History

As files and folders change over time, their history is stored in the Fortress server, which is accessible to users via the History Explorer.  You can also save pre-defined queries via History Favorites, which allow you to quickly query based on common history requests.

History Explorer

The History Explorer window is used to examine past versions to a tree or repository. The query features available in the History Explorer window offer a powerful way to see what has happened over the passage of time.

Click Show History on the Tools menu, History on the Toolbar or click Show History on the context menu. The History Query Filter command will come up to allow you to select a query. There are two main ways to query on folders:

  1. View by item – Select View by item to view the Version List. The Version List displays the Name of the file or folder, User, Date, Version Number, Action and any Comments

  2. View by version – Select View by version to view the Folder Versions screen. The Folder Versions screen shows all versions of the TOP folder in a list. Each version of a folder corresponds to a change set that changed some part of the folder or its descendants. This dialog box lists the versions and allows you view the change set that caused the folder to increment its version number.

In addition, you can save a pre-defined query via the History Favorites command.

VSS History

If the history query was performed on a file which was imported from VSS, a Show VSS History button will appear. Clicking that button will query the original VSS database to return the history of the file.

Note

VSS History is not available on folders. Neither querying VSS folder history, nor getting folders by date or label are not supported.

In the VSS history list, the following options will be available in the context menu.

Diff against version

Use this option to diff the selected VSS version against the version selected in the Fortress history list.

Diff against...

This option will bring up the Diff dialog.

View

This option will bring up the View dialog to view that VSS version .

History Favorites

History Favorites allow you to define history criteria so that common searches can be easily run without re-defining the query.

A History Favorite query can be run from the View->History Favorites->(favorite name) menu item from the main window menu, or from the History Favorites->(favorite name) menu item in the Fortress Folder and File History context menus.  A History Favorite query can also be run from the Edit History Favorites dialog.