I have started using Git for my other development projects (PHP, HTML, JavaScript, etc.) and can now see how beneficial it is, however I've been unable to find anything similar for Dynamics CRM 2011/2013 as a lot of the solution development is done within the web interface.
I'm guessing this is not possible, but could someone with more experience than me please confirm this or let me know which tools I should be looking into?
Thanks
You can use the Visual Studio Developer Toolkit available in the SDK to version control your plugins and web resources initially. I'd recommend this as your first step.
If you choose to take it further you can also look at using the SolutionPackager tool to version control your solutions. This will split out your solution zip file into separate version controllable files for each component. It works best when you follow the developer workflow outlined in the linked MSDN article
Long time reader, first time asking a question.
Most of my development work has been in .NET using Visual Studio. Recently I took over maintenance of a website built on PHP and downloaded NetBeans as an IDE.
NetBeans has a very nice CSS property wizard for HTML projects that highlights the CSS rules in use for a particular element and lets you edit the rules directly. However, this doesn't appear to be available for PHP projects, even for pure HTML files within the project. Is that correct, or am I just missing some configuration? I can't seem to find any confirmation either way in the documentation or forums. (It would be unfortunate if it didn't work... it's a really useful feature.)
Thanks,
Terry
If you are referring to the visual CSS editing support that works with Google Chrome and the WebKit browser embedded in NetBeans, then this feature will be available for PHP projects in the upcoming NetBeans 7.4 release. See also this blog post: https://blogs.oracle.com/netbeanswebclient/entry/html5_development_with_java_ee
Hope this helps,
Petr
Is there any version control software out there for ASP Classic?
(Please no discussions about the choice of ASP- its not my decision)
Thanks
ASP classic files are just plain text files.
So you don't need any special VCS software, you can use anything which can deal with plain text files (which means, really anything).
For example:
Git
Mercurial
Subversion
I have NEVER used ANY version control system before. I am currently using the check-in-check-out feature of Dreamweaver but I would like to implement some sort of version control system where I can roll back to previous versions. Also it would be great but not required if I could go back like 3 versions, fix a bug, and have that bug fixed for all the later versions. I have no experience with version control, mainly because I never knew about it until I started reading the pragmatic programmer. So I would probably need step by step directions so if there is a tutorial or something I can be pointed to that would be great too.
Thanks!
Turtoise SVN would be a great first step into proper version control system.
Bazaar have impressed me lately, it's a fairly new scm and not that many 3rd party tools just yet. But if you want the latest and the greatest try it out!
Step by step guide(!) ;
Download
Bazaar in five
minutes
If you're on Windows, and want a smooth but powerful Distributed Version Control System, I recommend Mercurial through TortoiseHg. As a newcomer to version control, I can attest to its robust and nice, detailed interface, where you can smoothly progress from GUI-clicking to command line operations when needed.
I'm trying to implement a version control system, but as most of us know designers don't feel comfortable with version control systems. I'm looking for a solution mostly for our designers using Photoshop, Flash and other design tools.
It's not a big deal to use a version control system, like VSS 2005, with our frontend and backend coders, but we have some serious problems with our designers. They mostly refuse to use version control systems, and they are right at some points, mostly on productivity level. They mostly work on more than one file, and on more than one application like Photoshop and Flash.
I don't know if version controlling is the right answer or not. Maybe we have to implement a backup system, but there has to be a versioning system, I think. I and our designers are very tired of doing the same thing or going back to the previous designs over and over again.
It would be wonderful to know how digital agencies overcome this problem. If version controlling is the answer, please share your tips on how to make designers comfortable with version controlling.
EDIT 1: Maybe it would be great to have a solution like Dropbox, as it doesn't disturb you with check-ins/check-outs. All you have to do is to open up a file, work on it and save it, the rest is handled by Dropbox.
EDIT 2: We are on Windows, so no chance to implement anything other than Windows support :(
Thanks...
I haven't actually ever done this with graphic designers, but is it possible that Subversion's WebDAV support might work for them? You can mount a WebDAV share as a drive under Mac OS X and Windows XP & Vista, I believe. Each save becomes a new revision in the repository.
And as for your second, hidden question: Yes, you do need to implement a backup system. At least if you value your data.
Adobe has it's own version control, Version Cue, which is bundled with the Creative Suite package. http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/versioncue/sdk_overview/ Apparently, Eclipse can plug into this. I haven't tried it extensively, but I know it integrates nicely into the file dialog in Creative Suite.
NOTE: Version Cue has been discontinued by adobe after the release of CS5:
http://www.adobe.com/products/adobedrive/
Adobe Version Cue maybe?
You might want to try subversion because there are plugins for windows explorer and max OS X finder. integration with the filesystem has been a big help for me on projects where non-developers had to work with source control. This includes projects that have had designers.
Another key thing that helped was having a good directory structure for the files the designers and other non-developers worked with.
I just came accross ConceptShare and it's pretty great...it's not automated version control but you could use it for that and it's a great way to collect and document feedback.
You can try Subversion (installed on a local or remote server) plus Adobe Creative Suite plug-in that would face the designers - Pixelnovel Timeline
It's compact, has previews of all versions (submitted via the plug-in), works for Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign.
If developers also use Subversion, everything (code & design) can be kept in one place.
Instead of trying to integrate a version control system with lots of applications on different operating systems, you might want to have a look at copy-on-write file systems such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext3cow. That way your designers won't even notice a difference; all they will have to do is save their work to a network share on a linux/samba server using ext3cow.
I'm both a designer and coder. I usually version control code (text data) with git, and simply use "save as" with a version name for graphics (binary data). And I run Apple's Time Machine on top of all that, for safety.
To me, version control on graphic files would just be a burden. I'd have to roll back to see changes, and you wouldn't even get one of the great features of version control: see the changes you did in a specific commit just by looking at diffs. The log feature is nice though, to see how you progressed in time, and notes, but to me personally it's not worth it.
Take a look at Perforce - it has a plugin and tools that allow you to use it from within designer tools such as Photoshop, its also super fast and integrates well with Visual Studio - runs on Windows as well as Linux
What I did once was create a "Snapshot" shortcut on the desktop that added and committed everything from a specific directory.
If every designer commits to their own branch (trivial with a DVCS but easy with SVN too) there will be no conflicts, and the cross-branch merging can be done at intervals by someone who isn't afraid of it.
I've been having my eyes on GridIron's Flow for a while now. It looks like a competent version control suite that has some neat asset management features such as visualization on graphics between versions and relationships between different assets. Flow has support for handling files for adobe photoshop, illustrator, flash etc. However as of now (early january) GridIron hasn't released Flow yet other than having to announce the beta program.
Most digital agencies that I know of that mainly do web development use Subversion for version control. To avoid conflicts on image files an artist will lock the files he or she will work on. That way, another artist won't do the mistake of overwriting changes. This requires some coordination among artists and devs so that noone steps on anyone shoes. Also, if someone forgets to unlock, there is the possibility to break locks.
If you're into distributed version control you might want to take a look at Mercurial as it has good support for Windows and has some neat cheat sheets. The Ruby kids are using git but is rather lacking in Windows.
Before using version control with artists, at least make sure they know the basics of version control and let them fool around with it in a sandbox. Also make sure they've set up some basic rules of conduct when collaborating with each other and interacting through version control (i.e. ways to make sure they don't destroy each others works or step on each others toes).