Viewing file history with Time-lapse View

Time-lapse View provides an interactive graphical representation of a file’s history, showing when lines were added, changed, and deleted, who made the changes, and when the changes were made. Time-lapse View enables you to browse forward and back through changes dynamically, enabling you to locate changes of interest. Detail panes at the bottom of the window provide more information about selected chunks.

Displaying Time-lapse View

To open the Time-lapse View window, do any of the following:

Right-click in the Solution Explorer and select Views > Time-lapse View.

Go to Files > Helix and select Views > Time-lapse view.

In the Submitted Changelist dialog, right-click a file and select Time-lapse View.

Note

Time-lapse View is a P4V component. When you are working in Time-lapse View, you are working in P4V.

Controlling the display

The following options are available on the toolbar:

Mode

Determines how many revisions are displayed. Options are:

  • Single revision: one revision at a time is displayed
  • Incremental diffs: two adjacent revisions are displayed, with changes highlighted
  • Multiple revisions: a range of revisions is displayed, with changes highlighted

Content Range

Specifies the starting and ending revision displayed.

Scale

Specifies the unit used: changelist number, date, or revision number.

User

tlv user

Toggles display of the user that made the change.

Aging

tlv aging

Displays color coding to indicate how recently a change was entered. The darker the shading, the more recent the change.

Line Numbers

Toggles display of line numbers.

Lifetimes

tlv lifetimes

Toggles display of lifetimes, which are graphics that indicate by their width how long the adjacent chunk of text has been in the file.

Branch History

Toggles inclusion of branching (integration) history.

Find

Find icon

Search text

Go To

Go to line icon

In single revision mode, go to specified line number.

Go to Next diff

Go to next diff icon

Go to next modification

Go to Previous diff

Previous Diff icon

Go to previous modification

Line Ending

lineend

Specifies how line endings and whitespace are treated to determine differences

The slider enables you to browse rapidly through file revisions. The appearance of the slider corresponds to the mode you select. The unit by which the slider advances is specified by the mode you select (date, changelist, or revision). The revision, date, or changelist number is displayed under the slider.

Mode Slider Appearance Description

Single revision

Slider for single revisions in time lapse view

Move it to the right to display the next file revision or left to display the previous revision.

Incremental diffs

Slider for incremental revisions in time lapse view

Move it to the right to display the next pair of file revisions, or left to display the previous pair of file revisions.

Multiple revisions

Slider for multiple revisions in time lapse view

Move the right and left halves separately, to control how many revisions are displayed.