Xpages Build process and Replication

3
votes

I'm wondering if someone can enlighted me a little bit on the Xpages build process and how this works with other replica copies of a database. Much of the advice I've seen posted regarding working with the the Domino Designer indicates (logically), that you'll have much faster response working on local copies and then replicating those to the server.

I'll usually save my changes locally, build manually, and replicate to the server, and most of the time, that seems to work fine. However, on some occasions, I've found that when I view the work I've done in the browser on the server copy, it hasn't seemed to update... in fact in a couple of scary incidents, it displays a version from several weeks ago (where is it even getting that from??). This isn't a browser caching issue, and I've opened the design elements (xpages, custom controls) on the server copy and verified that the changes ARE there. I end up having to perform a Clean on the server copy (not just a build) of the application, and then it displays as expected.

This seems like a foolish question, but you shouldn't have to perform a build on each replica copy correct? Any thoughts as to what might be an issue here? There is another developer involved, and he works directly on the server as he's in the same location, but we are rarely working at the same time, and never on the same elements. We are not using source control at this time.

2
xpages
Hi, this is not a foolish question. Me and my coleagues have seen this behaviour as well. We lost a few days work because of this unfortunatly – jjtbsomhorst
Are you sure nobody else opened your database in designer? Especially with autobuild flag? Designer keeps cached design as eclipse project, so in that case you need to Refresh your application, what fetches design elements from NSF (designer doesn't refresh itself if change is replicated to your local NSF). Without refresh incremental build won't compile newer elements. – Frantisek Kossuth

2 Answers

2
votes

We have seen similar behavior ourselves.

In our case, we do development on a server, clean / build project and then copy that database as a template to a deployment server. From there, we update design in the production database.

We have noticed that build process sometimes fails, especially when working over slower links. So we always repeat clean / build / refresh process a couple of times and we try to do it while in office with fast connection between the work stations and the server.

We haven't experienced build problems lately, so this repeating of build process obviously helps.

We have also seen that replicating design between local and server copies sometimes causes build related problems, which could explain the problems you are seeing. We have stopped using replication because of that and are now always working on the server copy directly.

I don't think that your not-using of source control software has anything to do with it.

1
votes

I usually do all changes inside local template, then perform "Project \ Clean", then update design in server database. It works in 99% of cases. If not, I perform "Project \ Clean" once again. I hate this, but looks like it's the only way to get consistent code on production.