NCover Trend Format Changes

Our customers have spoken and we listened. We received a bunch of requests to speed up and optimize the memory usage of our trends feature in NCover 3. For more information on trends please click here.

NCover v3.1.4 includes a brand new binary data format for coverage trends. What does that mean for you? It means that the entire set of trend data no longer needs to be loaded into memory any time you work with trends. The time and memory required to append a new coverage file to the trend file has been reduced by as much as 80% and the file size by 50-66%. It also means that we are able to read any piece of trend data from any location in your coverage file in a fraction of the time it took with the existing format. Associating a trend file to a coverage file is now an instantaneous operation. No longer will you watch the "Loading Trends" dialog.

With changes come new behaviors. By default, if the coverage file path does not exist, we will create one for you and it will be empty until trends are added to the file. We will also require you to use the new binary format for any new trend files. You will no longer be able to create a new xml based trend file from scratch. Your existing xml based trend files will continue to work, but we highly recommend converting them to the new format using the new converstion tool that we will talk about next.

NCover v3.1.4 ships with a new tool called ncover.upconvert. The experience of moving to NCover 3 taught us that people do not want file formats changing by magic, so we now require you to convert trend files if you wish to use the new functionality. Our support cases tell us that this is a good thing.

At this time the new application only has two switches, one to set the source files, and one to write to a single destination file. You can use an unlimited number of input files to write to the new output file and the application will be smart enought to ignore any duplicates. This is cool if you have a series of smaller trend files that you wish to covert to our new format since it is so much better than before. The input files may be the old or the new file format.

Every input file is prefixed with the //it flag and one flag is provided for the //ot output flag as seen below. Returns have been added for clarity.

ncover.upconvert //it c:\mypath\input1.trends
//it c:\mypath\input2.trends 
//ot c:\mypath\output.trends

The command will take the input1.trends and input2.trends file and append the data to a new file called output.trends in the new binary file format.

On a final note. You do not need to convert your files if the xml format works for you. The changes are invisible to the user. NCover and NCover Explorer will continue to read the old and the new format without any intervention from a human.

We would love to hear from you about your trends experience. You can do so by commenting on this blog entry or by emailing us at support@ncover.com.

Download the new version here.

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NCover v3.1.4 released!

Download the new version here.

Features and Improvements

• Added new trend file format that reduces memory use by up to 80% and improves update speed by up to 93%.
• NCover Explorer windows now reposition themselves if they appear off screen.
• Improved the error messages and error handling of the registration program.
• Improved the calculation of uncovered code blocks in the Summary, UncoveredCodeBlocks, and FullCoverageReports which sped up those reports by up to 10x.
• Added //ignorefailedbuilds argument to NCover Reporting.
• Added //reportinvalidfiles argument to NCover Reporting.
• The trend graph in NCover Explorer now shows trends for method coverage and cyclomatic complexity, and respects the Satisfactory coverage value for those metrics.

Changes

• Registration program now asks for proxy login info when using proxy information from Internet Explorer.
• The //op and //or arguments now accept relative paths.
• Runtime Intelligence was removed.
• NCover Console now prints a message if the trend file could not be opened.

Bug Fixes

• The main NCover Explorer window wouldn't remember it's last open position on the desktop.
• NCover Explorer windows would reposition themselves if last opened with negative coordinates (problem on multi-monitor systems).
• The "Working Folder" and "Html Report" configuration settings in NCover Explorer now open a Folder Browser as they should.
• Updated trend files to handle incorrect class signatures in coverage files created prior to v3.0.10.
• Summary and UncoveredCodeBlocks reports could throw an exception under some circumstances.
• Fixed highlighting bug in NCover Explorer for lines that could be executed from two different constructors.
• Fixed sort order for the "UnvisitedSequencePoints Ascending/Descending" sort option.
• NCover Explorer required a value for the "Working Folder" field when Windows Services were being covered.
• NCover Console was saying that it couldn't find executables that were on the PATH.

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Good Code Coverage Is Never Enough

For the past month, the NCover Support Team hasn't been very responsive.

Ok, they haven't answered any support questions at all.

But there's a good reason for that.

We haven't been getting any.

Well, we've gotten support cases.

But they've been blank.

Every. Single. One.

But there's a good reason for that too. You see, the form that submits the support ticket sends the data to an API that expects the data in a subtly different format than it recieves it in. So, after a 2 minute bug fix everything works again. A bug caused by a series of typos. Simple to fix, hard to catch. The web team has decided to write more functional tests.

If you submitted a support request to us through the www.ncover.com/support/ticket page in the last month, we apologize, but we didn't get it. If you care to re-submit the ticket we will be more than happy to give it top priority and make sure it gets taken care of as soon as possible.

If you submitted a support request to us through the support@ncover.com email however, we did receive the request and responded to it with our usual alacrity. You can always submit support questions to us through the support@ncover.com address.

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Craig's evil spawn brings CC.net integration goodness

Short on time to publishing his own autobiography, Craig Sutherland devoted his effort to sharing step-by-step integration help for the "every man" using the Cruise Control continuous integration server.

Like he's crafting a beautiful piece of artwork, Craig brings together NCover 3.1 features with the future of continuous integration goodness we call Cruise Control...

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A new design, a refreshed focus.

We've been getting lots of compliments and questions about the new NCover website (who designed it, who wrote the copy, etc.) and I wanted to share with you our mindset behind the redesign, and a little bit of insight into how we work. First though, I'd like to thank everyone who has sent us a message about the new site. It feels great knowing that our work has been appreciated, and that the site is more informative than ever.

The new site was designed internally by the web team at Gnoso, NCover's parent company, with input and content from the entire NCover team. We started out with meetings about where we saw NCover as a product, what we really stood for, and how we could better inform our customers. It soon became obvious that NCover is about more than just code coverage, it's about something much bigger, and that's code quality. Once we knew what we stood for, we started making a list of what the site needed to accomplish:

1. Make a bold stand about who we are and what we care about.
2. Show off what we actually do/make.
3. Be concise and to the point. Don't waste time on marketing jargon.
4. Be clear about how potential users can get started.
5. Educate our uses with more documentation and learning content.

Having this list in mind made it easier to decide if a design element should stay or go. It focused all of the copy that was being written for the site, and it made clear what could be cut and what was a must have item.

The next step was to actually start designing and I had a blast laying out the entire site. Originally we tried to put new content on top of our old site design, but it became clear that a complete redesign was in order. This was a perfect opportunity to refocus our messaging, get back to our roots, and really show off all of the features NCover has to offer. Large text, big buttons, and an interactive screen shot, really helped the homepage come to life and drive our message home. We also added a brand new "Products" page that dives deep into what versions we offer, an interactive diagram that shows how NCover fits into your organization, and a vibrant list of NCover's top features. Previously, our documentation was buried inside of our support section, but now the "Learn" section acts as a central hub for all the information you need to get going with NCover. With the inclusion of site search, a login tab, improved support ticket submission, and a host of other improvements, we've made ncover.com a more useable site.

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