Create and manage streams in Eclipse

Create streams to manage and control updates between your local work area and a Dimensions CM repository.

Stream types

In the Eclipse integration, you can create the following streams:

  • An empty stream with no items.

  • A stream based on a baseline.

  • A stream based on any version of another stream. The new stream is a child of the parent stream from which it was created.

  • A stream based on the items that are currently under work in your workspace. This stream includes the item revisions from the current Dimensions CM stream. It doesn't include local changes that have not been checked in or delivered to Dimensions CM.

    Example: If you updated your workspace with the most recent revision (1.5) of readme.txt and have made local edits to this file but have not yet delivered those edits to a new revision in Dimensions CM (1.6), the new branch stream will include revisions up to 1.5.

  • A topic stream, which is a private stream that you can use to isolate your changes from a mainline. For an overview of topic streams, see Topic streams and pull requests.

    You can work in a dedicated topic stream until your changes are ready to be merged back into a regular stream. For details about merging, see Merge changes across streams in Eclipse.

    You can use topic streams to shelve your work. For details, see Shelve streams in Eclipse.

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Create stream

You can create streams in Dimensions CM Explorer or Package Explorer.

To create a stream:

  1. Dimensions CM Explorer: To create an empty stream, right-click the top level connection node and select New > Stream.

    To base the new stream on the contents of another stream, right-click an existing stream and select New > Stream.

    Package Explorer: To create a stream based on the items under work in your workspace, right-click the stream and select Team > Branch from Workspace. In the Project Branch page of the Create Stream wizard, select an option, and click Next:

    • To create a baseline of the initial state of the new stream, select Baseline new project.

    • To start working on the new stream when it is created, select Start working on the new project.

  1. On the General page, specify the following details and click Next:

    • Select a product.

    • Provide a name and a description for the new stream.

    • Enter the unique branch name to use for all new items created in the stream.

    • To create a topic stream, select Create a topic stream.

    • To add the new stream to your favorites, select Add the new stream to my favorites. Favorites are shared across all clients.

  2. Specify the source on which to base the stream:

    Option Description
    Nothing Select this option to create an empty stream with no items.
    Based on stream

    Select this option to populate the stream with the item revisions from another stream. Click Find and use the Select Stream wizard to search for the stream.

    Optionally, select a stream version on which to base the new stream.
    Based on baseline Select this option to populate the stream with the item revisions from a baseline. Click Find and use the Select Baseline wizard to search for the baseline.

  1. To require users to enter a request ID when they make changes to the stream, select Valid request must be specified when delivering changes.

  2. Click Next.

  3. Review a summary of the options and click Finish.

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Restore or delegate topic stream

You can restore a topic stream to a clean work area. You can also delegate a topic stream to another user and change ownership of the stream.

For example, if you are switching to a different task, you can delegate the changes in a topic stream to another user.

Note: After delegating your topic stream, you can continue contributing to it. Access is controlled by the Control Topic Stream privilege. All users in the ADMIN group have this privilege by default.

To restore or delegate topic streams:

  1. In Dimensions CM Explorer, select a topic stream.

  2. To restore the topic stream, right-click the stream and select Add to Workspace.

  3. To delegate the topic stream to another user, right-click the stream and select Delegate.

    You can delegate multiple streams at the same time.

  4. In the Delegate Topic Stream dialog box, select a user.

  5. Click OK. The topic streams are now delegated to the user you specified.

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See also: