Staging and Publishing

Each project can have two distinct versions at once:

  • Staging version

  • Published version

By default, a new project is configured to be in Auto publish mode, which means that the two versions are always identical. However, if you change a project to be in Manual publish mode, you can then explicitly publish a project in the Designer.

Published vs Staging

Each project can have two distinct versions at the same time: the Staging version and the Published version. Having a published version and a staging version allows you to make changes to a project, save the changes, and test out the changes before "publishing" it to a production environment.

Usually, Vision module Clients run the published version of a project. However, by launching a Client in a special mode (from the Designer or from the Config section of the Gateway), you can launch a Client that runs the staging version of that project. This staging Client will receive updates on every save, where the production Clients receive updates only on publish. This lets you test out your changes to the project in an actual Client, which is more realistic than the Designer's preview mode.

Not all aspects that comprise a project use this system. It is primarily intended for systems such as the Vision module's Clients. Features that run persistently on the Gateway, such as Tags, the SQL Bridge's Transaction Groups, and Gateway-side scripting always run the most recently saved changes (the Staging version). Since these features by definition must run in exactly one place, they cannot be effectively "tested out" by simultaneously running a staging version alongside a published version.

In the Designer, choose the Project > Properties menu item, then go to the Project > General page to set the Publish Mode. By default, a new project is configured to be in Auto publish mode, however you can change it to Manual publish mode.

  • In the default Auto mode, when you want to save your project, Designer lets you do a File > Save and Publish, which means both the Staging and the Published versions will be the same and identical.

  • In Manual mode, when you want to save your project, Designer lets you do both a File > Save or a File > Publish. File > Save updates the Staging version, and File > Publish updates the Published version.

Project Versioning and History

Each project keeps a log of recent changes. These include both saves and publishes. Every save increments a number called the "edit count" for the project, which can be used like a serial number. The user, time, affected resources, and a commit message (see next) are logged as well.