your time and effort.
Mavors
Programmer
Cincinnati, Ohio

 

[woyler]

The Working Folder is unique to the each PC and should point to the VB project. This is so if you check out a project, it will check out to the location of your local working copy. I apologize if I have not understood your question, but it sounds to me like you are trying to have multiple programmers work on the same files at the same time. That is exactly what VSS is designed to prevent. Only one programmer can have a checked out writable copy of a file at any given time.
Many good articles stem from this sight:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnvss/html/msdn_mngproj.asp

Like I said, if I misunderstood I am sorry

 

[Mavors]

Woyler,

Thank you for your response and suggested article. After reading my post again I think even I would not have understood it in full That the working folder should be unique is what we are striving for, but it seems that the working folde seems to default to the Project location on the server every time we open the project. We are looking for a reason this may be occurring or maybe a reason why this is not a problem.

On open of the project if I hit menu Tools/SourceSafe/run Source Safe and click on the project in the Source Safe it always changes the work folder to the location of the project. If I change it then and there it saves until I open the project again. At this point the working folder seems to be updated and defaults to the location of the Project on the server.

Thank you for you help,
Mavors
Programmer
Cincinnati, Ohio

 

[oneshadow]

Hello Mavors,
I was working with SS once, but it almost 2 years ago so I can't remember the detail. As far as I remember, the project files on every client machine need to be placed on the same folder with the server's. And every time we open the project, we must run "Get Latest Version" command to keep our files up to date.

From my experience, SS is good for a team-work-application but if the SS database corrupt or having problem to open, you will face a nightmare.

Sorry that I can't help you more.:-I

 

[woyler]

Mavors, I apologize if I am still not reading you clearly. Lets see if this clears it up....
First set up a location on the server for the VSS database. This is where all VSS files will be stored.
(\\MyServerName\ITShare\VSS\srcsafe.ini)
You then can open VSS on a client machine and specify that path as the default. Now say we have a project named VBApp.vbp. Create a project folder under the root directory in VSS. I believe it defaults to $/. Create as many folders in the hierarchy as you need, just as in Windows Explorer. After you create the project folder(s)($/VBApp), open the folder and select Add Files from the File menu. Browse to the file(s) you want to add and select Add. After the files are added to the project, from the client machine, open VSS and go to the new project folder.Right click on the folder and select "Set Working Folder". This path will point to the location on the client machine where the files will reside when checked out. After they are checked out the first time, when this project is opened on the client machine, VB will automatically check in/check out to and from this location. After the woking folder is set you can alternatively right click on the files in the VB project explorer window and check in/check out from there. Only one person can have any particular file checked out at a time. Everyone else can "Get Latest Version" but any changes to the files can only be updated with the checked out version.
I hope this helps.

 

[kaleatul]

To Allow Multiple Check Outs:
Open the Visual SourceSafe Database [srcsafe.ini] from the SourceSafe Admin tool. Open the Options Dialog Box (Tools->Options) and on the General Tab, put a Check mark on the "Allow Multiple Checkouts" checkbox.
It Controls whether many people can check out one file simultaneously. Under ordinary circumstances, only one person can have a file checked out of VSS at one time. If you select this box, VSS allows many people to check out the same file. When the first user checks in the file, VSS updates the file, thereafter, VSS merges in all subsequent changes.

 

[Mavors]

Thank you all for the great information and tips. I think I get how it is all supposed to work now, but think I had best do a bit more reading on the subject to protect myself from mistakes.

Again thank you all for your time and effort,

Mavors
Programmer
Cincinnati, Ohio

 

[bascy]

We're using VSS too, and i remember that the working folder is set as a User-option, so its set different for every usename that is used to log in to the database.

Are you using different users on the netwerk, and using VSS-usernames equal to the network usernames?

then in the VSS database (where the srcsafe.ini file resides) in the directory users, you will find for every user a ss.ini file. In this file all the user dependent options are saved.

We've agreeed within our team that we will use the directory d:\projects as the base of all our working directories. Just right click on project /$ and set working directory to d:\project. VSS will calculate working dirs for other projects automatically if you don't explicitly set those. So VSS-project VBProj will use working dir d:\projects\VBProj, its subproject FRM wil use working dir d:\project\VBproj\FRM, etc etc

This way all references within the project will stay valid when checking it out on a different workstation, even if they are absolute!

Bascy