Checking out local Fossi repository can fail in many ways

[rillig]

Given a local Fossil repository, I tried to create a new project out of it.

I thought that "Remote URL" wouldn't fit for opening a repository from the local disk since there is no "Browse File System" button at the right. Additionally, I remembered that in Eclipse, Git distinguishes between local and remote repositories.

Therefore I tried the second field to "Open a Local Repository File". When I selected my repository file, I got this question:

Whoops, no, of course not. I wanted to open it, not replace it. So this must be the wrong path.

As the next try, I entered the following into the "Remote Repository" field: file://c:/Users/rillig/fossil/scoold/fossil.sqlite3.

Then I focused the "Local Repository File" and pressed Shift+Enter. The dialog looked like this:

Note that I'm currently in the git/scoold directory, not in fossil/scoold. I pressed Shift+Tab, Shift+Tab to get to the text field at the top, pressed Ctrl+Left, Ctrl+Left, Ctrl+W and typed "fossil". As soon as I had typed the last letter, the cursor jumped to the right end of the text field since the directory exists:

The directory I typed in the text field is already expanded (nice), so I pressed Tab, Down to select the file. Then, to not overwrite it, I pressed Tab and typed .local into the "File name" field. Then I pressed Enter.

There must be something wrong here. Sure, I selected fossil.sqlite3 from the file tree, but then I edited the file name. Still the question asks about the file from the file tree. I bravely answered with Yes, and nothing bad happened. The file name was just copied to the "Local Repository File" field.

As the last step I typed C:\Users\rillig\fossil\scoold\work (which does not yet exist) into the "Local Checkout Folder" field and pressed Enter.

This error message makes the "Overwrite?" question above useless.

Next try:

Pressing Enter in this dialog results in this error message:

Trying again, this time creating the work directory before, everything worked. Still, it could have gone a lot smoother. Especially for people trying Fossil for the first time, this exact scenario might be the first contact, and it should be nicer than this.

[rillig]

I just experienced exactly the same again.