SourceSafe Way of Working

I have now set up my SourceSafe and Visual Studio tools to work as follows :-

- as soon as you start editing a file, you are prompted to check out the file.

This is fine for most of the time. However, I want to find out the best way of "switching off" this strict way of working. Now and again programmers will want to "TRY THINGS OUT" without having to worry about checking files out. I know they can UNCHECK the files, but it is still a bit restrictive.

My ideal way of working would be the first mentioned, BUT with one difference ... If the programmer says "No" to the prompt to check the file out, the programmer should still be able to edit the file LOCALLY. It would then be up to the programmer to remember that the file has not been checked out.

Is there a way of setting this up?

I know I can get all the project files using SourceSafe's "Get LAtest Version" and click the "Make Writable" box, but then I cease to be prompted to check the file out when you start editing.

Any ideas?

I'm not terribly familiar with sourcesafe, but I wanted to propose to you that I think they have a "readonly" property on files. So, if you assign a programmer "readonly" access to a file or a group of files, it probably won't allow him to check it out, and woudl thus allow him to look at it without modifications.

I don't have any answers except to say that I seem to have the opposite situation. My source files seem to reside outside of SourceSafe and I don't know how get them to be retrieved from SourceSafe when I want to edit and then stored back to SourceSafe after I have edited. I must execute SourceSafe separately to retrieve sorce files and then again to store back into SourceSafe. When I store, SourceSafe wants to leave a copy on the hard drive. I must do something (I forget what) specifically to get SourceSafe to delete the external copy when projects are transfered back to SourceSafe. It is all too inconvenient for me.

So I am surprised it is difficult to do what you are asking about.

I don't use sourcesafe intergration into the IDE, reason is, try taking your PC home ;) and clicking through the VSS *****ing dialogs...same thang with MKS...

as far as not checking files out, I usually just make the file writeable. If I want to check in my changes, then I'd jsut lock the file, and diff them, and check in if my changes are the only difference, otherwise I just merge them by hand...since I don't trust any 'merge' software.

in a large devlopment enviroment, 50+ engineers, I hardly ever check out files...it's not worth my time...I just lock and merge where needed. Esp when your working on global changes to .dsp files..cause you konw...everyone under the sun wants to check out the .dsp files...

/blah

Thanks for all your comments.
Having mucked around with a few set-ups, I think that I can live with the following ways of working :-

- Recommend that novice engineers use the restrictive method, requiring them to check out all files they change.

- Suggest an alternative for experienced engineers, whereby they can work on writable files without checking them out. However, issue strong warnings in the guidelines about this way of working, i.e.

- Always check out before making changes where possible.

- In exceptional circumstances, allow changes to local files, BUT warn them about the pitfalls and how to avoid them. The main pitfall is that the file you are working on could have subsequently been modified by someone else, so you have to check for this situation and MERGE any changes as required.