CVS Independent Mode

Making Changes [Developer]

Note: Before making any changes to a file, make sure you have allocated the task to yourself in trac.

1. Ensure that your local copy of the repository is up to date by typing cvs update or, since that can take a while, that the copy of the file you are going to work on is up to date by typing cvs update filename
2. Look in c:\freebmd\UKGEN-FreeBMD for the file you want to work on and make the necessary changes.

Note: Use a plain text editor for editing HTML files, as a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor can mess up the code. It has also been found that some editors are not suitable for editing Perl source, for example gedit is known to corrupt accented characters. If you are working on an html file, use Prepare Page to view the file as it will be deployed, once the gtml macros have been expanded (see gtml help for more information) and if you can do this in multiple browsers, so much the better. Finally, it is good practice to do a cvs diff to check that the changes made are what you intended (use cvs diff -b to ignore changes in spacing).

Committing the Changes

1. Type cvs commit filename to make your changes in the repository. CVS creates the next revision number of the file.
2. CVS goes quiet for a moment while it compares the list of files on your computer with those on the server, and then it automatically opens up Notepad showing a list of changed files.
3. At the top of Notepad you will see the cursor. Type in a short comment here to describe the changes to the file(s) (put a newline at the end of your comment - all lines starting with CVS are ignored). Click on File - Save and close Notepad
   • Start your comment with "Task #<taskno>:" where <taskno> is the trac task number that the change is implementing
   • The description you enter will be shown when you do a cvs log filename command so make the description helpful to anyone looking through the log trying to find a particular change or a change to a particular area of the code
   • Be especially careful when describing changes to vol_faq.html because the log message will be sent to all syndicate coordinators so that they know when changes are made to the Transcribers' Knowledge Base - make the description so it can be easily understood by someone who is not particularly computer literate.
4. When Notepad closes, CVS automatically sends your edited files to the server. At the same time, an e-mail is generated and sent to everyone on the mailing list telling them what has been changed.

Note: There is an alternative to using Notepad when committing in step one. Replace the command shown with cvs commit -m "message" filename where message is the description you would have typed into Notepad.

Testing the Changes

1. Log on to the Development server. You will see a list of files, including the file you have changed, preceded by a letter 'u' to indicate the file has been uploaded.
2. Test HTML and CGI changes on the Test site. The test site looks and acts like the FreeBMD site. You can navigate through the site and test how your changes look and behave.
3. Once you are happy with your testing, go to trac and change the task status in trac to "Ready for Test" and assign it to the person who originally requested it.

Tip Put the development server, the test site and trac login into your 'Favourites' folder. You can then move from one to the other easily.

Requesting Transfer to Production [Developer]

1. When the requester is satisfied with the changes, you will receive an e-mail notification that the task has been assigned back to you as "Tested OK"
2. You now have to 'tag' the changed file. Make sure you're in the folder/directory which holds the file. Tag each changed file by typing cvs tag T1234 filename
• Replace T1234 with the TID from trac preceded by T
• Replace filename with the name of the file.
3. Add a followup to the task in trac, listing which modules have been changed, list any restrictions about when the module must go live (e.g. "To go live after next DB update") and assign it to "Request to Deploy" and set the status to "Ready to Deploy".
4. The process is complete when the changes go live. The revisions that have been deployed can be determined from the deployment list.

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