Sablime® v5.2

Sablime® version 5.2 is now available for download. This release includes several feature enhancements that have been near the top of customer request lists for a long while now:

• Email contents enhanced - The email now contains information about the command just issued. For example, if the command was propose, the proposal is included.
• Email subject line improved - The subject line now contains the MR name and more. For example, instead of "Approved MR", it would say "Approved MR [proj990001] in Generic [proj1.0]"
• Much faster, more flexible audits - The audits have been redone in "perl", greatly improving their performance. They can also audit subsets (by generic, for example) of the database - for those projects with really huge databases, or lots of non-active generics.
• Reject to any previous state - The reject command now allows the user to reject an MR back to assigned, submitted, or any other state previous to the current state. Now, for example, an MR may be rejected back to a previous test state if further testing (but not necessarily any code changes) is needed.
• Promote to any state - The testpass command now permits the user to promote an MR through multiple states to any state, including "approved". Tired of running 5 commands to approve an "addsrc" MR? This is for you.
• The Unaccept command - Finally, you can unaccept that MR that you put in the wrong generic. Or if you've decided that you wish to kill an MR, but it's already been assigned. Now, with the unassign (assign to no one) and unaccept command, you can get the MR back to the "created" state - and then kill it.
• Mail handling improvements - In addition to the content changes mentioned above, Sablime®'s mail handling has been greatly simplified, which should eliminate the occasional mis-attributed or grossly delayed email issues many users have seen.
• Spawned MRs in External Communications - If you link to an external project, now they can get updates on the status of spawned MRs.
• More hideable fields - Depending on how you use it, there may be lots of fields on the Sablime® screens that you don't put data into. This change allows you to hide more fields, so you won't even have to look at them.
• PTS Audit/Report - This new command allows you to generate a report on PTS IDs. If you are a developer, you can use this to get a quick look at MRs and files associated with you. Or an administrator can use this to find out about all the stuff associated with someone who has left the project.

v5.2 release notes

top of article

top of newsletter

Web Sablime

Along with the improvements to core Sablime®, v5.2 brings with it a new Web Sablime.

Web Sablime® is not only a web interface to the standard Sablime® commands. That's been done. By us, and by many of you. This Web Sablime® presents a new approach to using Sablime. An approach that tries to help you do your work, rather than being the work.

The MyMRs Interface

With Web Sablime®'s MyMRs interface, you start a session by clicking "MyMRs". Web Sablime® then shows you those MRs that are assigned to you - your "to do list". Click on one of the MRs and you can get the description, status, all the information you may want. Not sure which files you modified yet? Click "files" and it shows you each file touched by the MR.

From each of these pages, though, you can actually DO things. On the MR page, you can submit the MR. On the "files" page, you can check a file in or out, or just look at a file.

Sure, these operations eventually resolve to running one of the usual Sablime® commands. The MyMRs interface, though, will have already filled in most or all of the fields, you just click on the doit button.

Web Sablime®, by nature, is completely platform independent. You can run it on PCs, Macs, Unixes, Linuxes, whatever.

And at the heart of it, of course, there is still the old reliable Unix-hosted Sablime® database, being accessed from these clients.

 v5.1 Patch 02

Sablime® v5.1, patch number 2 is also now available for download.

This patch includes fixes for these two bugs:

• Report command removes files from /.
• Source command fails to remove deltas

The first problem arises when the report command is used and the Sablime® environment isn't properly set up: Sablime® may try to erase files under "/". Sablime® was trying to be a good citizen and erase its temporary files, even though in certain circumstances, it hadn't created any, and hadn't even established the name of the "tmp" directory. The patch fixes this problem.

The second problem arises when you use the source command to delete a file from a generic, or rename a file in a generic. Depending on how many deltas there are in the particular generic, the source command may neglect to remove some of them. This is a due to a bug where freed memory was being read, so the behavior is not consistent. The patch fixes this problem.

Both of these bugs are fixed in v5.2.

v5.0 Patch 07

Sablime® v5.0, patch number 7 is also available for download.

This patch fixes the "report" command bug described above. The other bug is not present in v5.0

This will be the last update to v5.0

Welcome

 builder - a build management tool for use with Sablime

Most projects that use Sablime®, use nmake as well. And projects that use Sablime® and nmake use build scripts to get the source updates into the Viewpath, launch the build, and do the other operations associated with building.

Builder is a tool - now supported by the STC - that helps to manage these builds scenarios. It is a highly flexible, portable, and configurable build script.

Builder is designed to help Sablime® and nmake work for you.

Builder accomplishes this - not by mandating some "We know your business better than you do" process on you, but by capturing a process that fits with your expectations for your builds.

The same builder instance can support unlimited numbers of build scenarios (for all the various reasons that you do builds). This same instance can be shared by multiple platforms (for when your source is on a server but your builds are spread around). Builder can promote MRs, copy Viewpath nodes around, do all kinds of variations of getversions, launch other builds, etc...

See the builder web page for (lots of ) detail and for downloading.

builder web site

top of article

top of newsletter

New Communications Model The mailing that announced this newletter is likely to be the last one sent out to this list of Sablime® licencees. That list is a problem for several reasons: people not on the list might wish to get announcements (we hope!); some people that are on that list may not want such email; and there are no provisions for intelligently handling email bounces (for those people who have moved on).

For these reasons, we've decided to move on to an automated mailing list system. This will give all users the power to decide whether they wish to receive these notices. The list is a one-way communications channel for the STC Sablime® team to announce product news such as new releases, patches, newsletter availability, etc. It is not a general discussion forum, postings will be from the STC only, and traffic is expected to be light.

All Sablime® users and administrators are encouraged to join, so please pass this notice on to anyone who might be interested.

To subscribe/unsubscribe via email:

- send email to: majordomo@idea.wh.lucent.com

- in the body of the email type: subscribe sablime-announce

- or to unsubscribe type: unsubscribe sablime-announce

top of newsletter

New Release Strategy In the past, Sablime® releases have either been full releases or patches. The full releases, whether or not the first digit changed, were pretty Big Deals, and generally needed scheduled upgrades and/or downtime, and some customers did local testing. When customers or Sablime® internally discovered major - corruption potential - flaws, we would release a patch.

This process did not allow for prompt distribution of incremental improvements to the product. Even highly desireable enhancements could sit on the shelf waiting for the next BigDeal release. Non-severe bug fixes might do the same.

Our new strategy is a release-and-update rather than release-and-patch. Sablime® will release - on a fairly regular basis - numbered updates to the v5.2 release. Each update would include the previous updates, so there would only be one such update available at a time. Updates could include enhancements or bug fixes.

These updates will be completed tested, and their installation process will be much simplified over the current patch installation process. Each update would be announced through this newletter and the "sablime-announce" mailing list.

Our expectation is that this will permit us to get worthwhile enhancements and bug fixes out to you quicker, and with better quality results. Truly grand enhancements, and things needing major database migrations will still be targeted for the BigDeal releases, but we will no longer have to put off a minor fix or a neat little enhancement for a year or more because it missed the "code freeze" date!

top of newsletter

New Helpdesk The Sablime® helpdesk is now staffed by a real person, all day (US eastern time business hours M-F). This should improve the liklihood of your calls getting answered. Email to sablime@lucent.com - email that includes the particulars of the problem and of your Sablime® installation, is still best. Answered phones are great, but email is permanent.

June 30, 2000