ALAMEDA, USA: Perforce Software released version 2008.2 of its Software Configuration Management (SCM) system, with enhancements to improve developer productivity and facilitate system administration. Perforce SCM versions and manages source code and digital assets for enterprises large and small.

Enhancements for developers
Perforce 2008.2 allows developers to graphically preview the effects of integrating changes between branches. Any unintended consequences or undesirable outcomes can be identified and avoided. The new merge preview displays branches side-by-side with color-coding for individual files.

A new rollback feature allows previously submitted work, file revisions, groups of files, and integrations, to be easily undone. The history of the work rolled back, as well as the correction, are both maintained for future review.

Automatic server discovery enables Perforce client programs to identify all available Perforce servers on the network. A scroll-down menu lists all available servers, eliminating the need for manual configuration.

Enhancements for system administrators
Perforce 2008.2 makes it easier for system administrators to monitor SCM operations. New dashboard widgets give more complete information at a glance including the amount of disk space being used, inactive user status, and the processing time of specific SCM operations (see figure). System administrators can easily pinpoint and terminate specific SCM processes as required.

The administration tool is part of the Perforce Visual Client (P4V), the cross-platform graphical user interface available on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris and FreeBSD.

Perforce 2008.2 is available now for developers and can be downloaded from the Perforce website.