That is a really useful feature, there are many IDEs that can provide it but I can't find any extension which can provide Local History.
By Local History I mean something that tracks any changes and edits that I make on the source code so I can be able to recover it in future.
There is a separate extension that provides local history functionality:
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/226c2108-9da9-407d-b90d-9783040d27b8
I think the local history feature complements version control.
What you are describing is a source code control system. Visual Studio does not provide this by default as its primary job is that of an editor. It does support a number of source code control plugins, many for free, which will do this for you.
For example there is a free Git plugin that is now officially provided by Microsoft.
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/abafc7d6-dcaa-40f4-8a5e-d6724bdb980c
This can be used with a number of free Git providers
CodePlex
GitHub
Visual Studio Hosting
There is an option to have best of both worlds:
autogit - Visual Studio extension
Here are some counter reasons why local history is different then source code repository:
Some simple reasons:
simple insurance against accidental changes or deletions.
makes it easier to support smarter undo, backtracking, or exploratory programming.
resume a task or track a task by seeing changes at a fine-grain level as they happened.
light-weight, stays invisible until you need it.
Some deeper reasons:
Better Task Resumption: research suggests that resuming an interrupted task or reviewing a change made by another is made easier when changes can be reviewed in an time-ordered manner (in comparision to a flat commit).
Auto-blog: automark is a sister project that can examine a git repository and then automatically generate a markdown file, in a format suitable for publishing a blog post.
Personal Analytics: Watts Humphrey has advocated the idea of tracking personal activity for self-improvement, using methods such as the Personal Software Process. Using services, such as codealike or codeivate, you can track things like time spent editing, etc. Tracking the actual changes can take this analysis to another level.
Api Analytics: Frequent mistakes are made when programming or using particular apis. This can be analyzed: "You spent 3 hours figuring out how to correctly use pygit2.create_commit(), create github issue?"
There's also the Auto History Extension: https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/dfcb2438-180c-4f8a-983b-62d89e141fe3
It's like the one Juha Palomäki linked to, except has more downloads, reviews, and a slightly higher average-review. (haven't tried either myself yet, though plan to in a day or two)
I'm about to walk into a project that will have files (mostly PHP) behind web root. I traditionally use Dreamweaver CS4 for development. For upload I'll do a hybrid of Dreamweaver and manual FTP. As a site gets larger and more complex keeping files straight by hand becomes painful (and dangerous) very quickly.
If you are facing similar issues, what are you using? What is the best way to handle this sort of thing? It'd be great if DW was aware of the idea of placing files behind web root, but there doesn't seem to be a way to handle this elegantly.
I think that you might want to check out revision control like Subversion. It does a very good job handling your changes and deploying it to the appropriate server (staging/production). You can even find fairly inexpressive solutions that will do it all for you (meaning once you make a change and send your changes to Subversion /commit/ then Subversion will send them to your sever automatically (or you can do it manually with a click of a button). You can also use Subversion for free, but then you would have to set it up yourself.
The only problem that I see -- I dont think that Dreamweaver CS4 does not support the latest version of Subversion.
You can also check out Git
I hope that helps.
Hi everyone I am looking to do more work based in the cloud, so I have more flexibility and can use virtually any computer to do my work on. So, my question to you is what is a good text editor for the cloud?
I currently do my development on a mac using text mate. Is there anything remotely similar that anyone would recommend?
If you need to edit text files in a cloud service like DropBox, I've recently discovered Draft https://draftin.com/
It combines a clear interface focused on writing, MarkDown support for formatting and connections to Dropbox , Google Drive, Evernote and Box. Any change on the document is automatically saved back to the service it originated from. I wrote about it here http://bit.ly/g-draft
Mozilla has developed a unique app called skywriter that seems to do the trick. http://mozillalabs.com/skywriter/
Update
I have since found the following.
Code Anywhere - https://codeanywhere.net/
Atom Write - http://www.atomwrite.com/
Koding - https://koding.com
All provide good solutions Code Anywhere is my favorite thus far.
I realize this is an older post, but I wanted to chime in here:
As CarterMan mentioned, there is Koding.com which is really good. You can get private vms now and will shortly be able to access them via ssh and host private domains. Couple with their editor and community features, koding.com is a pretty cool project.
Second to that would be Cloud9 IDE. You can edit in the cloud and use the command line, though you will need to upgrade to get all the premium features. One of the cool things about this project is you can fork the repo and host it on your own machine if you like, the process took me about 5 minutes to get up and running.
Previously I noticed that both these projects had disconnect issues in the past but more recently they've both seemed to become more stable.
Our project is currently developed in C#2 , VS2005.
We were thinking of migrating to VS2008 and C#3.
Do you think it might be a better idea to move directly to VS2010 instead?
We do not plan to release the new version till the end of next year.
Is there any advantage in moving from vs05 to vs08 and then moving to vs10?
thanks!
Well this post implies you can, but certain features of certain projects might get broken:
When you upgrade certain solutions from VS2005 to VS2010, the solution explorer layout can become broken. Some files move up the filter hierarchy. In our large solution, a hundred or so files ended up in the root of solution explorer.
It only seems to affect solutions where the solution explorer filter nesting is more than one deep, the files are not compiled (like headers), and they're excluded from the build in some configs.
Though an answer indicates it was fixed:
We have verified that the header file now gets placed under subfolder rather than directly the header filter. The fix should be available in the next public release of VS2010 (Beta2).
To answer your other point. One advantage of going via VS 2008 is that you can make that migration now (assuming you don't want to risk beta software) and start using the features of C# 3 straight away.
Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 comes with a "Go-Live" license, so if you are ok dealing with beta software, then why not? I have tried it at work myself, while the other developers continue on 2008, but I have to be careful with the project files, to not check in changes, etc.... I don't use it all the time, yet, because it's a memory hog, but other than that performance is a lot better.
There are also a lot of features that are worth the upgrade. The text editor is in WPF now and scales nicely with a ctrl-click and I find I use it a lot. There are a lot of new addins being built to integrate with the UI because the new framework for the code editor exposes a new addin model that is much easier to develop against.
Being able to split windows across multiple montiors in a more flexible way is great.
If you go for the "Ultimate" versions, there are a ton of new architecture and modeling tools and tools for exploring code. I love the ability to generate a sequence diagram from some method and use that while I am reading some unfamiliar code. Works great.
The list goes on really, I have barely scratched the surface, so yeah move on if you want to learn how to use the new stuff, and no one is stopping you, go for it.
I work for a very small company (~5 employees, 2.5 coders). We have gotten away with no code or document management for several years, but it's starting to catch up with us as we grow a bit.
Any suggestions for a management system. Free is better, but cheap is acceptable. We just don't want to spend more time on installation/configuration than it is going to save us.
We use mostly VC++ 6, but we're branching into VC# 2008. Also, we need to keep track of mechanical drawings and circuit diagrams for several pieces of hardware, as well as user manuals for both hardware and software (but I don't really expect to find one tool that will do all of this, just hoping).
Subversion (SVN) is an excellent option for you. It's free, integrates nicely into Windows with TortoiseSVN, and is well-tolerated by users.
We are using it for source code, as well as for document management.
http://trac.edgewall.org/ - might be a bit hard to install but otherwise is very good if coupled with svn repository
Mantis is good for issue tracking. Subversion for source control. Both are free.
For documents, I do not know. Sounds like you would do fine with a network share.
You may want to look at Trac.
I work for a similar sized company, and when I got here I was in the same place as you. I implemented SVN/Subversion http://subversion.tigris.org/ quite easily. If you use the svn protocol and use svnserve (can be setup as a windows service that auto starts on your server) it should take you 1.5-3 hours to setup depending on how much you want to read http://svnbook.red-bean.com/, see collabnet http://www.collab.net/downloads/subversion/ for the Windows package download
Using Windows, you can use Tortoise SVN which integrates into the windows shell. There is also a new release of Ankh SVN (2.0) http://ankhsvn.open.collab.net/ that integrates into Visual Studio. Ankh is very nice (has pending changes window, kind of similar to Subclipse like functionality) but it is a new release and is somewhat buggy (we have experienced some memory probs and slowness). We currently use both Tortoise for initial checkouts or imports and Ankh for everything else and are pretty happy.
If you have any Mac users, there are a lot of options out there. We have a mac user here who uses Versions http://www.versionsapp.com/, though it sounds like they will charge for it once they get out of beta.
I would recommend SVN because it is widely used out there and I feel that is important with open source projects you are going to use daily for production purposes. Just to spell it out, everything (other than Versions) mentioned is free.
Perforce!
It's extremely fast compared to most other source control systems. It works great remotely. (SSH tunnels, in my case)
The VS plugins are quite decent... I haven't tried the Eclipse one that much yet.
If you can get by with two users with 5 workspaces each, then you can use it for free. (I do, currently)
If that won't work, then it does cost a bit... something like $800/user I believe. Sometime next year I'm probably paying that. (5 workspaces is tough when you work on several machines with VMs)
Still, I heard the slower-than-glacial ClearCase/ClearQuest system one client one mine is using was something like $10k per developer, so expensive where source control is concerned is a relative concept.
Don't skimp on the source control, man! Slow source control is a serious pain in the a$$.
Avoid SourceSafe-like systems that only version files... use systems that track tasks or change sets. It's very useful to see what all belongs together as a task. Tags are not an acceptable substitute.
Also, the journalling nature of Perforce makes backups and recovery a lot easier.
Use Git for source control, Basecamp/Pivotal Tracker/Unfuddled for coding workflow, and Sharepoint/Google Docs for document management.
If you get a MSDN developer license, you can run TFS workgroup edition. That has source control and document management rolled all up in one package that's pretty easy to use and manage. That, in addition to an internal wiki, is what my company does.
Use Subversion. It's free and is the preferred source control system for the vast majority of open source projects.
SVN uses shallow copies, so when you have large files in a repository and you branch, a full file copy isn't done... just a pointer to the original. As for text files (code) only diffs are stored.
Use TortoiseSVN for windows explorer integration.
TFS is a pig, and you'd need to open visual studio to interact with source explorer. Stupid for a CAD engineer to have to need a license to TFS for that.
For document management, just use Windows Sharepoint Services that comes with Windows Server 2003 (or 2008).
I also work for a small company and we mainly develop in .NET languages. We have decided to use Visual SourceSafe for source control, despite its questionable reputation, since it integrates nicely with Visual Studio. VSS works very well for us, and we have not experienced any serious problems with it. Also, we host a SharePoint server, which we use to store documents like coding standards, storyboards, and even our SCRUM log.
We use HostingPlayground. For $6 per month we get multiple Subversion repositories and an instance of Trac. Can't beat it. And since its a service its available immediately.
It seems the solution for your 'management' requirements will require at least a tool or set of tools in the following categories: (sorry about the links, not enough reputation to put proper ones in the reply)
Source Code Management
Trouble/Bug Ticketing
Document Management
Definitely take a look at stackoverflow.com/questions/15024/tools-to-help-a-small-shop-score-higher-on-the-joel-test Tools to help a small shop score higher on the joel test referenced by stackoverflow.com/questions/84303/code-document-management-for-a-very-small-company/84363#84363 Kristopher
Each have various free/open source solutions, and likewise there are commercial solutions.
Source Code Management (SCM)
A significant trend(?) of source code management is evolving from centralised code management with something like TFS(?), cvs or subversion.tigris.org svn), to decentralised 'distributed' source code management with tools such as www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/ or git-scm.com/. Some of the tools either integrate into continutation
The above mentioned source code management tools all have nice ms windows integration tools, and some even have closer Visual Studio integration (e.g. TFS, ankhsvn.open.collab.net/ ANKH svn mentioned by Mario).
A simplistic generalistion would recommend git/mercurial when your coding involves a good portion of time away/off disconnected from your centralised source code repository (such as doing a lot of coding from home when your repository is not accessible through the Internet.)
Wikipedia has a en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_code_management nice overview of the various issues related to source code management, and the benefits of various options.
If you haven't used scm before, just pick one or two of the tools that fits your groups requirements and test it. Of course, if you know someone near who has experience with a particular scm solution it may help with the team's learning curve to have that shared experience around.
My pick for your scenario: Subversion with ankhsvn.open.collab.net Ankh SVN for Visual Studio integration.
Trouble/Bug Ticketing
None of the tools available solve everything for everybody, each have their advantages and most require some compromise from a development teams existing modus operandi. Again, wikipedia is your friend with a en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_tracker general summary and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_issue_tracking_systems comparison of major tools.
Installation
The php based tools are the easiest (in my experience) to get up and running, and the perl tools more involved(?) Of course there's python one that's real easy to install, but then requires a better mind than mine to configure.
My pick for your scenario: trac.edgewall.org/ Trac
Trac is an enhanced wiki and issue tracking system for software development projects. Trac uses a minimalistic approach to web-based software project management. Our mission is to help developers write great software while staying out of the way. Trac should impose as little as possible on a team's established development process and policies.
It provides an interface to Subversion (or other version control systems), an integrated Wiki and convenient reporting facilities.
Trac allows wiki markup in issue descriptions and commit messages, creating links and seamless references between bugs, tasks, changesets, files and wiki pages. A timeline shows all current and past project events in order, making the acquisition of an overview of the project and tracking progress very easy. The roadmap shows the road ahead, listing the upcoming milestones.
Drawings/Document Management
If you use Subversion with Trac then much of your document management may be solved with these tools. Otherwise another stackoverflow discussion topic: stackoverflow.com/questions/587481/developer-documentation-sharepoint-document-management-vs-screwturn-wiki Developer documentation sharepoint document management vs. screwturn wiki, for Windows centric environment, is a good read.