I'm looking for a way to embed file attachments (like screenshots) inside a Perforce changelist. I'm hoping (but not optimistic) that there's a way inside P4 to actually do this, possibly via a plugin.
If not, I'll either have to look into writing a plugin myself (any pointers?), or I have to cook up a wrapper for P4 checkins that also uploads/submits the attachment, then links that attachment to the CL via an identifier inside the CL. (And then I need a tool to correlate and display both).
To add a bit more information: I'm interfacing with the P4 server via a P4API bot that I'm writing. That bots crawls over every checkin and harvests the data it gets to generate reports. I.e. it correlates submissions with the actual feature spec that informed the task, generates a history of progress for that task etc. Within that context, attaching additional meta data to a CL (like a screenshot) is useful because those attachments can then be used in the data mining - they can enhance the reports that I'm generating.
I can guard against bad/rampant metadata attachments via a wrapper program that is used to make 95% of all our P4 submissions, anyway (it has its own dialog). But I gotta figure out how to present all the data inside P4 when the P4 CL spec only seems to have text available.
I don't think there is any (easy) way to do what you're requesting. A changelist is "an atomic change transaction". There is very little meta-data with them. The P4 command reference for p4 change lists everything you're allowed to do, and adding an arbitrary attachment isn't there.
You could always open a feature request in the Perforce forums.
In Response to Edits
It looks like this is actually just one instance of a larger problem you're facing: managing meta-data around your depot's projects and its changelists. I would suggest you use this requirement as a driving force behind making some larger process changes at your organization. If you have a lot of data being generated based on automated analysis of your projects, it would be better to create a proper database to organize it all. Your submission wrapper could handle putting screenshots (or any other meta data) in a database and annotating the change list description with tags that indicate where to find attachments in the database.
A comprehensive database solution would allow you to associate attachments, changelists and other data with each other and other project resources in a more organized fashion than you currently have.
Original Response
If you decide to write a plugin to handle just this task without a database, my suggested approach would be the following:
Designate a shared network drive or directory that is accessible to all team members as the "perforce attachment dump". Users should have write access to this area.
Use the changelist description field to create a tag to name a file that should be attached. For example, "Attach: file_name.jpg".
Your users use the plugin to navigate to the file(s) locally and the plugin will copy it to the dump drive and add the tag to the description. The plugin should enforce some naming scheme to make the files easy to find. Perhaps append the changelist number to the file base name? Or create a folder for each changelist?
Use a server side pre-submit trigger and script to scan submitted changelist descriptions for tags and retrieve this file from the attachment dump. It should probably reject changelists with the tag if it can't find the file.
The server side script should move the file to a share drive that is read-only to users. This is so that if you want to look at an attachment for a changelist that is five months old, you can be sure it will still be available.
Give your plugin the ability to open the attachments on the read-only share drive from your developer's local machines, from within P4 and P4V.
Related
Typically, we have a depot root for every different product that we work on. For e.g.:
//products/productX
/productY
As the common files in the 2 products increase, I would like to put them into a top level folder of it's own
//products/productX
/productY
/common
Now to ensure that this works for all the users who have existing workspace, we would need to update all their workspaces. Is there an alternative? Can we put some markers in the depot to create a link it to a different folder? Any other option?
What you're describing is essentially the reason that streams were created -- the idea of a stream is that you definition the structure of a codeline in one place (e.g. "product X lives in //products/productX"), multiple people base their workspaces on that, and when you change it (e.g. "product X lives in //products/productX + //products/common), every workspace based on that definition updates automatically.
So if you're using streams, all you need to do is update the stream definitions that need to include the new //products/common directory. Easy!
If you're using "classic" workspaces, users who are using the default //products/... mapping will get the common directory automatically regardless. For users with custom views, my suggestion would be to alert them of the refactor and then let them make their own adjustments as appropriate; if they're familiar enough with Perforce to have built a custom client view, they may not appreciate having it changed underneath them.
I am trying to build a flow based on the PowerAutomate template
Create Planner task and add attachments to SharePoint on new email
arrival
This template works fine, in that it saves all the mail attachments to my sharepoint. But it only shows the link to the last attachment in the task.
I have worked around it, by adding a string variable and appending all the sharepoint paths to this variable.
With my Flow, everything runs smoothly. But the stored files are about 10%- 20% bigger in size than the original and they turn out to be corrupted.
The only difference I can spot in the saving of the file is as follows:
Template section has "get attachment" and the according "body('get attachment'):
While my in my version I can only select "get attachment (V2)" and the corresponding "body('get attachment (V2)')
There is an option with V2 that allows or disallows chunking, but there is no effect on my filesize.
The other difference is, that I have my flow create a different folder based on the task ID, since there where errors, if the same name attachment came a second time. But I have tried my flow without the added folders and there is no difference in file size.
The original files:
and the corrupted files:
It makes no difference if I use the sharepoint link provided through the flow to my new planner task, or if I open the files directly within sharepoint. The result is an error.
Can anyone guess, why my flow seems to store something more within the file and thus corrupting it? I can provide the other parts of the flow in more detail too. Here is the overview of my custom flow:
I actually found the answer after rewriting it from scratch:
Using the old template had me looking for the wrong information when adding the attachment content to sharepoint. I had always searched for "body" which was used in the template and gave me this
But searching for attachment the dynamic content actually showed me the right pieces. I am not sure, if I missed it before, or if recoding a template hid them somehow. With the rewrite from scratch I found this:
So, to make a long story short: Use "Content Bytes" of the "Get_Attachment_(V2)" Method and everything works fine.
using p4 change, I can create a new changelist but it requires a 'form' to be filled.
Is there a way for me to create a job with a particular template, get that job number and attach it to a new changelist with a particular template?
No, unfortunately you have to use the forms, i.e. temp files, or cmdline I/O redirection.
The alternative is to use a P4 API (e.g. P4Perl, P4Python, etc.) which gives you a way to specify all the change's details (the ones you would fill into the form) as structured data.
I have following perforce streams structure: main branch and 2 development branches linked to it dev_v1 and dev_v2. Both development streams has some build control files where version specific variables are located. Any change in these files will be reflected in Perforce Streams Graph and the system will ask me to merge them into main and then from main into other development branch.
How to exclude specific set of files in Perforce so that in case of any change the system will no show any difference between streams and will not ask to merge/copy them.
If those build files should never be integrated you should set that path in the stream view to be 'isolate' instead of public. That will add the files to client views for that stream, but will exclude them from any generate branch maps. That will cause them to fall out of the integration calculation and Perforce will stop trying to integrate them.
Isolate was specifically put in streams to handle build files that are unique to each stream, so this is the perfect use.
When you merge you can select which change lists you want to include in the merge, and which you want to exclude. If you are using P4V when you get into the merge window you can choose which changelists to merge into the other code line. Most of our items are set up as streams...if you are a using a standard depot the functionality to should be similar...if you have troubles let me know I can set up another depot on my dev server.
This is primarily a question of possibilities more than instructions. I'm a programming consultant working on a WSS project site system for my client. We have a document library in which files are uploaded to go through a complex approval process. With multiple stages in this process, we have an extra field which dictates what the current status of the document is.
Now, my client has become enamored with the idea of PDF watermarking. He wants the document (which is already a PDF) to be affixed with a watermark corresponding to the current status, such that with each stage of the approval process the watermark will change.
One method, the traditional method for PDF watermarking, of accomplishing this is to have one "clean" copy of the document somewhere hidden on the site, and create a new PDF from it that has the watermark at each stage of the approval process. Since the filename will never change, this new PDF can be uploaded continually to a public library, always overwriting the old version and simulating a "dynamically changing watermark". However, in the various stages there will also be people uploading clean copies with corrections and suggestions, nevermind the complex nature of juggling around two libraries and the fact we double the number of files stored. My client and I agree that this is not a practical path to choose.
What we would like to do is be able to "modify" the watermark in a PDF, so that we only have to keep one copy of the file. Unfortunately, from what I've seen, in most cases when you make something like a watermark, which in its nature is supposed to be "unmodifyable", you won't be able to edit it later. So, is it possible to have a part of a PDF which cannot be changed by anyone who downloads the file, but can be changed as part of a workflow or other object model process?
PDF Watermarking in SharePoint is a common request. I have written extensively on this topic. See:
Adding a dynamic watermark to a PDF file from a SharePoint Workflow
Adding a (static) watermark to a PDF file from a SharePoint Workflow
Use SharePoint Workflows to inject JavaScript into PDFs and print the ‘open date’
You could use Event Handlers such that code was run every time a document was checked in. In that code you could perform the fixup/check that made the watermark be what you wanted it to be. This assumes you can write code that manipulates a PDF's internal structure such that it has the watermark that you desire.
It sounds to me like you want to allow people to modify the PDF they download, but not modify its watermark. This is probably going to be nigh on impossible if the watermark is embedded in the PDF (afaict) but what if the watermark image is external to the PDF; is it possible to embed a watermark in a PDF that is sourced via HTTP? Then you could embed:
<watermark image="http://sharepoint/site/_vti_bin/docstatus.asmx?id=5">
Of course, I have no idea about PDFs, so this might not be possible but you get the concept.
-Oisin
It is possible to do so if you use third party tool. Then you can put dynamically binded value from your SharePoint metadata, conditions, rules etc: http://www.pdfsharepoint.com