The Seapine View

To effectively evaluate Surround SCM for your team, we recommend that you download and install the 30-day evaluation. You can install the Surround SCM client and server on your local PC, there is no need for a heavy-duty server during the evaluation phase. Installation should take less than 5 minutes. Watch the video below or download the pdf for step-by-step instructions.

Surround SCM Installation Walk Through (PDF)

download video in mp4 format

We know you’re constantly looking for ways to spend less time grappling with tools and more time writing code. Join us on Thursday, August 5, as Wesley Workman, Surround SCM software engineer, reviews automation, customization, and integration features from his unique perspective as a Surround SCM developer and user. During this 60-minute webinar, he will discuss:

• Ways to script and automate repetitive tasks through the Surround SCM API
• How to simplify complex tasks, such as build creation and code review, with custom client menus
• Tips for Xcode, Microsoft Visual Studio, and Eclipse integrations

If you’re looking for the time-saving benefits of increased automation and seamless IDE integration, you can’t afford to miss this event. Register now!

A few months back (has it been over a  year already?), I posted a sample tool to search file contents in Surround SCM. Since that time, we have made two important additions to Surround SCM that I felt warranted a fresh approach to this tool.

I have re-written this tool with two major differences:

• I used the Surround SCM API instead of the CLI.
• The tool is designed to be launched by a custom menu in the Surround SCM client, giving you a more native feel.

There are other minor enhancements as well:

• Choose whether to do a case sensitive search or not.
• Choose whether to search recursively or not.
• Choose whether to save your password or not (in plain text).

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In Surround SCM, I tend to right-click branches, files, and repositories in the Source Tree view to perform actions. I quickly found that I only use a small number of the actions available by default on the shortcut menus, so I removed the commands I use less frequently and organized actions I do use in the order that makes sense for the way I work. You can customize your branch, repository, and file list shortcut menus in the Surround SCM user options.

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CLI parsing got you down? Good news, we’ve got an API for that. We introduced a cross-platform C API with Java and .NET wrappers in the Surround SCM 2010.0 release. All three versions of the API have the same functionality – anything you can do from the C API you can do from either Java or .NET. “What can I do with the API?”, you ask. Well,  you can Add a file, Checkin, Checkout, Get, Undo Checkout, Search, Create repository, Create branch, Promote, Rebase, Manage labels, Add user, Rollback files, Share, Break share, and much more.

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With the release of Surround SCM 2010 & TestTrack 2010.1, the Seapine License Server now supports logging license usage events. This presents an opportunity to better understand how licenses are being used across your Surround SCM and TestTrack installation.

We’ve had the TT License Monitor tool for quite a while, but it provides a very limited set of data on floating licenses and nothing on named license usage. I’ve been excited about the new logging functionality ever since I saw the first design document, and when it was code complete I immediately put “take it for a spin” on my schedule.
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Surround SCM supports integration with Microsoft Access. SCC integration within Access is implemented through the Microsoft Source Code Control Interface (MSSCCI).  You’ll also need the Access source code control add-in.

The Microsoft Office plug-in is optionally installed during the Surround SCM Client installation. If you did not install it initially, rerun the client installer. When you start Access, the Surround SCM connection is automatically configured. You can also configure the connection manually.
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PostgreSQL supports continuous archiving that records every change made to a database. Data is logged in the write ahead log (WAL), which is stored in the pg_xlog/ directory in the PostgreSQL data directory (e.g., C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\8.3\data\pg_xlog). WAL archiving helps provide more complete crash recovery and allows point-in-time recovery.

Following is basic information for setting up WAL archiving, creating a base backup, and recommendations for the frequency of performing base backups. For more information about WAL archiving and data recovery, refer to the PostgreSQL documentation.
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You need to perform the following maintenance tasks for Surround SCM PostgreSQL databases on a regular basis:

1. Vacuum the database
2. Rebuild the database index
3. Maintain the log files

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I worked on the C# API, which is really a wrapper for the C API, For the Surround SCM 2010.0 release. If you’ve ever written a wrapper or any type of “code layer” you know how important it is to keep up with changes made to the base layer. Surround SCM has a feature called “Email Notifications” that allows you to do just that. As you may have guessed, an email notification is just an email that is sent to you when a specified action takes place. Going back to my work on the C# API, to keep up with changes to the C API I set up an email notification to alert me anytime another user performed a change to a file in the API repository.

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