Release Notes, SourceCast 1.1.1

-Louis Suarez-Potts

Last updated 2001 November 19

Introduction

The OpenOffice.org infrastructure was upgraded Monday to SourceCast 1.1.1 from SourceCast 1.08. The upgrade fixes several minor issues and adds some functionality, but the emphasis has been on improving the user interface. SourceCast has now also been proved against Mozilla and Konqueror as well as Netscape and Internet Explorer for both Mac OS (9.x and X) and Windows.

Please send your comments and opinions to dev@openoffice.apache.org.

Release Notes

Supported Environments and Browsers

SourceCast has been tested against the following browser environments:

Windows 98 SE, NT 4.0 and 2000

Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 4.0, 5.0 and 5.5

Netscape Communicator versions 4.77, 6.01 and 6.1

RedHat Linux 6.2 and 7.1

Netscape Communicator versions 4.72, 4.76 and 6.1

Mozilla versions 0.7 and 0.92

Konqueror version 2.1.1

MacOS 9.1 and X

Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.x

Netscape Communicator versions 4.77 and 6.01

Supported CVS GUI Environment Clients

SourceCast supports the following CVS GUI environment clients:

Windows NT 4.0 and 2000

GNU WinCVS 1.2

Mac OS 9.1 and X
GNU MacCVS

Updates and Improvements

CVS version update

SourceCast uses the most current version of CVS (version 1.11p1) as a base.

A new CVS internal communication protocol was implemented that modifies internal error handling.

CVS path statements were modified to provide only short-form repository paths (/cvs).

Users parsing through history files are checked for valid access permissions.

The SourceCast permissions model has been extended to cover module listings revealed when the CVs co -c command is used.

CVSWeb

CVSWeb has been fixed to work with Perl v5.60

CVSWeb now processes diffs using updated path statements providing access to enhanced functionality.

A database connection failure handler was implemented, removing any errors received while browsing.

Issue Tracking

SourceCast Issue Tracking (IssueZilla) allows access to remote databases by adding the current database to the IssueZilla list of hosts.

Users attempting to create defect issues in new projects now have their permissions and access levels checked.

The excessive size of the columns in the description box was adjusted to prevent the description box from extending a page and a half in Netscape 4.76

Known Issues

CVS Module

Directories being committed to CVS cannot contain spaces.
Attempting to view diffs between file versions residing in Main and Head will give the following error:

Error: Malformed query "r1=1%253AMAIN&tr1=1.1&r2=1%253AMAIN&tr2=1.1&f=h"

To prevent this error message, diffs between the Head and Main should be avoided.
Users with permissions that limit the view scope within CVS will not be able to view all folder contents when using a browser. The command line version of CVS does not experience the same issues.

Issue Tracking (IssueZilla)

Issues restricted to specific user groups are not viewable by members of the group. This behavior is endemic to BugZilla, the code behind IssueZilla and will be addressed in a future release of SourceCast.
Periodically, members of IssueZilla cross-project groups will lose their access permissions to IssueZilla. This is not a commonly used feature and will be fixed in a future release of SourceCast.
In "issue not visible to everyone list" issue numbers do not appear beside *.

Miscellaneous

Identical directory names: Case insensitive operating systems, like Mac OS 9 or Windows, are incapable of identifying directories with the same name, but different cases, as unique entities. When there are identically named directories, case insensitive operating systems are incapable of performing CVS functions.
- Workaround: To prevent this issue, no two directory names should be spelled identically.
Netscape 4.78 and lower have difficulty viewing parts of the application.
- Workaround: In order to avoid this problem, use browsers higher than Netscape 4.78.
Files larger than 32 MB cannot be successfully uploaded.

Projects

Project Documents

When a file is being uploaded to the Project Documentation section, if another file of the same name already exists, the existing file gets deleted and the new file is not uploaded, resulting in neither file being saved to the server.

Project News

News items with links in the headline truncate anything beyond the link.

Workaround: Users should not add links into News headlines.

Users without permission to delete files in the Project Document section can access the Document Delete pages. However, when the user attempts to delete a document or folder, the user is given a redirect error message and the file or folder is not deleted.

Suggested documents in the top section cannot be approved.

Workaround: Users should suggest documents in subsections only.