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https://github.com/sillsdev/chorus

End-user collaboration library via 3-way xml merging and hg dvcs under the hood
https://github.com/sillsdev/chorus

chorus conflict dvcs fieldworks hacktoberfest hg merge send-receive synchronization xml

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End-user collaboration library via 3-way xml merging and hg dvcs under the hood

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README 

        
# Overview



[![NuGet version (chorus)](https://img.shields.io/nuget/v/SIL.Chorus.LibChorus.svg?style=flat-square)](https://www.nuget.org/packages/SIL.Chorus.LibChorus)

[![Build, Test and Pack](https://github.com/sillsdev/chorus/actions/workflows/dotnet.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/sillsdev/chorus/actions/workflows/dotnet.yml)



Chorus is a version control system designed to enable workflows appropriate for typical language

development teams who are geographically distributed. These teams need to edit a set of common

files, working towards a publication. They want to share their work while, crucially, being able

to defer dealing with conflicting edits for periods of time or until a qualified team member can

make decisions about the conflicts. The system is implemented on top of a commonly-used Open

Source Distributed Version Control System. It works in scenarios in which users are connected by

Local Area Network, Internet, or hand-carried storage devices. Chorus supports several workflow

models, including those that maintain a “master” database separate from the incoming submissions

of team members. Quite unlike the version control systems commonly in use, Chorus works

invisibly for the common cases and is kept simple for even beginner computer users.



## Distinctive Features



These features come for free with any Distributed Version Control System:



 * Share files between users, even if they are never connected to the internet.



 * Every member of the team has access to a full history of all work done by the rest of the team.



 * In a crisis, work can be "rolled back" to a previous version.



However, "raw" Distributed Version Controls Systems are relatively difficult to understand,

configure, and use, even for computer-savvy workers.



The following list of features should help you understand why we built this layer over a raw version control system:



 * silently synchronize; will never tell the user to manually merge conflicts first



 * automatically check for team members & devices with which to synchronize



 * Support a Master branch which does not automatically accept changes from anyone



 * Files can be marked as shared by the team or user-specific. This allows things like

   preferences/configurations to be part of the repository but kept separate for each

   individual. This will also allow one team member to make configuration changes for another,

   remote member, and push those changes through the system to that user, without physically

   accessing their computer.



 * 3-Way, schema-savvy XML merging. Various policies can be implemented for choosing a winner in

   the case of conflicts. Regardless of the policy, details of the conflict are logged in an XML

   file which also under version control. At a time and place of the team's choosing, these

   automatic choices can be reviewed and reversed.



 * Configuration help from applications. Applications generally know where their important files

   are, which files are individual-specific, and which should not be backed-up/shared at all.

   Applications that know about Chorus pass this information to it, so that users don't need to

   become experts in how all the files work.



 * Synchronization help from application. Applications often know what points are good ones for

   checking data in. For example, when exiting, or before doing a large and possibly undesirable

   operation, like deleting a large number of items or importing a new data set.



 * In-Application conflict and change history. Rather than ask users to learn

   version-control-specific tools, the Chorus model is that Chorus provides the raw information

   applications need to provide a smooth, integrated workflow in the same environment as the user

   has for editing. For example, a dictionary-editing program using Chorus will allow the user to

   see a full history of the current record, including who made what changes, and what conflicts

   (if any) were encountered during synchronization.



 * A built-in "notes" system which makes it very cheap to give users the ability to add notes to

   any piece of data, and to carry on conversations about the data until they mark the

   note as "resolved".



## Status



Chorus is functional and being used in several applications with different development teams.

However, we are not really interested in supporting

any further uses until things mature and someone writes good developer documentation.

Documentation (what little exists) was kept on [this blog](http://chorussr.wordpress.com/),

which contains three posts from August 2009.



## Testers



Please see [Tips for Testing Palaso Software](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dkp0edjJ8iqkrYeXdbQJcz3UicyilLR7GxMRIUAGb1E/edit)



To send and receive with the test server over the Internet, set the following environment variable:



	LANGUAGEFORGESERVER = -qa.languageforge.org



To register to use the test server, visit https://public-qa.languageforge.org



## Developers



### Road Map & Workflow



https://github.com/sillsdev/chorus/issues



### Coding Standards



[Palaso Coding Standards](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t4QVHWwGnrUi036lOXM-hnHVn15BbJkuGVKGLnbo4qk/edit)



### Source Code



Chorus is written in C#. The UI widgets use Windows Forms, but you could make your own using a

different platform and just use the engine.



After cloning the project you should now have a solution that you can build using any edition

of Visual Studio 2022, including the free Express version, JetBrains Rider or

Visual Studio Code. This works on both Windows and Linux.



From the command line you can build with:



```bash

dotnet build

```



and run the unit tests with:



```bash

dotnet test

```



### Building client projects against locally-built artifacts



  * Set an enviroment variable `LOCAL_NUGET_REPO` with the path to a folder on your computer (or local network) to publish locally-built packages

  * See [these instructions](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/nuget/hosting-packages/local-feeds) to enable local package sources

  * `build /t:pack` will pack nuget packages and publish them to `LOCAL_NUGET_REPO`



Further instructions at https://github.com/sillsdev/libpalaso/wiki/Developing-with-locally-modified-nuget-packages



### Debugging LibChorus in client projects



Copy `src/LibChorus/Properties/launchSettings.json.sample` to `launchSettings.json`; verify paths to executables and in arguments.



### Localization



Chorus is localized with [L10NSharp](https://github.com/sillsdev/l10nsharp). Chorus-specific documentation is under `l10n/README.md`.