The Details pane displays the contents of a particular directory (folder) if you've made a selection in the Folders pane, or the set of objects resulting from a search that you've selected in the Searches pane.

A version-ID that indicates the version of the element that currently appears in this workspace or stream.
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Workspace: If you have modified an element, but not yet promoted it to the backing stream, the version-ID indicates a version in the workspace stream. These are described as " active elements", or as "members of the workspace's default group". For inactive elements (those you haven't modified or activated with Anchor or Send to Workspace), the Version column indicates a version from some higher-level stream, which your workspace stream inherits.
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Stream: If the element is currently active in the stream (is in the stream's default group), the version-ID includes the name of this stream. Otherwise, the version-ID includes the name of the higher-level stream from which this stream inherits the version.
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File element: the element type of this version of the element:
text,
ptext, or
binary.
The element-ID of the element.
Switching in and out of include/exclude mode also changes which elements are displayed in the Details pane.
As a version control system, AccuRev keeps track of changes that users make to files and directories. The following sections describe common usage scenarios, showing how AccuRev change-tracking is reflected in the File Browser's Details pane: in changes to the status of objects, and in creation of new versions of objects.
Perhaps the most common scenario is "non-conflicting development": modifying a file that no one else is working on concurrently. Initially, the Status column in the Details pane shows the file's status as
(backed): your workspace contains an unmodified copy of a version in the backing stream. The Version column contains a version-ID, indicating which backing-stream version it is:

Invoke the
Edit command on the file, using the toolbar button or the file's context menu. This launches a text editor session on the file. (You can use environment variable
AC_EDITOR_GUI or
EDITOR to control which text editor is launched.)
When you end the edit session, the file's status changes to (modified). This indicates that you've modified the file in your workspace since the last time you synchronized the file in your workspace with the depot, for example with a
Keep or
Update command. (That is, you've changed the file in the
workspace tree, but not the element in the
workspace stream.)

You can edit the file as many times as you wish. The file's status remains (modified). To have AccuRev record a new version of the file, invoke the
Keep command on it. If you wish, enter a comment in the dialog box that appears. The comment string becomes a permanent annotation to the version, viewable with the
History Browser (see
The History Browser on page 185).
The Keep command creates a new version of the file in the workspace stream. This version is said to record a
content change to the file. The File Browser also has commands for performing
namespace changes.
The file's status changes to (kept)(member); this indicates that you've recorded a new version, and that the file is currently
active in your workspace (is a member of the workspace's
default group).

The Version column shows the version-ID of the newly created version. Note that this version is recorded in your private workspace stream (in this example,
talon_dvt_john); previously the Version column indicated that your workspace contained a version from the public backing stream (
talon).
You can continue modifying the file with the
Edit command, and saving new versions in the depot with the
Keep command. The file's status will alternate between
(modified)(member) and
(kept)(member). The persistence of the
(member) indicator reflects the fact that the file remains active in your workspace until you
promote your changes to the backing stream or
undo your changes.
You can also use the Rename command to move a file to a different directory; specify a relative pathname (such as
..\otherdir\myfile.c ) as the new name for the file.
As with a content change, the file's status changes to (kept)(member). Making a namespace change to a file activates it -- creates a new version in the workspace stream and makes it a member of the workspace's default group -- just like
Keep'ing a content change.
You can also rename and/or move a directory.
Initially, the content changes and/or namespace changes you make to a file are recorded only in your workspace's private stream. This keeps your work isolated from your colleagues' work. When you're ready to share your changes to a file with your colleagues, you
Promote the active version from your
workspace stream to the
backing stream. This makes your changes available to all workspaces that are based on the same backing stream.

Having been promoted to the backing stream, the file is no longer active in the workspace (is no longer in the default group of the workspace stream). Accordingly, it loses its
(member) status and returns to being
(backed) -- its original status before you started working on the file. That is, the workspace returns to "inheriting" the version of the file currently in the backing stream -- which happens to be the version you just promoted there!
Strictly speaking, you must Keep a file's changes before you can
Promote them. But as a convenience, the File Browser enables the
Promote command for files that are
(modified), but not
(kept). Invoking
Promote performs both a keep transaction and a promote transaction.
Inevitably, you sometimes decide not to share your changes to a file with your colleagues -- instead, you decide to discard the changes altogether. The
Revert to Backed command undoes all the content and/or namespace changes you've made to an active file. The file's status reverts to
(backed), and your workspace "rolls back" to using the version that it contained the last time the file's status was
(backed). It might be a version that you brought into your workspace with a recent
Update command; or it might be a version that you created in your workspace, then
Promote'd to the backing stream.

The variant command, Revert to Most Recent Version, is useful if you've modified a file's contents repeatedly, creating one or more intermediate versions in your workspace with the
Keep command.
Revert to Most Recent Version discards any content changes you've made since the most recent
Keep. The file's status reverts from
(modified) to
(kept). The file remains active in the workspace, so it retains its
(member) status.
In addition to tracking changes to files, as discussed in the preceding sections, AccuRev tracks changes to directories. AccuRev's model for directory-level changes is simple, but somewhat different from the model used by the operating system (and by some other version-control systems). AccuRev considers the following to be changes to a directory:
The following are not changes to a directory:
Note that it is only changes involving a directory's pathname that are considered to be changes to the directory itself. Changes to a directory's contents are not considered to be changes to the directory itself.
You change a directory's pathname in the same way you change a file's pathname -- with the Rename command or with
Cut and
Paste commands. When you make such a change, AccuRev records a new version of the directory in the workspace stream.

The new version-ID appears in the Version column of the Details pane (in this example, talon_dvt_john\2). And the directory's status changes to
(kept)(member) -- just as it does for a file's namespace change.
An AccuRev workspace tree is an ordinary directory tree, typically located on your machine's hard drive. Nothing prevents you (or perhaps, some rogue cleanup script) from using operating system commands to delete one or more of the files under version control. On occasion, you may even want to delete some files temporarily -- for example, to test the robustness of your build or installation procedure.
By definition, deleting a file at the operating system level makes it disappear from disk storage. Operating system tools, such as Windows Explorer or the UNIX
ls command, will detect that the file no longer exists. But the file does
not disappear from the File Browser display. AccuRev knows that the file
should be in the workspace, because the file element still exists in the workspace's built-in stream. (The workspace stream is located in the AccuRev depot. It's unaffected by the operating system's delete-file commands.)
Note that the Version column continues to indicate which version of the file should be in the workspace. To restore that version, invoke the
Populate command from the missing file's context menu.
Deleting a directory at the operating system level is similar to (but potentially more destructive than) deleting a file. The entire directory subtree is deleted from disk storage, and the directory is listed by the File Browser as
(missing). To recover the entire directory tree, invoke the
Populate command from the directory's context menu. Be sure to select the Recursive option from the
Populate dialog.
Sometimes, you want to delete a file permanently (see note). That is, you want the file to disappear from your workspace, and from other users' workspaces, too. The file might be related to a product feature that was cancelled. Or perhaps a code reorganization rendered the file unnecessary.
Defuncting a file removes it from the workspace's disk storage (that is, deletes the file at the operating system level). In addition, the
Defunct command is recorded in the depot. It may be surprising at first, but AccuRev manages the defuncting of a file in the same way as it manages the creation of new versions. To AccuRev, defuncting is just another kind of change that can happen to a file:
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To "share" the defuncting of a file, you Promote the change to the backing stream. This causes the file to disappear from your workspace stream, and from the File Browser display. The file will disappear from other users' workspaces when they invoke the Update command.
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The Defunct command does not actually remove the file element from the AccuRev repository. Because AccuRev is TimeSafe, old versions of the file continue to exist in the repository. You can see such versions in
snapshots of streams, in
History Browser displays, etc. You can restore such elements with the CLI command
undefunct.
As you and your colleagues make changes to a project 's code base, the contents of your private workspaces diverge more and more. It's a software-development best practice to periodically incorporate others' changes into your workspace, effectively resynchronizing the workspaces (partially or fully). The
Update command performs this task, by copying versions that your colleagues have
Promote'd to the backing stream into your workspace.

This is an oversimplification. For some elements, you must use the merge operation to incorporate other's changes into your workspace. For a complete discussion of the update operation, see
Updating a Workspace on page 27.
AccuRev supports concurrent development: two or more users can start with the same version of a file and make changes to that file independently -- both
content changes and
namespace changes. After one of the users
Promote's his changes to the backing stream, each of the others must
Merge her own changes with the newest version in the backing stream, using the
Merge tool. We describe here how to initiate a merge operation.
As you work on a file, Keep'ing intermediate versions in your workspace, the file's status alternates between
(modified) and
(kept). At any point, you may notice that an additional indicator,
(overlap), appears in the Status column. To make sure you notice, the File Browser displays the entry with a yellow highlight.

This means that a new version of the file has been promoted to the backing stream. Typically, one of your colleagues has edited the file and promoted her version to the backing stream. It may also be that someone has promoted a new version of the file to a higher-level stream, and the backing stream dynamically inherits the new version "from on high".
Whenever a file's status is (overlap), the
Merge command is enabled. The execution of a
Merge command concludes with the
Keep'ing of a new version in your workspace.

In this example, the Merge involved incorporating a namespace change: the file's name has changed from
report_writer.pl to
reporter.pl. When you
Promote this merged version to the backing stream, the file's status returns to
(backed).
The status (underlap) is similar to
(overlap), in that an element has changed in your workspace and also in the backing stream. With
(underlap), the changes in your workspace version have already been promoted to the backing stream (from another workspace, or from a stream elsewhere in the depots stream hierarchy). You can resolve an underlap in the same way as an overlap -- by merging and promoting. But in many cases, it is more appropriate to use the
Revert to Backed command to undo the changes in your workspace.
You can invoke the following commands from the Details pane toolbar or the context menu of a selected file or directory. Some of the commands operate on a multiple-element selection. Other commands are available from the
Folders pane toolbar.
File: (Windows) Run the appropriate command on the file, according to its file type (the Windows file-typing system—"file associations”—does not provide for assigning a file type if the filename has no suffix.)
(UNIX) Open a text editor on the file.
Link to a directory: If the (external) object is a symbolic link (UNIX/Linux) or a junction point (Windows), this command's default is to create an AccuRev element link, not an AccuRev symbolic link. The target of the link must be a directory element visible in your workspace. If you wish to convert all such directories to AccuRev symbolic links, use the
Add links as symbolic links checkbox in the Add to Depot dialog box.
Typically, you invoke the Keep command on files that you've been working on, and thus have
(modified) status. But this is not a requirement. If you
Keep a file that you have not modified, a new version is created with identical contents.
The first time you Keep a file, it becomes active in the workspace (by being placed in the workspace's
default group). After that, you can modify and
Keep the file as many times as you like. The file remains active in the workspace until you run the
Promote or
Revert to Backed command on it.
File(s) that you Anchor must not currently be the workspace's
default group.
Anchor creates a new version in the workspace stream. This new version simply records the fact that the file is officially active in the workspace.
But Anchor creates a
virtual version, because you haven't made a change to the element -- you've merely reinstated some existing version.
In an anchor-required or
exclusive file locking workspace, you
must run the
Anchor command on a file before modifying its contents. When you anchor a set of elements in an anchor-required or exclusive file locking workspace, a dialog appears if one or more of them are active in a sibling workspace. This enables you to select/deselect individual elements to be anchored. Note that the elements that are active in the sibling workspace are initially deselected. This makes it easy to avoid the situation where multiple users are working on the same file(s) concurrently. The exclusive file locking feature guarantees that this situation won't occur.
The version that Promote creates in the parent stream is a
virtual version. No data is copied from your machine to the repository by this command; it just creates new entries in the repository database.
When you promote a version from a time-based stream, it does not become inactive in that stream. Doing so would cause the promoted version to disappear from the stream, because the stream would now inherit a version that was created prior to the
basis time.
Note: If you have enabled the use of third-party issue tracking system (ITS) keys in the AccuWork schema, the
Select Issue (Change Package) dialog displays additional controls that let you specify whether you want to use AccuWork issue numbers or third-party keys when selecting issues to promote against. See the section “Using Third-Party Keys in the Java GUI” in the
AccuRev® Technical Notes for more information.
For each selected element, remove all changes you've made since the last time you Promote'd it, or since the last
Update of the workspace -- whichever is more recent. For files, this includes both content changes and namespace changes. For directories, this includes namespace changes only. For links, this command operates on the link itself, "undo"ing any changes you've made to the specification of the
link target. For example, you might have changed the link with the
defunct or
rename commands. Or you might have used
Copy /
Paste to point the link at a different target directory.
The selected elements become inactive in the workspace (they are removed from the workspace's
default group). The status of the elements becomes
(backed).
(workspace only; file element with (modified) status only) Replace the file with the most recent version you created with
Keep. (This command does not undo any namespace changes you made with
Rename or with
Cut-and-
Paste.) Use this command when you've saved one or more intermediate versions of the file(s), and you want to discard further changes you've made since a
Keep.
(text files only) Open an Annotate tab, displaying the contents of the selected version. Each text line is annotated with information on how it was created.
Open a History Browser tab, containing the transactions involving the selected element.
Open a Version Browser tab, showing all the versions of the selected element, and their interrelationships (ancestry).
Open a Stream Version Browser tab for the selected element. This tab displays the depot's stream hierarchy, much like the
Stream Browser. But on this tab, each stream represents the
version of the selected element that appears in that stream.
Open a WIP tab, displaying the active elements in workspaces and/or streams related to the selected stream.
Tip: You can use the Ctrl+c keyboard shortcut for
Copy.
Tip: You can use the Ctrl+x keyboard shortcut for
Cut.
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Paste after Cut -- (workspace only) Specify the destination for an element that has been marked for relocation with the Cut command.
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Paste after Copy -- (directory in workspace only) Create an element link or symbolic link in the selected directory. The target of the link is the file, directory, or link element on which you previously invoked the Copy command.
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You can create a link that points to another link. A chain of links can be arbitrarily long, but must end at some file element or directory element. By default, the link object has the same name as the target object. But you can change the name in the Paste Link dialog, which appears after you perform the
Copy operation.

Tip: You can use the Ctrl+v keyboard shortcut for
Paste.
When you Promote a defunct element, it disappears entirely from the workspace stream, and from the File Browser display. The element becomes
(defunct), and also
active, in the backing stream.
When you Update a workspace below a stream with a
(defunct) file or link, the file or link is removed from the
workspace tree. For a
(defunct) directory,
Update removes the directory and its entire subtree from the workspace tree.
The default query for the current depot is executed, and the results are displayed in a dialog. You are prompted to choose one or more of the issue records selected by the query. You can also create a new issue record, whose number will be entered in the dialog.