Whats New
=========

.. module:: whatsnew.dialog
	:synopsis: New features in this release

TortoiseHg 2.0
''''''''''''''

Philosophy
----------

The following philosophical changes were made between TortoiseHg 1.0 and
TortoieHg 2.0

Workbench
~~~~~~~~~

We wanted a single 'TortoiseHg' application which can access nearly all
TortoiseHg (and Mercurial) functionality and that could be launched by a
desktop or start menu shortcut.  So we developed the Workbench
application.

The Workbench can support multiple repositories open at a time via "Repo
Tabs" across the top of the main window.

Each repository tab supports multiple "Task Tabs" beneath its graph
splitter.  These task tabs are switchable via icons on the right side of
the Workbench or via application menus.  Available task tabs include a
changeset browser, a commit tool, a manifest browser, a history search
widget, and a sync widget.

Also available are two dockable widgets - a *Repository Registry* which
lists all known repositories on your local machine and an *Output Log
Window* which displays running command lines and their output and can
also function as a minimal shell.

Showing Mercurial command lines
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In an effort to educate users on Mercurial's command interface, nearly
all commands are executed in the log window, displaying the full command
line and Mercurial's output (progress indication is provided by progress
bars inside the Workbench status bar).  The few tools that do not use a
command log window will generally display the command line they execute.

Resolve tool, deliberate merges
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TortoiseHg 2.0 introduces a resolve dialog for resolving conflicted
file merges.  It shows the users all the files that require resolution
and those files that have been resolved, allowing merges to be verified.

As supported by Mercurial's resolve command, individual file merges may
be restarted as many times as necessary to get the merge correctly
completed.

By default, TortoiseHg will use the resolve dialog to resolve all
conflicts, including trivial conflicts.  It instructs Mercurial to never
merge files automatically, deferring their resolution until the resolve
dialog can be launched.  This is true for merges, update commands that
require content merges, rebases, and backouts.

Shelve dropped, MQ improved
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TortoiseHg 2.0 does not include a shelve tool as 1.0 did.  Instead, we
have elevated MQ usability to cover the use cases where shelving was
necessary (still a work in progress).  This approach avoids a number of
shelve issues, for instance its inability to shelve added or removed
files.

Revision Sets
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We have replaced the filter bar of the Repository Explorer with a
revision set bar in the Workbench.  Revision sets were introduced in
Mercurial 1.6 and have been integrated with an increasing number of
commands in each subsequent release.  They are a powerful query language
for finding and specifying revisions in your repository.

The Workbench also includes a revision set editor which both teaches the
user the available keywords and their arguments, and offers brace
matching, auto-completions, and other editing ameneties.

In TortoiseHg 2.0, incoming and outgoing changesets are visualized as
revisions sets.  In previous versions they were represented by graph
annotations.

Technology
----------

Qt and PyQt
~~~~~~~~~~~

TortoiseHg 2.0 has been a near rewrite of all of the tools and dialogs
taking advantage of Nokia's excellent `Qt <http://qt.nokia.com/products/>`_
UI framework and Riverbank Computing's fine
`PyQt <http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/software/pyqt/intro>`_ Python
bindings.

QScintilla2
~~~~~~~~~~~

TortoiseHg uses the `QScintilla2
<http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/static/Docs/QScintilla2/index.html>`_
editing component extensively to:

* display file contents and diffs with syntax highlighting
* display annotations with syntax highlighting
* edit commit messages with auto-completion of filenames and source symbols
* edit revision set strings with brace matching and auto-completion

One can configure the Qscintilla2 tab stops and white space visibility
parameters using the settings tool.


Polling of repository state and config
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Workbench and other applications like the commit tool will poll
repositories on your local machine to detect changes made to either the
repository or their configuration files, and automatically update
running applications as necessary.  Nearly all configuration changes are
effective immediately, with the notable exception of enabling or
disabling Mercurial extensions.  Changes to extension configuration
generally require application restarts before they take effect.

Immediate bug report dialogs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Prior to TortoiseHg 2.0, bug reports were written to stderr as they
occured and stderr was captured and scanned at exit to report those
errors to the user.  While we gained many valuable bug reports via this
mechanism, there was rarely any context on what operations caused these
bugs.

In TortoiseHg 2.0, we have created a generic exception handler that
catches all Python exceptions that are otherwise unhandled by
application code.  This allows us to display exception tracebacks almost
immediately after they occur (after a short timeout to collect
consecutive exceptions together).  The hope is that future bug reports
will contain better reproduction instructions, or at least context for
the tracebacks.

Demand loaded graph
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To keep refreshes as effecient as possible, the graphing algorithm will
only load a couple hundred revisions initially during a refresh, and
then load further revisions only when those revisions are required to be
displayed.  You will notice scrolling through the graph is jerky, these
are bulk loads of revisions into the graph.  To avoid this jerkiness you
can force TortoiseHg to load all revisions in the graph via the 'Load
All' toolbar button or jump directly to the earliest revision you wish
to view (SHIFT-CTRL-G).

.. vim: noet ts=4 syntax=rest