Xoom 3.3

New versioning script

We are introducing a completely rewritten versioning script that takes advantage of Xoom Processor, and its ability to retrieve and store Xoom data in various ways. Support for the three revision control systems (Git, Mercurial and Subversion) has been made more robust. Here is the summary of major improvements:

• In Xoom Processor, retrieved configuration can be saved as a Xoom folder, with a well-defined structure and multiple files, each containing a single item. Taking advantage of this, the versioning script now supports Xoom folders in all three supported revision control systems. The result of such per-item configuration versioning is a much more detailed change log. Changes to items are immediately apparent: previously, to find changes, you had to inspect the contents of a single large XoomXML file, containing thousands of items. This also means that, for the first time, there is now a very simple way to inspect the complete history of changes of each individual item.
• When several operations need to be performed on the result of a single query, for example an automated production of several reports from the same data, the subsequent reports can now be performed on a previously stored result of a query, eliminating the need to repeatedly query the Xoom server for the same information. This results in faster execution of a script and a lesser load on the Service Optimization server.
• The support for revision control systems is now much more robust, with more built-in checks, more specific, more detailed and friendlier error messages, and higher degree of control over the behaviour of the script when things go wrong, such as whether partially successful retrieval of information should be committed or rolled back. In addition, the queries are now configured per repository and it is now much harder to accidentally store information outside the versioned directories.
• A command line parameter specifying a commit message is now supported. This is particularly useful when the script is run interactively and there is a need to describe what changes were made and why. There are a number of other new command line parameters, the documentation of which can be seen using the standard Get-Help PowerShell commandlet.

File configuration retrieval

The component for file information retrieval has also been rewritten. The main two new capabilities are the ability to use Xoom parameter values and expressions in the Path definition for file information retrieval, and that recursive directory traversal is now supported.

The representation has also changed somewhat, and now looks like this:

<File xoom:id="File[${Xoom.InstallDirectory}|Reports\ReferencesReport.xsl]">
  <LocalPath>Reports\ReferencesReport.xsl</LocalPath>
  <Path>${Xoom.InstallDirectory}</Path>
  <Name>ReferencesReport.xsl</Name>
  <FullPath>C:\Program Files (x86)\Zany Ants\Xoom\Reports\ReferencesReport.xsl</FullPath>
  <Size>3281</Size>
  <LastModificationDate>2013-01-10 10:58:05</LastModificationDate>
  <MD5>DD-9B-48-5D-84-08-E1-AD-B3-B4-F5-D5-AA-D5-BE-6D</MD5>
  <Version />
  <Extension>xsl</Extension>
</File>
   

FullPath is what used to be Path, and is now the only bit of information that is environment specific (and will hence be ignored when environments are compared, meaning that Xoom installed on disk C: can easily be compared with Xoom installed on disk D: on a different system). All other information uses a logical position derived from Path, which in this example is defined using a Xoom parameter specifying the Xoom installation directory. LocalPath describes the file's path relative to Path (which serves as a logical base directory), and Path preserves its literal value from the query definition and doesn't get modified.

The IDs for a file are now its Path and LocalPath (previously they were a full directory name and file Name). The final minor change is that Extension no longer starts with a dot.

There are now two pre-defined file information retrieval queries: one for Service Optimization, which includes the .dll and .exe files in the Bin directory and all files in the Web directory with all its children; and another for Xoom itself, which retrieves the information on all files in both the main Xoom folder and the W6 plug-in folder, in each case including all subdirectories. The queries are defined in XoomConfig.xml.

Settings Migration Tool

Settings Migration Tool now remembers and reconstructs checked items and categories when a session is refreshed or a connection is established to a different Xoom server. Collections that were loaded and that contained checked items will be reloaded; Collections that were loaded but contained no checked items will not. For Collections that weren't loaded, any checked categories remain checked after the refresh.

This behaviour is helpful in situations where a lengthy review of configuration has to be interrupted so that the session can be renewed. This can now be done safely without having to recheck all the items.

Xoom Processor

Xoom Processor now supports the console as its output (using @ in place of a target), and prints out usage when called without parameters.

It also supports canonicalisation of XML and various other formatting options. These features are explained in the Xoom Processor documentation.

Other improvements

Bug fixes