Enable checkout view in Viewvc

Changing title to reduce freak-out-factor and state the desired action.

According to the docs this is now called File Download and is disabled in the default configuration but can be enabled.

I debated about bringing this up earlier, but since you did....

does break a module that a lot of people use for development.

There are 170 people who use it..

Please, there are other reasons too!

I have many times been able to just download the missing file from a CVS project with one click - very good.

When supporting dev stuff in the forums, I link folk directly to the CVS folder and say 'download this file and replace the one you've got' to help them avoid CVS headaches and waiting for bundles to roll.

But MOST importantly, I use it to link to embedded documentation that comes with my modules because maintaining a handbook page in parallel is boring, and this way I keep my docs up-to-date and visible.

Right now, we can't even download resources from there like we used to!

This is a real set-back for me :(

Note that I find it a bit strange that somebody writes a module that relies on a service from drupal.org that could go away / be changed any time without discussing this with the infrastructure team.

I understand the general desire to download files through the GUI and we will investigate if we can enable this. However it is possible that we'll conclude that it is not.

Note that it is common to check screenshots into CVS as part of the package, and then link the 'screenshots' (and README as well) link on the module page to the CVS version.

Hmm, if it is that ancient, she may actually have asked me and I forgot it. :p

+1 for dmans comments. Being able to copy-pasta code snippets directly from the web is incredibly helpful for day to day kind of module development without having to do a seach on the version you want in the web interface, mark down the revision version, then jump over to cvs to do the checkout in order to get plaintext.

Just to explain this a bit. We are aware this is useful. However, this is a security issue. We are looking into ways to make checkout view secure, but right now its not and thus is disabled.

-N

Apparently that auto-download feature in module builder is so old that neither killes nor I remembers it. ;D Much easier user-experience-wise than having to explain to people how to do a checkout of contributions/docs/developer/hooks, though, that's for sure.

However, I too find this inconvenient for my day-to-day development life. I'm used to being able to browse code in viewcvs and copy/paste/the contents. Now, though, I need to actually checkout the project in question locally in order to do this, since a page such as http://cvs.drupal.org/viewvc/drupal/contributions/modules/uc_views/views... shows line numbers, which copy/paste as well. :( (otherwise, though, those line numbers are really useful!)

Would love if the 'download' option could be re-instated, for all of the other reasons mentioned as well (screenshots, not having to duplicate README.txt in the handbook and update it in two places, etc...).

Is there anything we "lesser" people can do to help this along? :) Or just be patient while the infrastructure team looks into it?

+1 on restoring this behavior. i'm now stuck at a job with a proxy that blocks cvs access so how am i supposed to grab a copy of cvs-release-notes.php? i can't very well copy paste since it's long and each line is prefixed by the line number.

The module dreditor contains a link to install the script and that link depends on Checkout view. That link is called "Click to Install or Update" under the Installation section of the project page.

When I try to install dreditor, I get:

Error loading user script:
403: Forbidden

If this checkout view cannot be enabled, some alternative would be useful.

I beleive this issue is the cause of some images are getting 403 Forbidden due to "Checkout view is disabled"

For example:
http://drupal.org/node/9068
http://drupal.org/druplicon (node/254)

Not sure how widely used this is across drupal.org though, maybe just these two pages.

So here is the deal. We are going to put viewvc on a different domain which will make us able to re-enable the checkout view. However, until that happens we are going to have to keep it disabled. Its too large a vulnerability.

OK, that's something :-)
Thanks for fixing this!

duplicate #625872: Getting a usable CSV output from Drupal 5 Views 1.x - Errors from cookies + error-reporting corrupting output

Just Disagree.
I have two complex modules both of which are distributed with several pages of HTML documentation, including references, walkthrough, examples, illustrations and a case study. When you get the module, you get the support docs - in the spirit of GNU. You don't get told to go somewhere else for docs that may or may not refer to the current version.

This extensive HTML support is available through the Drupal 'help' menu, through context links in the UI, through viewing the files directly in your own preferred OS filemanager, and - until recently - in a version controlled and publicly bookmarkable URL you could browse before or separately from the install itself.

Even linking to a README (and I go way beyond that) is an improvement on the state of most modules publicly-visible pre-install support. When evaluating a module that does NOT publish its README up-front, I will sometimes go directly to the repository to hunt it down and see it, to get an idea of the assumptions and requirements. This is why removing the previously-useful feature from the repository disappoints me.
It may be that this handy utility was not the intended primary purpose of having the repository browsable, :-) but it's real, and has been useful for this.

Dreditor is a client-side only JavaScript, which actually implements logic to infrequently inform users about new versions of the application by directly checking the script source for an updated CVS Id tag on the first line.

In addition to that, I second the previous statements... it's not only countless of handbook pages and modules that will need updating, also all of my project pages link to the "checkout" version of README.txt and CHANGELOG.txt - to provide a very quick + easy way for everyone to lookup detailed installation instructions as well as most recent changes.

Furthermore, I thought we had our very strict CVS application procedure to prevent any shit from ending up in CVS?

Add #621436: Link to "Read documentation" returns "403 Forbidden" to the duplicate list.

cvs.drupal.org now 302 redirects to drupalcode.org. Checkout view is now enabled.

Let me know if anyone notices anything wrong with the redirect, thanks.

-N

cvs.drupal.org now 302 redirects to drupalcode.org. Checkout view is now enabled.

Let me know if anyone notices anything wrong with the redirect, thanks.

-N

WOW. Works for me
thank you!
With a redirect even, so no fixes needed! Nifty!

Should we update our links to that host anyway?

@dman: That'd be nice, for Google juice. :)

Yes, please do.