Modifying SourceSafe Check In And Check Out Comments

One of the features of Visual Intercept Web's integration to Visual SourceSafe is the ability to place Check In and Check Out comments in the source file history. However, many users are not aware that these comments can be easily modified to suit your organization. This Tech Tip describes how to modify the XML template to customize the comments.

To modify the Check In and Check Out template open the Administrative pages of Visual Intercept Web, select Tools | Configure from the menu bar and click on the SCCS Templates tab and click the edit button. Once you have the template open you can edit it directly in that window.

The template is just and XML document, but to edit it successfully you need to know a little bit about how it is designed. The template allows you to insert two kinds of content: literal data and data about the current incident based on variables. So, when you check out or check in the literal data provides fixed content such as the comment title and the field labels. The variables provide information about the specific incident the source code is being checked out or checked in from.

Inserting literal text is quite obvious. Here is an example:
<LiteralText>Visual Intercept Change:</LiteralText>

To insert information about the current incident you will need to place and element of the following form into the template:
<Line>
<String name="lblSubject"/>
<Separator name="Space" length="1"/>
<Variable name="Subject"/>
</Line>

In this example the String name element will pull the value of the field label for the subject field from the viWebStrings.xml file located in the root of the web site. You could put the field name in as a literal string, but using the variable ensures that the name in the template will always remain consistent with any customizations you make to field names. The Variable name element will pull the actual content of the Subject field into the comment. The variable names correspond to the default name of the field as it ships out of the box.

Keeping these simple facts in mind you can modify the template any way you like. In addition, the method for modifying the Check In and Check Out templates is exactly the same for the e-mail template used for file send operations.

If you have other questions about issues not included in or beyond the scope of this Tech Tip, please contact Elsinore Technical Support Services at or 866.866.0034, option 2.