#FeatureBlog - 19.2 - File Change Management (Workflow File Diff)

#PreviewBlogs 2019.2 - File Change Management (Workflow File Diff). We need your voice!

Please provide your valuable feedback about this feature! Our product team is hungry to build upon the basic functionalities so feed them your ideas :slight_smile:

New features are awesome! :slight_smile: This is why we wanted to get your thoughts on our new Workflow File Diff introduced in the latest version 2019.2. It allows you to see the changes made to the file on SVN or TFS before you check it back in to the repository.

How it works and why would you need it?

Imagine you need to update some annotations in the Main.xaml file from your project. You check it out from the repository and then you edit it. When it is done, you want to save and check-in the file and go for a coffee :coffee:
You cannot do it yet though - you have to first carefully re-check if everything is correct to make sure that you will not introduce breaking changes.
This is where the new features comes into play!

Before checking in your file, choose this magical option first called Show changes…:

image

You can now see an overview of all the changes made to the file:

From here, you can either decide to check-in the file if everything is correct, make further edits to fix anything your cat broke by walking across the keyboard or undo the changes entirely.

The point is, you have saved yourself a headache by having a nice Workflow Diff experience :slight_smile:

Naturally, this is not the only example of how useful this future can be!

See below for a few more:

  • it can display which packages have been added or removed from your project (project.json)


    In this case, the package UiPath.Credentials.Activities was removed from the project

  • it can showcase exact changes to the properties of any activity:


    In this case, the SimulateType checkbox was selected

  • it can display new variables and/or arguments that were created and/or modified in the workflow:


    In this case, a new activity Get Secure Credentials was added together with two variables, username if type String and password of type SecureString

Workflow Diff window structure

An example comparison could look like that:

  1. Basic controls will definitely come in handy when managing your longer workflows:
    image
    Previous - Navigates to the previous change in the compared files.
    Next - Navigates to the next change in the compared files.
    Collapse All - Collapses all nodes in the .xaml files.
    Expand All - Expands all nodes in the .xaml files.

  2. The main panel displays the direct comparison of the two versions of the file.
    On the left, you can see the remote file on the server
    On the right, you can see your local, modified copy
    It will include all elements added to your workflow

  3. The secondary panel displays properties of the currently selected element in the main panel.
    It will include all changes within one particular element from your workflow

  4. To keep things simple, every change is color coded as follows:
    image

For more information, you can also check our documentation of this feature available here.

Please provide your valuable feedback about this feature! Our product team is hungry to build upon the basic functionalities so feed them your ideas :slight_smile:

A few things that they already have on their menu:

  • ability to run the Workflow Diff on two files within your project at any time
  • ability to easily merge your edits
    (being able to edit and check-in modified workflows directly from the Workflow Diff window)
  • display Workflow Diff comparisons as a tab in Studio

Don’t be shy, click on image below and tell us what you think!

As always, thank you for reading and happy automating!

39 Likes

Hi @loginerror,

Is this feature available for TFS/SVN source controlled projects or can we access the same in offline too?
because when i tried from my machine It didn’t got reflected.
What if we have two versions of files edited in past and forgot what were the minor changes?, I agree we can use the Beyond compare or notepad++ like tools to archive same, still my question is can we use this feature locally? If so how?

Thanks,
Meg

The “stand-alone” version of the Workflow Diff is not yet implemented, but is on our to-do list:

  • ability to run the Workflow Diff on two files within your project at any time

Would you say that you would find it even more useful to run it as a Tool from Studio and be able to select ANY two xaml files for comparison?

2 Likes

We love to use it as a tool within UiPath (similarly like we have UiExplorer) and compare any two local files or comparison.

P.S. Looking news feed frequently with new changes is Damm Exiting :grin::heart_eyes:

Thanks,
Meg

2 Likes

Hi Team,

This is really an awesome feature.
The same feature in Tortoise SVN is NOT at all useful as the comparision between xaml files is same as comparing two txt files. Thus makes it very difficult to understand the real differences.

But this feature in UiPath looks stunning as the changes are shown side by side in native UiPath windows upto property level changes which makes it very easy to understand by the developers like me .

Thank you and
Great Job Team!!!

1 Like

Hi Team,

its a great feature for UiPath and its very good if we have in our product Standalone.

But it looks it able to show the last modified details only. if we can have last 5 modifications then it would be better…

just a suggestion.

1 Like

That’s a great feature to get the diff of workflows. Thank you very much.

@loginerror
Want to know couple of things -

  1. If I double click the change, will it take to the respective activity in the workflow?
  2. Is there an option to merge the changes between the workflows?

Thank you.

3 Likes

Think this is awesome, as I would use similar when developing using Visual Studio

This is a great and much needed feature!

Also I would concur with the other that using this outisde of SVN or TFS context and comparing files locally would be a much needed addition! As not everyone is using SVN or TFS as a repository.

Hi Team,

nice feature! Is there a possibility to manage versions as in GitHub?

Thanks!
Yannik

Everyone - thanks you for the great feedback here. This helps us understand your needs and prioritize. Please keep this good stream of feedback coming! :slight_smile:

Just a heads-up on what you should see in the next iterations:

  • Compare 2 files from the same project (currently in 19.3 beta channel). Right click a file and select for comparison, right click another file and compare with selected.
  • Show History and compare 2 versions
  • Merge View

What else?

Be sure to stay on beta channel for latest updates.

3 Likes

I definitely think this is a very welcome feature!

I just wish I could set the paths on the top and select any two files in my machine… I currently use git, so if this tool is integrated with SVN it won’t work for me…

Would be nice to have an integration with git in the future, in which I could select the commit to compare with. What do you guys think?

Hi @mghextreme

See our latest 2019.3:

You will notice a bunch of features, such as GIT Integration or File comparison :slight_smile:
(file comparison does indeed only compare files in the current project for now, but you can already select any two files to compare within that project)

3 Likes

This is regarding 2019.4 update. I am Not able to understand the branching concept created in GIT.Why another branch Dev has been created and every time why doing master folder checkout and then later merge.Could you please explain in detail?

Hi @prakash.kattamuri

Welcome to our UiPath Forum! :slight_smile:

I would suggest you to look at articles that explain the concept of Git and how it works. Although it was only recently added to Studio, the concepts existed long before that and there are plenty of articles about it :slight_smile:

Here is one I found, as an example.

It is a great feature, makes project management easier and controllable. No loose ends and crashes.

As per SVN the standard architecture is Branch , Tag and Trunk. Branches are basically used for dev activities , where developers will be working on specified branches of the main code and commit their changes . Finally this committed changes from various branches will be merged into one the final one which is going to be deployed i.e Trunk.
Tags are more likely like a backup .

So here if I could relate a branch is created for others to work on it parallel. Master Folder is checked out and the changes done as per the branch will be merged into it after reviewing.