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Try a Review on Our Demo Server

You can watch the five minute demo to get an initial feel for what Code Collaborator can do. And if you want to try it out for yourself, it is easy enough to download, install, and configure the Code Collaborator server software.

But if you don't have time to install the server software, you can still try out Code Collaborator by using our public server: demo.smartbear.com. There are three sets of detailed instructions below; you can read all three or just pick the one that fits you best:

1. Participate in an Existing Review. This is the quickest way to try Code Collaborator - instead of creating a new code review, join in on a review that has already been created. All you need is a web browser.


2. Create a Review. With the investment of just a couple of additional minutes, you can create a code review of your own and upload one or more files to it. Again, all you need is a web browser. 


3. Integrate with Version Control. If you are willing to install the Code Collaborator client software, then you can take advantage of its ability to automate the creation of a code review - including integration with all the popular version control systems. 

Additional resources are available; check out these entries on our blog: Getting Started with Code Collaborator and The First Review.

After you give it a try, we'd like to hear your feedback about Code Collaborator. Email us at , or participate in our feedback forum.

Participate in an Existing Review

To participate in a sample review that was created on our public server, follow these four steps:

1. Create an Account. Browse on over to http://demo.smartbear.com where we have a demo server running. You can create an account by filling in the details in the Create New Account section:
   
   
   
   
   
2. Log in. After you click the Create User button, a message is displayed indicating that your account has been created.  So all you have to do now is fill in your Username and Password in the Login section and click Log In.


3. Join a Review. After you log in, your Code Collaborator home page is displayed and there is a Search box in the upper-left corner:
   
   
   You are going to join in on review number 16, so type in the number 16 in the Search box and then press Enter. You should see the Review Summary Screen for review 16, which was created for experimentation. The second section is the list of Participants - notice that your new username is not listed.  But that is easy to fix - click the Edit link that is in the upper-right of the Participants section:
   
   
   A new tab opens in your browser with the list of review participants. Under Add Self As, click the Reviewer link and then click the Save button:
   


4. Start Reviewing. Go back to the browser tab that has the Review Summary Screen and scroll down to the Review Materials section. There are two files in the review: Prime.java and PrimeUtils.java.  Click either file's link:
   
   
   The Diff Viewer opens, which is where you can start doing the work of a code review - examine the changes that were made to the files, read comments left by others, submit comments, submit defects, etc.  To see some of these features demonstrated, watch our five minute demo.  One of the options in the Diff Viewer is whether to display the differences in a side-by-side or over-under orientation.  The screen shot below shows over-under (click to see full size), but you can change that by clicking on the Options entry in the tool bar.
   

   

Create a Review

To create your own code review on our public server, follow these six steps:

1. Create an Account. Browse on over to http://demo.smartbear.com where we have a demo server running. If you do not already have an account, you can create one by filling in the details in the Create New Account section:

   

2. Log in.  After you click the Create User button, a message is displayed indicating that your account has been created.  So all you have to do now is fill in your Username and Password in the Login section and click Log In.


3. Create a Review. After you log in, your Code Collaborator home page is displayed; click the New Review link:
   
   
   The Create a Review page displays - fill in a Title (e.g. "Review some code") in the Basic Information section:

   

   Then scroll down to the Next Steps section and click the Apply button:

   



4. Add Files to the Review. You have created a review, but it is not very interesting yet - it has no files to review. Click the Attach File link in the Materials section:
   
   
   A dialog pops up and you can specify a text file on your local system.
   
   IMPORTANT: The demo.smartbear.com server is on the public internet. Do NOT upload any files that are proprietary or confidential.
   
   Note that if you upload the same file twice, Code Collaborator will display the differences between the two versions. So if for example you have an older version of foo.c, you can upload it and then follow that with an upload of the newer version of foo.c.
   
   Repeat this step for as many files as you want to add to the review. A much less tedious, automated technique for adding files to a review is shown in Integrate with Version Control.


5. Invite Some Participants. Scroll up to the Participants section and add yourself as the Author of the review:
   
   
   
   You will also need at least one Reviewer. You can either have one or more friends or coworkers perform step 1 (above) so that they are registered, or there is an entry for "Gregg Sporar" and you can just add him. Either way, after you finish adding the participants, scroll down and click the Apply and Begin Review button.


6. Start Reviewing. The Review Materials section will now have links to the file(s) you added to the review, for example:
   
   
   
   Click the link for a file to open the Diff Viewer, which is where you can start doing the work of a code review - examine any changes that were made to the file(s), read comments left by others, submit comments, submit defects, etc. To see some of these features demonstrated, watch our five minute demo.

Integrate with Version Control

If you are willing to install the client software, then there is a fast and easy way to try out Code Collaborator's integration with version control systems. You can create your own code review on our public server; follow these seven steps:

1. Create an Account. Browse on over to http://demo.smartbear.com where we have a demo server running. If you do not already have an account, you can create one by filling in the details in the Create New Account section:

   

2. Log in. After you click the Create User button, a message is displayed indicating that your account has been created.  So all you have to do now is fill in your Username and Password in the Login section and click Log In.


3. Download the Client Software. After you log in, your Code Collaborator home page is displayed; click the Client Installers link:
   
   
   
   The Client Installers link takes you to a web page that lists supported operating systems; click the button for your operating system:
   
   
   As an example, the page for Windows is shown below. Since you will be using the Code Collaborator server on demo.smartbear.com, you only need to download the client installer, not the server installer. Click the Download link:

   



4. Install the Client Software. The Code Collaborator client requires the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version 1.5 or higher. If you do not already have it installed, you can download the JRE here. After you have the JRE installed, run the Code Collaborator installer that you downloaded in the previous step. It will prompt you for information about the Code Collaborator server that you will be using; specify http://demo.smartbear.com for the server URL and the Username and Password that you specified in step 2:

   



5. Create a Review. The value of downloading and installing the Code Collaborator client is that the client can create code reviews for you after it detects which version control system you use. Based on parameters that you provide, the client will upload the appropriate file versions from your system to the Code Collaborator server automatically.
   
   IMPORTANT: The demo.smartbear.com server is on the public internet. Do NOT upload any files that are proprietary or confidential.
   
   Code Collaborator supports a wide variety of workflows; this example shows how to create a review of files that have been modified but have not yet been checked into a version control system. The version control system shown is Subversion. To see the appropriate command line syntax for other version control systems, take a look at this section of the user manual.
   
   For this demo, two files were modified in a local workspace, so the svn status command shows:
   
   
   
   To create a code review with locally-modified files in a Subversion workspace, run this command in the local workspace directory:
   

   ccollab addchanges new .
   

   The addchanges parameter causes the ccollab program to add locally-modified files to a review. The new parameter indicates that those locally-modified files should be added to a new review (instead of an existing review). The '.' is the directory path - ccollab will search recursively from that path for files that have been modified.
   
   An editor is displayed that lists the files found by ccollab:
   
   
   
   The list can be edited; when the list is correct, close the editor and ccollab continues; the complete status it displays will look something like:
   
   

   $ ccollab addchanges new .
   
   Connecting to Code Collaborator Server http://demo.smartbear.com
   Connected as: Gregg Sporar (gsporar)
   Configuration key 'password' saved.
   Creating new review.
   New review created: Review #23: "Untitled Review"
   Attaching changelist to review
   Checking that you are allowed to upload files to this review.
   Auto-detecting SCM System for '.'
   Detected Subversion
   Scanning directory . for modified files.
   Adding changes managed by 
    repo=file:///Demo/vcs/repositories/svn-local;
    username=default>;use password=no
   Selecting files from list
   Displaying edit list
   If you would prefer a different text editor than Notepad, you can
   set the "editor" global option.
   Launching notepad.exe to edit the upload file list.
   Collecting 2 files for upload
   Sending file contents to Code Collaborator server
   Uploading Changelist to Code Collaborator server
   Uploading /Primes/Prime.java
   Uploading /Primes/PrimeUtils.java
   Attaching 2 files to Review #23: "Untitled Review"
   Local changes successfully attached to Review #23: "Untitled Review".

   
   After ccollab uploads the files, the Create a Review page displays in your browser - replace the default Title in the Basic Information section:
   
   


6. Invite Some Participants. Scroll down to the Participants section and add yourself as the Author of the review:
   
   
   
   You will also need at least one Reviewer. You can either have one or more friends or coworkers perform step 1 (above) so that they are registered, or there is always an entry for "Gregg Sporar" and you can just invite him. Either way, after you finish adding the participants, scroll down and click the Apply and Begin Review button.


7. Start Reviewing. The Review Materials section will now have links to the file(s) that were automatically added when you created the review, for example
   
   
   
   Click the link for a file to open the Diff Viewer, which is where you can start doing the work of a code review: examine any changes that were made to the file(s), read comments left by others, submit comments, submit defects, etc. To see some of these features demonstrated, watch our five minute demo.
   

For more information about Code Collaborator, please call our Sales department at +1 978.236.7860, 9am-5pm Eastern Standard Time or send email to .

For assistance with the demo, talk to our friendly support folks (free) at 877.501.5651, 9am-5pm Central Standard Time or send email to .