~bzr-pqm/bzr/bzr.dev

What's New in Bazaar 2.1?

=========================

This document outlines the major improvements in Bazaar 2.1

vs Bazaar 2.0. As well as summarizing improvements made to

the core product, it highlights enhancements within the broader

Bazaar world of potential interest to those upgrading.

Bazaar 2.1.0 marks the start of our second long-term-stable series.

This series will be supported with bug fixes for the next 12 months.

All users are encouraged to upgrade from the 2.0.x stable series.

Better efficiency

-----------------

Many operations now consume less memory. Several operations are

also faster including branching, logging merged revisions and

upgrading from pre-2a to 2a format.

New command options

-------------------

Several commands have new options. These include:

===========     ==============  ======================================

Command         Option            Description

===========     ==============  ======================================

branch          bind            Bind to the source location

commit          commit-time     Give an explicit commit timestamp

switch          revision        Switch to a particular revision

unshelve        keep            Apply changes but don't delete them

unshelve        preview         Show the diff that would result from

                                unshelving

update          revision        Update to a particular revision

===========     ==============  ======================================

Other command improvements include:

* A :doc:`../user-reference/shelve-help` editor can be defined to provide shelf functionality at

  a granularity finer than per-patch hunk.

* :doc:`../user-reference/send-help` send now supports the OS X Mail application.

See the help for the commands above for further details.

Per-file merge hooks

--------------------

Hooks can now be defined for smart merging of selected file types.

This enables easier merging of ChangeLogs, Release Notes and other

file that frequently conflict.

DWIM revision identifiers

-------------------------

Revision identifiers can now be given in a *Do-What-I-Mean* style.

For example, you can now just give a tag (instead of saying ``tag:xxx``)

or just say ``today`` (instead of saying ``date:today``). Prefixes

are now only required if the revision spec could be ambiguous.

New ignore patterns

-------------------

Patterns prefixed with ``!`` are exceptions to ignore patterns and

take precedence over regular ignores. Such exceptions are used to

specify files that should be versioned which would otherwise be

ignored. Patterns prefixed with ``!!`` act as regular ignore patterns,

but have highest precedence, even over the ``!`` exception patterns. 

Smart server home directory support

-----------------------------------

``bzr+ssh`` and ``bzr`` paths can now be relative to home directories

specified in the URL.  Paths starting with a path segment of ``~`` are

relative to the home directory of the user running the server, and paths

starting with ``~user`` are relative to the home directory of the named

user.  For example, for a user "bob" with a home directory of

``/home/bob``, these URLs are all equivalent:

* ``bzr+ssh://bob@host/~/repo``

* ``bzr+ssh://bob@host/~bob/repo``

* ``bzr+ssh://bob@host/home/bob/repo``

If ``bzr serve`` was invoked with a ``--directory`` argument, then no

home directories outside that directory will be accessible via this

method.

This is a feature of ``bzr serve``, so pre-2.1 clients will

automatically benefit from this feature when ``bzr`` on the server is

upgraded.

Generalized glob support on Windows

-----------------------------------

On Windows, glob expansion is now handled in a universal way across

all commands. In previous versions, it was explicitly handed by just

a few commands, e.g. ``add``. A side effect of this change is that

patterns now need to be quoted when passed to the ``ignore`` command,

e.g. ``bzr ignore *.foo`` now needs to be given as ``bzr ignore "*.foo"``.

Improved Git and Mercurial interoperability

-------------------------------------------

Many improvements have been made to the git_ and hg_ plugins.

With these plugins installed, most Git and Mercurial repositories

can now be read by standard Bazaar clients. Changes can also

be written back via the dpush command.

.. _git: http://doc.bazaar.canonical.com/plugins/en/git-plugin.html

.. _hg: http://doc.bazaar.canonical.com/plugins/en/hg-plugin.html

Metaprojects

------------

New plugins are available for constructing larger projects

from smaller ones. These include:

* builder_ - construction of a branch using recipes

* externals_ - Subversion-style external branches

.. note::

   The builder plugin has been designed to complement the builddeb_

   plugin to streamline Debian source package management. It may also

   be useful for building test images for a QA team or disk images

   for installers, say.

.. _builder: http://doc.bazaar.canonical.com/plugins/en/builder-plugin.html

.. _externals: http://doc.bazaar.canonical.com/plugins/en/externals-plugin.html

.. _builddeb: http://doc.bazaar.canonical.com/plugins/en/builddeb-plugin.html

Colocated branch workspaces

---------------------------

A colocated workspace is one where a single working tree is used

across one or more branches managed at that same location. This

is now supported by the new colo_ plugin and by Bazaar Explorer.

.. _colo: http://doc.bazaar.canonical.com/plugins/en/colo-plugin.html

Better documentation

--------------------

A :doc:`../admin-guide/index` covering topics such as setting up servers,

security, backups and email integration has been added.

A large number of documentation bugs have been fixed, clarifying

numerous issues and filling in some missing holes.

The :doc:`../user-reference/index`

has been organized into topics making it easier to

navigate through and print selected sections of.

To assist users migrating from other tools, a

`Survival Guide <http://doc.bazaar.canonical.com/migration/en/survival/index.html>`_

has been published explaining Bazaar to users of other tools in terms they

already know. Sections are provided for existing users of 

CVS, Subversion, ClearCase, Perforce, Visual SourceSafe, Git, Mercurial,

Darcs and Monotone.

Selected documents have also been translated to Japanese.

Enhanced GUI clients

--------------------

Numerous enhancements have been made to most of our GUIs including

Bazaar Explorer, TortoiseBZR and the QBzr-Eclipse add-on. These

applications all build on top of improvements made to QBzr. Bzr-gtk

has also been improved.

Bazaar Explorer has over a dozen new features including smart toolbars,

support for all bzr commands (including those in plugins),

a better working tree browser and a submit delta report showing the

cumulative effect of a series of commits.

See `What's New in Bazaar Explorer 1.0?

<http://doc.bazaar.canonical.com/explorer/en/whats-new/whats-new-in-1.0.html>`_

for more information.

Further information

-------------------

For more detailed information on the changes made, be sure to check

the :doc:`../release-notes/index` for:

* the interim bzr `milestones <https://launchpad.net/bzr/2.1>`_

* the plugins you use.

Enjoy,

The Bazaar Development Team