Change Perspective UI

The Change Perspective gives you a view of all the View Compare/Merge change packages which have been created, and either are committed or are still uncommitted. The Change Perspective lets you manage change perspectives, review all the information about change packages, review what changes have been made to in each change package, or what changes are being proposed for an uncommitted change package. Managers can review change packages before they are committed, and if appropriate, make additional changes and commit the sessions themselves.

All the changes in a committed change package can be Replayed (applied to another view) using the menu drag and drop, saving the effort and time of re-creating from scratch the same changes in a new VCM change session for another view.

Note: The Change Perspective is actually an alternate view window in the main Cross-Platform Client which can be displayed by clicking on the Show Change Perspective icon on the right side of the toolbar. Clicking the Show Content Perspective icon switches you back to the familiar Cross-Platform Client. Each perspective has its own menu and set of toolbar buttons.

Change Perspective Layouts

When you switch to the Change Perspective, you see the default “side by side” layout with the changes packages listed on the left, and the Details pane on the right. If you have performed and saved any View Compare/Merge sessions prior to showing the Change Perspective, you will see them in the change perspectives list. Which change packages are displayed depends on the filter you select at the top of the list.

StarTeam gives you the option of using one of the two following layouts for the Change Perspective: the “side by side” vertical arrangement, or the “top over bottom” horizontal arrangement.

Side by Side Layout

The “side by side” layout lists the change packages in a column on the left, and the Detail, History, Label, Link, Change, and Replay views in a pane on the right.

The Change Perspective uses some of the regular views from the Content Perspective, but it also has two different views for Change Perspective and Change actions in particular: The Change, and Replay views. These are discussed in more detail later.

In the “side by side” layout, clicking a toolbar button at the top right of the view pane switches the view. Those view toolbar buttons correspond to the tabs in the “top over bottom” view, and have tool tips to show you their functions.

Top over Bottom Layout

The “top over bottom” layout shows the change packages in the top half of the window, and the Detail, History, Label, Link, Change, and Replay views in tabbed panes at the bottom, much like the typical Cross-Platform Client Content Perspective.

Note: To switch to the “top over bottom” layout, click the Layout Top Over Bottom button on the main toolbar.

Change Perspective Toolbars, Tabs, and Menus

Each Change Perspective layout uses either toolbars, tabs, and menus to perform the different change package tasks, or to see different views. As with StarTeam in general, each toolbar button has a corresponding menu item, either on the Change Package menu, or on the context menu inside the Change Perspective.

Toolbars and Tabs

The “side by side” Change Perspective layout uses toolbars at the top of each side to perform functions or change views.

Each side in this layout has its own toolbar. On the left, above the list of change sessions, there are two icons and the filter list.

Properties

Displays the Change Properties dialog box for the selected change package. You can view the change package properties, or if you have the proper access rights, you can modify the properties.

Open (in VCM)

Opens the selected change package in a VCM session. If the change package is new and uncommitted, you can resolve conflicts and commit the session. However, if the selected change package has already been committed, it opens in the VCM session in Read-Only mode. No changes can be made once the session is committed.

Filter

Displays the list of change package sessions according to the selected filters. As with the rest of StarTeam, you can create new filters and queries for the Change Perspective.

Note: The toolbar items on the left move up to the main Cross-Platform Client window in the “top over bottom” layout of the Change Perspective

Displays all the details for the selected change package in the VCM session in which it was created. A changepackage.details.html file is installed by default and utilized by the Detail Viewer which is fully customizable. See “Customizing the Detail Pane."

History View

Detail View - Displays the historical information for the selected change package.

Labels View - Displays the branch and revision labels for the selected change package.

Displays the link information for the selected change package.

Changes View

Links View - Displays all the changes made in the selected committed change package. You can double-click on either a new or committed change package to see those changes in VCM session. You can continue working on the change package in VCM if it has not been committed, however, a committed change package will be read-only and cannot be changed.

Replay View - Displays all the possible views to which a change package can be replayed (the same changes reapplied to another view). simply by dragging the selected change package to the desired view in the Replay list. If the Replay is allowed, the icon displays a plus with it. If the Replay to the target view is not allowed, the cursor changes to a circle with a diagonal line.

Notice that when you switch to the “top over bottom” layout, the following occurs:

• The toolbar icons and Filter list move up to the main toolbar.
• The toolbar buttons for the different views that were on the right pane of the “side by side” view correspond exactly to the tabbed panes in the lower half of the “top over bottom” layout.

They perform exactly the same functions in either layout.