# CVS: History Viewer

The IDE's History Viewer enables you to view a summary of a file's evolution over time based on revision number. The History Viewer also allows you to revert (i.e. rollback) changes to a previous revision.

This window enables you to see the history of committed changes for the selected file or folder. You can use the following criteria to search for files or folders:

Element | Description
--- | ---
Message | Enter the name of a message to search for the revisions of files or folders committed with that message.
Username | Enter a username to search for the revisions of files or folders committed by that user.
From | Enter a tag, branch, revision or date of a message to search for the revisions of files or folders committed after that tag, branch, revision or date. Click the Browse button to search for a branch or tag.
To | Enter a tag, branch, revision or date of a message to search for the revisions of files or folders committed before that tag, branch, revision or date. Click the Browse button to search for a branch or tag.

When you click the Search button, files and folders meeting the specified criteria are displayed in the lower pane of the History Viewer. You can view search results in two unique views: Summary view and Diff view:

Element | Description
--- | ---
Summary | Displays a list containing the details of the results matching the specified search criteria. Each row corresponds to a revision obtained from the repository. If your search criteria specified a folder, all files contained therein are displayed beneath the revision heading.
Diff | Displays the IDE's graphical Diff Viewer enabling you to compare two revisions side by side. A tree view of the commit results displays above the diff viewer allowing you to arbitrarily select revisions to compare. Expand the tree and click on a revision to compare the changes between the selected revision and the previous revision. When working in the Diff view, you can format the table display of the upper tree view. To do so, choose List Options > Change Visible Columns from the right-click menu of any selected row. A dialog appears allowing you to specify which columns to display. Listed columns include:
File Revision | Revision and Name of the File (mandatory)
Message | Commit Message (optional)
Time | Time of Message (optional)
User | Author of the Change (optional)

You can also change the order in which columns are displayed in the table. To do so, click on a column heading in the table and drag it to the desired location.

The History Viewer allows you to revert changes made in a selected revision based on the view you are working in.

Element | Description
--- | ---
Summary view | Select revision row and either: right-click the row and choose Rollback Changes click Revert in the lower right corner of that row
Diff view | Select a file revision from the tree view and choose Rollback Changes from the right-click menu.

Related Topics

Developing Applications with NetBeans IDE,

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