Collaborator has a variety of clients for creating reviews and uploading files for review. While the Collaborator web server user interface provides the capability for uploading documents and, for some SCM integrations, the capability for creating reviews from committed changes, a client simplifies and expedites this process. Also, importantly, a client allows reviews to be created from local modifications to SCM files that are not accessible on the SCM server (that is, Collaborator clients allow for pre-commit reviews).

Client/Server Version Compatibility

Clients version number should be less or equal to server's version number. Old clients (versions 11.x and earlier) are incompatible with Collaborator server 12.0 and later. To work with it, you will need to upgrade your clients to version 12.0 or later. To find out what is the minimal version of clients supported by your Collaborator server, check the Minimum client build admin option.

SCM Integration

All Collaborator clients integrate with SCM systems, for identifying files under source control and ease of selecting modified files to be uploaded to the Collaborator server for a review. Files are uploaded as changelists. For SCM systems that do not implicitly support changelists, the clients have mechanisms for selecting a group of files to be uploaded to a review.

The SCM integration understands adds, changes and deletes but does not currently track or detect file renames or moves.

Creating Reviews and Uploading Files For Review

Each client also provides a means for creating a review, and for attaching a changelist to an existing review.

Other Features

Additional features are available depending on the client. The client right for your development environment may be determined by your SCM system, or just a matter of personal choice.