Browser Tips

This page points out some ways you can use your web browser to get the most out of P4Web.

Using bookmarks
Right-clicking on links
Using the "Back" button
Resetting the page content limit
Displaying file content
Reducing P4Web's impact on the Perforce Server

Using bookmarks

You'll find that there are some P4Web pages you return to over and over. Use your browser's bookmark (or "favorites") feature to store quick access to those pages. Simply navigate to a P4Web page that you'll be returning to frequently, and bookmark it. You may want use your browser's bookmark editor to give the bookmark a more meaningful title.

Bookmarks can also be used to store any non-default settings you choose (current client, file display preferences, etc.) with Go To->Settings.

Right-clicking on links

In most browsers, right-clicking on a link lets you open the target page in a new window. In P4Web you can use this to look at two pages at once. For example:

• Right-click on "Help" whenever you want to be able to see both the Help page and the page it describes at the same time.

• Right-click on subdirectory links in the Path Browser to browse a subdirectory without losing the page showing its parent.

Using the "Back" button:

Your browser's "Back" button can be used in combination with P4Web "Preview" buttons to preview a command first, then run it. For example, if you want to preview an integrate command to make sure files will be opened correctly, and then run the command, do this:

• Click P4Web's Run->Integrate... menu option

• Fill out the form to indicate how you want files opened for integrate

• Click the "Preview Integration" button and confirm that the files will be opened as you expected

• Click your browser's "Back" button to return to the form -- it should still contain the input you provided for the preview

• Click the "Integrate" button

Resetting the page content limit:

P4Web normally limits the amount of per-page data it sends to your browser to 1024K bytes. You'll see the message "WARNING: page content limit exceeded: data on this page has been truncated!" at the end of the page if that limit has been reached. If you have particularly large amounts of data you'd like to browse (extensive file histories, for example) you can increase that limit. Or, if your browser gets swamped displaying pages at the 1024K byte limit, you can decrease the limit. To reset the limit use Go To->Settings.

Displaying file content:

P4Web provides two kinds of file content display:

• The first is used with all file types, and can be used to make your browser display file content using the appropriate associated application. (For example, HTML content and GIF content would be displayed by the browser, whereas PDF content would be displayed by Adobe Acrobat.) The Show->Depot file in browser command in the File Browser is an example of this kind of display.

  Since P4Web has no MIME information for files stored in Perforce, it sends file content to your browser without a MIME type header, and lets your browser decide what to do with it. Most browsers succesfully use the filename suffix and/or the first few bytes of the file content to determine how to open the file. Some browsers apparently can't make the leap, however; in these cases you'll either see garbage characters displayed in the browser, or an error message.

• The second is used with text file types only, and displays the plain text content of a file within a P4Web page. The Show->Depot file text command in the File Browser is an example of this kind of link. All browsers can display text file content this way.

Reducing P4Web's impact on the Perforce Server:

If you are working with very large Perforce depots, you can reduce P4Web's impact on the Perforce Server by:

• Leaving the recent activity display turned off in the Path Browser when browsing paths at a high level. See Using the Control Panel for information about displaying recent activity.

• Limiting your client view to a subset of the depot. The fewer depot files there are mapped in your client view, the less work the Perforce Server has to do for P4Web. See Editing A Client Spec for information about setting your client view.

• Browsing in workspace mode instead of depot mode. See Depot Browsing vs. Workspace Browsing for more information.

• Browsing the client view of the depot instead of the entire depot, when browsing in depot mode. See Settings and Preferences to for more information.