About source control

Using built-in source control

About built-in source control

Microsoft FrontPage provides a built-in source control feature that ensures that only one person at a time can edit a file. Before you can use built-in source control in FrontPage, you must enable it. You can enable source control if you have administrator privileges and your web server supports the FrontPage Server Extensions.

Capabilities

A web author can check out a file

When a file is checked out, it is opened as read-only. Other authors can open the file but cannot save changes unless they save the file with a different name. A file that has been checked out is indicated by (the file is checked out to you) or (the file is checked out to a different author).

A web author can check in a file after editing and saving it

The file is then available to other authors for checking out. A file that is checked in and available is indicated by .

A web author can undo a file checkout

The file is checked in without applying any of the changes that were made since the file was checked out.

Important   FrontPage publishes the last-saved version of a file rather than the version that was last checked in. For example, if a file is checked out, modified, and then saved, this version of the file is what will be published, rather than the version that was last checked in.

Using Microsoft Visual SourceSafe (VSS) with Microsoft FrontPage

About integrating VSS with FrontPage

If you want to use Microsoft Visual SourceSafe as a method of source control, you can integrate a new or existing Visual SourceSafe project with FrontPage. Then, the source control actions that are performed in FrontPage are also performed in Visual SourceSafe as though the web author had used Visual SourceSafe directly. For example, if a web author checks out a file in FrontPage, the file is also checked out in the Visual SourceSafe project.

All files in the web will be tracked in the Visual SourceSafe project. However, other Visual SourceSafe features (for example, viewing a file history or rolling back to a previous file version) must be performed in Visual SourceSafe.

Capabilities

Because a Visual SourceSafe project is synchronized with FrontPage, file management actions you perform in FrontPage are reflected in the Visual SourceSafe project.

Add or create a file

FrontPage adds the file to the Visual SourceSafe project.

Move or rename a file

The file is also moved or renamed in the Visual SourceSafe project. Then, FrontPage checks out all pages that have hyperlinks to the moved or renamed page, updates the hyperlinks, saves the pages, and then checks them in.

Perform an action that affects other pages

Actions that affect other pages include applying a theme, modifying a shared border, or changing a file that is included in other pages. FrontPage checks out all pages that are affected by the change, updates the pages, saves them, and then checks them in.

Delete a file

FrontPage deletes the page from the Visual SourceSafe project.

Note   These actions are best performed when all files in the web are checked in. If a file is affected by one of these actions but is checked out, FrontPage either does not let you perform the action, or you must update the files yourself when they are checked in again.

For information about how to integrate Visual SourceSafe with FrontPage, see the Microsoft Office XP Resource Kit.