Back-in-Time Browsing® can show you what the Perforce depot
looked like at any point in time.
If you have web content files stored in Perforce,
Back-in-Time Browsing® can show
you your website as it appeared at any point in time,
under certain conditions.
Using Back-in-Time Browsing® to view depot state
You can set Back-in-Time Browsing® to view the state of the depot at
a particular point in time from the Settings tab.
See Settings and Preferences for
more information.
As you browse depot files and paths with Back-in-Time Browsing®
turned on, the information you see will be relative to the date
(or other symbolic revision)
value you entered.
For example:
- Files that didn't exist at that Back-in-Time Browsing® point
won't be visible in the Files tab.
(Unless they are open in your workspace, in which case you'll see
them, but they'll appear to be unsynced.)
- If you have "Show Recent Activity" turned on,
you'll see the most recent changelists relative to the
Back-in-Time Browsing® point.
- If you're looking at Revision History of a file,
the only revisions displayed will be those that existed at the
Back-in-Time Browsing® point.
Note that:
-
Most menu options and command shortcuts are not available when
Back-in-Time Browsing® is turned on.
-
Viewing
user specs,
client specs,
branch views,
and so forth always shows up-to-date information, even
with Back-in-Time Browsing® turned on.
To turn off Back-in-Time Browsing®, use the Settings tab.
Using Back-in-Time Browsing® to view web content
To use Back-in-Time Browsing® with web content files,
first navigate to a file.
You'll see the file's
Revision History.
Click on a revision number
to enter Back-in-Time Browsing®.
After you start browsing web content, the only way to return to P4Web is to
use your browser's "Back" button or re-enter your P4Web URL.
When does Back-in-Time Browsing® work best?
Under certain conditions,
browsing web content files with P4Web is exactly the same as browsing them
with a web server.
You can see images, click on links, and navigate through
what appears to be a website.
The same conditions give you the best Back-in-Time Browsing® experience.
These conditions are:
-
The web content files do not contain any server-side executable code.
-
Links to other files in the same website are either:
- relative to each other (no links with absolute pathnames), or
- absolute, with a path hierarchy that matches their depot location.
You can still use Back-in-Time Browsing® under less than ideal conditions,
but you might not be able to follow all links and see all content.