Version control in AR System
This topic describes version control, which you can use to prevent users from overwriting other users' work and to log changes to server objects.
Version control provides two independent functions:
- Object reservation—Users can reserve server objects. prevents other users from modifying reserved objects.
- Object modification log—When users change an object, automatically logs the change. It can also export the object's definition file when the changes are saved. To restore the object to the saved state after making additional changes, users can import the object definition file.
Version control applies to the following objects:
- Active links
- Active link guides
- Applications
- Associations
- Escalations
- Filters
- Filter guides
- Forms
- Images
- Menus
- Packing lists
- Web services (tracked as container objects in the object modification log)
Object reservation
Object reservation supports team development of applications by enabling one developer to prevent other developers from modifying objects.
Object reservation permits you to perform these actions:
- Reserve an object for your exclusive use.
- See who has reserved objects.
- Release a reserved object so others can modify it.
- Open an object reserved by someone else in Read mode and view it.
- Save a copy of an object reserved by someone else. (You cannot save a copy of a deployable application, however, because a form cannot belong to more than one deployable application.)
- Add an object to a guide, packing list, local application, or working list, or export an object whether or not it is reserved.
Object reservation prevents you from performing these actions:
- Import, modify, or delete an object reserved by someone else.
- Delete a form if a workflow object reserved by someone else is related to it.
- Delete a form joined to a form reserved by someone else (through any number of joins).
- Add a form reserved by someone else to a deployable application.
- Add a form to a deployable application reserved by someone else.
If you are prevented from taking an action because an objects is reserved by someone else, you can find the user who reserved it. See Enabling-and-using-object-reservation.
The AR System Version Control: Object Reservation form stores the object reservations. See AR-System-installed-forms.
Object reservation and object modification for overlays and base objects
allows you to reserve and modify origin and overlay objects independent of each other. When you modify the properties on an origin form that are inherited by its overlay, the operation updates the overlay object too. However, when modifying such properties on the origin form, you do not need to reserve its overlay.
uses the Overlay Group and Resolved Name fields on the following forms to manage object reservation and object modification:
- AR System Version Control: Object Reservation
- AR System Version Control: Object Modification Log
The populates these fields, while clients use real names for object reservation and object modification.
For information about overlay objects, see Customizing-applications-using-overlays-and-custom-objects.
Object modification log
When the object modification log is enabled, the automatically logs every change to the object types listed in above. Optionally, it also exports an object's definition file when the object is created or modified.
You can use the object modification log to find an earlier version of an object and restore it. This enables you to:
- Recover from errors such as deleted objects or bad changes to objects.
- Undo changes to objects when they do not work.
The AR System Version Control: Object Modification Log form contains the log entries. See AR-System-installed-forms.
For information about enabling and using the object modification log, see Enabling-and-using-version-control-labels.