And also how do versioning can help me manage my project ?
You create a CVS repository outside of Eclipse. Subversion and Git are newer source code version control systems you might want to consider.
A source code version control system maintains more than one version of your source code. This is useful when you want to have software versions, as well as when you want to back out a change you made to an earlier version.
As far as installation instructions, here's an online CVS manual.
Related
Just a quick, short question: I would like to find a way to create "versions" of the projects that I am working on so that I may make changes and revert back to older versions of the projects if those changes are unsatisfactory. Is there a way to do this inside of Eclipse IDE or must I download an addon of sorts?
As it's been said you need to use some version control software like Git or SVN. They let you to have different branches for the different versions. I'd recommend you Git, as long is more modern and flexible. There are thousands of tutorials over there.
Eclipse has built-in support for Git. If you choose SVN you'll have to install the subclipse plug-in.
I've looked at a lot of the git repositories, but I'm not sure which one to start with (and they're fairly large, so I want to avoid scanning 25 gig of data). Where would I find the code to handle CVS and Subversion integration?
You can browse all of the git repositories at http://git.eclipse.org/c/ . The one you want is http://git.eclipse.org/c/platform/eclipse.platform.team.git/ (cloning URLs are shown at the bottom).
You can install the core Eclipse source including the CVS code in to Eclipse from Help > Install New Software. Work with http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/updates/4.3 for Eclipse 4.3 (Kepler) and choose Eclipse SDK. You can also download this as base Eclipse install (which is what I usually do).
Once you have this installed open Preferences > Plug-in Development and check Include all plug-ins from target in Java search. Once this is set the things like Navigate > Open Type and all the Java searches will include all the Eclipse source code.
Where the SVN code is depends on which SVN code you are using.
Update 2022: as illustrated by gitlab.eclipse.org/eclipsefdn/helpdesk issue 1100, and issue 915, everything is in the process to be transferred to GitHub.
The old (2014-2021) git.eclipse.org/c/platform/eclipse.platform.team.git/ would therefore be soon (Q2 2022) be found under https://github.com/eclipse-platform.
https://github.com/eclipse-platform/eclipse.platform.team
Currently I'm saving an online copy of my code on dropbox. I was wondering if there is any other convenient option, such as an Eclipse plugin (that can maybe do this automatically?).
Note: The project's code is private and I'm thus looking for an option that doesn't make it public.
have you considered putting your code in an online repository? BitBucket gives you free unlimited Git or Mercurial repositories and they both work with Eclipse. You can also use SVN, and eclipse has a plugin for it with the name of Subclipse. and it works perfect.
There are several free source management systems out there.
However - if you want to use them freely you'll need to opensource your code.
Check out github or googlecode for example.
You are looking for a SCM tool (Source Control Management). GIT or Subversion are the things you are looking for. Have a look at Github.com or Google Code (ups sorry I didn't notice that you're looking for a private solution). BitBouquet is probably the best public server for closed source. If you have your own server (i.e. on a cloud), or you may install GitBlit or Gitosis tools; for subversion you can set up your own server following my tutorial.
Eclipse supports CVS and Subversion built-in, afaik. Maybe latest versions also have git; by the way there is Egit eclipse plugin to support Git.
I am looking for an svn client and host that I can easily set up to work on my mac in eclipse (plugin).
git recommendations will also be useful although i haven't tried it yet.
since there is only a small team of developers I would prefer a cheaper/free solution (advanced features like merging are not necessary)
Thanks
The interesting thing with Git is that you don't need to install anything:
Just download one of the latest Eclipse distributions, and you will have EGit plugin already included in that Eclipse.
Since it is a DVCS, there is no notion of "client" or "server": your repo will be local and will include the full history.
Say I have Eclipse installed in office and home. Both are Eclipse version 3.5 but may have slightly difference, like plugins version. I'd like to commit the code to online repo when get off work and then checkout at home.
What would be a possible solution? github? sourceforge? Are they free?
Would those slightly difference in Eclipse cause any problem? Since I might commit whole project folder which consist some configurations.
Can the community explain a bit or suggest some keywords? I will look up more online. Thanks.
There are a number of places that provide free source control hosting for open source projects. If this is a commercial project, you will need to either host your repository yourself and make it available both in the office and from home, or use a commercial source control hosting service.
Personally I use Subversion and the wush.net subversion hosting service. Wush has been around for a long time and are not too expensive, but a google search e.g. "subversion hosting" will turn up many other options.
Small differences in the subversion plugin version for Eclipse can cause problems. Make sure you're using the same plugin version. Small differences in Eclipse version should not matter.
There are a number of free SCM's available to open source projects.
If you were to choose a CVS or SVN based one, then the slight difference in your plugin versions shouldn't make a difference.
However if you were to go for one of the increasingly popular DCVS solutions such as git, mercurial or bazaar, then your local copy has a full copy of all of the history, so you could get by with creating a local repo on a memory stick making more commits at home and then synching it when your are connected to the office or the internet depending on where you decide to host your central repo.