# Enabling the CVS resource decorations

When enabled, CVS will decorate resources in Workbench views with icon and label decorations that indicate the CVS state of the resource.

To enable the CVS decorations:

1. Open the General > Appearance > Label Decorations preference page. This page allows the enabling and disabling of all decorations defined by different plug-ins in the Workbench.
2. Click on the CVS box to enable the CVS decorations.
3. Click OK.

Note: In some cases, the decorations may not appear immediately due to the fact that they are expensive to compute. In those cases, they are calculated in the background.

To configure the CVS decorations:

1. Open the Team > CVS > Label Decorations preference page. This page allows the configuration of how decorations appear on CVS projects, folders and files.
2. To configure the text label decorations click the Text tab and then:
   1. Pick the resource type (file, folder, project) for which you want to change the decoration.
   2. Click in the decoration string for that resource type at the location where the new decoration element should go.
   3. Click the Add Variables button for that resource type.
   4. Choose the CVS information variable to add. For instance, for files you could select the added_flag which will be inserted in the decoration where you placed the cursor. The string {added_flag} will be added to the decoration string which will decorate newly added resources using the added resource label (which can be set in the Label Decoration for Added field).
3. Repeat the above for any other decorations to be added.
4. Decorations can be removed by deleting the decoration variable name (i.e. {added_flag}) from the decoration string. In a similar manner, spacing can be added.
5. To configure icon decorations, click the Icon tab simply enable/disable the icon checkboxes.
6. Click OK or Apply for the new decorations to take effect.

Note: Under the General tab is an option to disable the deep dirty decoration of folders. This will make decorator determination more efficient but will make it harder to find dirty resources in one of the navigation views. Under the Synchronize View tab, the Synchronize view can be configured to show the synchronization state of a resource as part of the text label displayed in the Structure Compare pane.

You can also change the color and font of items based on the item's CVS state. To set the color and font:

1. Open the Team > CVS > Label Decorations preference page.
2. Check the box to Enable font and color decorations.
3. Next, Open the General > Appearance > Colors and Fonts preference page.
4. In the CVS category are the various CVS states for which you can set the colors and fonts. Set them as desired.
5. You can return to the Team > CVS > Label Decorations preference page to preview the changes.
6. Click OK or Apply for the new decorations to take effect.

### Related concepts

Team programming with CVS
Synchronizing with a CVS repository

### Related tasks

Checking out a project from a CVS repository
Sharing a new project using CVS

### Related reference

CVS
CVS Label Decorations