WB2008 Multiple files open bug ?

[feldhege]

Hello, I have been using RapidPHP 2005 and love it. SO when my company wanted to start developing on a new commercial site, I came looking here. We would like to use WeBuilder. First, I would love to have it do syntax highlighting for coldfusion but I have seen a couple of posts where you say that is not going to happen. OK, just wanted you to know that there are some of us that would LOVE that option. But on to the potential bug.

For some reason WB allows more then one developer to open the same file and save over the top of each other with no warning at all. Several other products we tried at least alerted us to the fact that someone else had the file open already. The only way WB tells us that the file was changed is if you move off that page and then go back to it. Then it displays a box telling us that the page has changed and asks if we would like to load it. Is there any chance you could do this check prior to saving? We have 3 developers and one of them is off site. We are trying to standardize the company on a single product for development so as to lower our learning curves. We use HTML, CSS, PHP, and Coldfusion mostly with a little javascript thrown in.

If someone has a way to help us control our source code (even with simple locking) please let me know. Even a message box when opening a file (that was already opened) telling us it is in use would be good.

Thanks,
Robb Feldhege
Christmas Place

[davenz]

Hi there. Sounds like you are after a SourceSafe type of system, that checks files in and out once edited, though I think the actual SourceSafe system is for the Visual Studio IDE only. Do you want to be able to have the file opened and editable by 3 coders? This will ultimately determine what system you use to protect your source. If you want the file locked so that only one coder can have it open, or perhaps others could open it in 'read only' mode, then I am pretty sure there are applications around that do that sort of thing. There are also applications that will allow multiple users in edit mode as well, but it means adding another complex and possibly expensive layer to your system.

You could submit this as a feature request - the ability to inform users if the file is already opened for editing by another app/user - and hope that the team consider it important enough to include in a future version. I know MS Word is like this; if you open a file and someone already has it open elsewhere on the nwetwork, it asks if we want to open it in Read Only mode; very handy, but limiting in that it won't allow multiple users to edit the file, just one to edit and the rest to view, not an ideal situation in a coding house! You would need an external application to manage checking files in and out regardless of whether WeBuilder allowed you to open/edit the file or not. To my knwoledge no other editor allows multiple edits on the same page.

Dave.

[feldhege]

Hey Dave, thanks for the reply. I know of source safe as we use visual studio here but don't develop "team type" apps with it. I was thinking more of read only for the others to see the file but not make changes. I would not need multiple edits at the same time with such a small team. Just the notification that someone else has the file open and/or read only would be great.

As it stands, this is the only editor I found that will allow people to save over each other while the file is still open. AceHTML Pro tells us that the file is in use when saving it preventing the overwriting of the page. WB has a better interface and I am use to RapidPHP so the learning curve for me would be less. The weird thing in my mind is that they already check the file when you switch back to it so it would seem it would be easy to (at the very least) check the file before saving and letting the user decide if we should overwrite the existing one.

Robb

[davenz]

As it stands, this is the only editor I found that will allow people to save over each other while the file is still open. AceHTML Pro tells us that the file is in use when saving it preventing the overwriting of the page. WB has a better interface and I am use to RapidPHP so the learning curve for me would be less. The weird thing in my mind is that they already check the file when you switch back to it so it would seem it would be easy to (at the very least) check the file before saving and letting the user decide if we should overwrite the existing one.

Robb

Agreed, perhaps a moderator can add this to the Feature Request forum.

Dave.

[chrisjlocke]

As its more of a request for a file-locking system, I'll move this to feature requests.

[syrupcore]

Robb, has your team considered drinking the Subversion kool-aid? It's really the best way to handle teams of developers working on the same files. I think even if the Blumentals team implements your request, it will still leave you wanting. What happens when it alerts you to a change? One of you loses all your work or they will also need to include a compare tool and a merge tool - two of the tools built into subversion for precisely this reason.

http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/ is a nice windows interface for svn. Integrates directly with the Blumentals editors.

Once we adopted it, it's hard to imagine how we got anything done with out it - particularly as our team has grown. Saved our butts repeatedly.

[feldhege]

Yep we are looking into it.

Hey Karlis, can you tell me if this is even a feature you would be willing to put in a upcoming version? If so, I can guarentee 3 copies purchased by next week. Not trying to sway you of course.

I would also like one last time to recommend ColdFusion syntax highlighting. We would miss that but we can get by without it for the time being.

Robb

[syrupcore]

Hey Karlis, can you tell me if this is even a feature you would be willing to put in a upcoming version?

I obviously didn't sell you on SVN enough. :) Honestly man, you don't want this in your editor. SVN is the way to go. There are just too many issues that come up to not use a dedicated tool to handle it. What seems like a single, fairly simple request will balloon quickly. Merge, diff, roll back and central admin all become needed in fairly short order. If the blumentals team spent time building that, how are they going to get to CF highlighting? ;)

The blumentals editors are great at what they do - including integrating with external tools that are also great at what they do. Buy the three copies, download SVN and enjoy the best of both worlds.

</2-cents>

[edwardborland]

Yep we are looking into it.

Hey Karlis, can you tell me if this is even a feature you would be willing to put in a upcoming version? If so, I can guarentee 3 copies purchased by next week. Not trying to sway you of course.

I would also like one last time to recommend ColdFusion syntax highlighting. We would miss that but we can get by without it for the time being.

Robb

I found out about WeBuilder through the Abode Homesite forums. Good old Homesite now retired this year has a big group of fans easily convertible to WeBuilder if it had better CFML support.. I am so close to buying it.. but a deal breaker perhaps.