Annotate View

Annotations show historical information about changes that were made to a text document. The Annotate view is a tabbed pane which is displayed in the same location as other StarTeam views, such as the Detail, History, Links, and Labels views. It displays the contents of the selected text file, a working folder hyperlink to the file in the Server Explorer, and annotation information in the left margin which contains the following information:

The name of each user who wrote or changed specific lines, and which lines were changed.
The dot notation of the file revision in which each change was made.
A hyperlink to the properties for the associated process item, if one was linked to the file revision.
An Info icon which, when clicked, displays the details about the file revision and the associated process item.

You can open the Annotate view by taking the following actions:

Select Window > Show View > Annotate
Select Window > Show View > Other, and choose Annotate from the StarTeam tree node.

Annotate View Toolbar and Menu Actions

The following actions are available from the Annotate View toolbar and list box:

Link (unlink) the view to the selected StarTeam item
Refresh
Back to previous contents
Forward to next contents
Open StarTeam Preferences

Editor Annotations

The StarTeam annotate feature also provides a Team > Show Annotation context-menu action which displays annotation information in the left margin of the editor, and can be invoked for any shared file or repository file. This menu action is available by right-clicking a text file in the Server Explorer, Navigator, or Package Explorer. Annotations utilize the StarTeam quick diff provider for displaying revision information, and StarTeam requests that you switch to it for the current editor.

Annotations are displayed in the left panel of the editor, and are synchronized with the Annotate view so that when you select an annotation in the editor, it selects that annotation in the Annotate view. The default coloring for the left gutter is by revision age. The color gradually brightens from dark (latest changes) to light (earliest changes). You can modify the coloring to distinguish authors who contributed the change, or display both revision age and authors.

The contents of the generic History view are also synchronized with the annotations in the editor. Selecting a revision in the History view highlights the left gutter annotation borders of all the lines in the document that were contributed by the selected revision, and the right margin shows the range of the changes created by the selected revision. Conversely, selecting an annotation in the left gutter of the editor highlights the corresponding revision in the History view.

The fields in the left gutter are sensitive to mouse moves and show hover information with more details about the contributed changes. This information is the same information obtained by clicking the Information icon in the Annotate view. Pressing F2 over a hover window gives it focus, allowing you to read the details or use the hyperlinks to possible process items linked to the revision. Clicking a link to a process item in the annotation information also selects and displays that item in the Change Request, Task, or Requirement view.

Annotation Context-Menu Actions in the Editor

There are no context-menu actions in the Annotate view, however, there are several actions available from the Annotation pane of the editor using the following Revisions context-menu items:

Hide or display revision information.
Display the border color by the revision date.
Display the border color by the author who made the changes.
Combine the border coloring to show the revision date and the author.
Show the author's name.
Show the revision ID (dot notation revision number).