We're having a spirited discussion about this at my workplace. We're talking about user uploaded images for a bunch of products, not images needed to display the basic site. I say "no way" but I'm curious what others think.
Update: Just to clarify. These are customer supplied images for products that they are entering/modifying.
I agree with 'no way'.
Anything that may change on the site through day-to-day use, or is editable by whoever administers the website I consider to be 'content'. This includes uploaded files and database content, both of which are backed up separately. Nothing on the website that is in version control changes once it's been deployed. Easier that way.
Other ways of asking if something should be in version control:
Do the images change?
Are the changes related to anything else?
Can mistakes be made?
Is traceability wanted/needed?
If the rest of the site is version controlled, version control the images.
If the images are generated, version control the generator.
Presumably, what you are talking about is content that would be classified as user data, as opposed to project files. That stuff, while important, does not need versioning - that needs a plain old backup mechanism.
I recently added a new project into a fresh SVN repository, and every time I look at the 'uploads' folder I realise how stupid I was to include that in the initial commit.
It seems like what you're talking about is content that is in (or perhaps will be) in a database. If a customer is supplying you a list of products as well as the pictures of those products, then that should all come from a database. In this case, I wouldn't because your database should be backed up, but not in the VCS.
If it is not, and your web site is static, then I would only because it is "part of the site."
If you feel you must revision it, put these resources out of the path of the main repository somehow, and then give it a dedicated repository just for that content.
You don't want everyone who has to check out code getting a copy of every image when they checkout or update, its slow, and pointless, and having them in your primary tree will just have more headaches than you can Imagine.
/common_ancestor
/project_code/ # repository a
/resources_dir/ # repository b
If you have to use symlinks or web-server magic to make this happen, then do that, but whatever you do, DON'T put content like that in your main repository.
As far as backups vs revisioning go, revisioning it like this does give you a slight ease if you're using SVN as your distribution method as well, that way if a developer needs a copy of the images for testing purposes, its relatively easy to get a relatively up-to-date set of them.
If you aren't going to expose the versioning to the customers, then what would be the point?
The customers are already free to use version control on their own end, before they submit the files. You may want to encourage them to do so.
Related
Often during development designs get updated and we want to avoid this. Interesting how other people freeze figma version and whether it's possible. We need somekind of snapshot link which can't be changed neither by designers nor by developers.
when you give the link, you have the options to set the permission. change permisiion to view only for other users that see your screens created in Figma.
Currently, there is no such way to share the file version wise. What I do in this situation, export the Figma document & rename it something like "app_design_v1.0_02_feb.fig".
And then share the file with devs and other stakeholders. Telling them to import the file on their own.
Another solution is to use "Pages". Though it's not very handy for large design projects. You can name your pages as "app_design_v1","app_design_v2" etc. So that everyone knows what they have on which version.
I was just looking into referencing css files in a theme, that reside in a different database and I was wondering:
Could I reference a whole theme that resides in a different database as well with "extend"?
The reason behind that is: Would it possible to keep themes in one central database that can be used by all kinds of applications and therefore, if there should ever be changes to the themes, they only have to be changed in one location and not in every application.
Thank you for your responses in advance.
no I don't think this is possible (happy to be wrong if someone else knows it is?)
to keep all your theme files in a central spot, an XspLibrary in an OSGi plugin is a good solution, however it is a steep learning curve if you haven't done this before. The benefit is once you know this technique it opens the door for 'centralizing' other parts of xpages.
you deploy the plugin to each server and each client if using xpinc, and the every nsf can use a theme from that plugin.
there are a few 'getting started with xpages plugins' articles popping up around. check through planetlotus.org (I'll edit this answer later with some links)
once you know how to do an XspLibrary, you can then download the source code of the bootstrap4xpages project on OpenNTF to see how they are serving up their theme from a plugin.
it relies on the Extension library though so if you don't use the exit lib you could reverse engineer the necessary parts of that project too!
this bootstrap project was set up by Phillipe Riand who was the chief architect of XPages, so it should be a good example!
I am halfway through creating a video series on doing a theme from a plugin but have temporarily lost motivation :(. I might finish it sometime this year, if I do I will post a link to it on this answer. in the meantime I am happy to answer any questions you have about it if you want to give it a go.
otherwise, a quick and dirty solution would be put the theme files / CSS / images directly on the file system of the domino server, where the other theme files are. 'Mastering XPages' might have some advice about this but I don't have it with me right now :)
I think the short answer is you won't be able to load just a theme from a different database.
Each NSF has it's own JVM, sitting on top of the server JVM. So you can extend a theme that's sitting on the server, but not one in another NSF.
XPages Single Copy Design loads a theme from a different NSF by effectively loading the template's JVM. So it's the theme, but also all other design elements.
Jesse Gallagher's done some work in OpenNTF Domino API to allow you to load an XPage or Custom Control from another database, but I'm not sure if that would work for a theme.
If you want to design once and use in many, you can add the theme to the server itself. Looks for the OneUI elements to see where you need to store it (or it may be mentioned in Mastering XPages). You can only nest themes to five levels, but you should be fine.
I'm curious how other people have approached this. Our group has been given the directive of implementing an internal website utilizing Joomla. We've set up a dev server for the person who is responsible for maintaining the site, and a production server. We're using IIS and the current version of Joomla.
I can sync the two with Akeeba Backup Core and Kickstart, but it seems an "All-or-Nothing" choice. It works, but if she's doing work on, for example, the look and feel of the site, but just wants to sync content, that doesn't appear to be doable.
I feel that someone out there must have tackled this goal before, but web searches seem to turn up people running dev/prod on the same server but in different subdirectories, or ignore the "all-or-nothing"ness of the issue, going for the "Do all at once" approach, which doesn't seem practical. Content changes frequently, but not-so the look/feel.
We've been doing this for several years now. We use a dev server and a prod server. When we make content changes on dev, we use phpMyAdmin to copy the content table from the dev db to the prod db. In some respects, it's still an all-or-nothing approach, because we have to copy the entire content table at once. This means you can't have some pages still in development when you do the copy. In other respects, it still a piecemeal approach, because we can copy individual tables such as modules, menus, etc. But again, it's ALL modules at once, ALL menus at once, etc. There is a way in phpMyAdmin to copy an individual page or item from a table in dev and put it in the corresponding table in prod, but it's a little cumbersome. It works, though.
As for design elements (images, css, template changes, etc.) we do the same thing, but the copying is done manually by ftp from one server to the other. Obviously this is the same method for things like pdf files on dev that need moved to prod.
In summary, this method has worked fairly well for us for a long time. But it's limitation is that you must realize you're copying an entire table at once.
The positive of all of this is that when we have pages that are in development, I have leverage over the content people to hurry and finish their work because one unfinished page can hold up the entire site!
This workflow dilemma has come up a few times for me.
You mention changes to look and feel, and that is simpler really, if it is just template changes. It is quite simpler to pull down an Akeeba Backup of the live server, kickstart it onto a local server, work on the template files, and then upload the updated template files to the live server.
That said, if it is more than CSS and HTML tweaks to existing files, it can be a more involved process.
Personally I've not found a silver bullet for this sort of thing, but with some forethought and planning it is not too bad.
I hope this qualifies as programming related since it involves how to structure a project.
Because I've always used the web site model with VS.net I never had solution and project files and putting everything into source control worked great. I knew that everything I had in my web site directory was all I needed for the web site.
Now I'm using asp.net MVC and it only has a project model so now I have these solution and project files. If I work on it alone it's fine but once other people start to add/delete files from the project our solution file gets messed up and people end up having to grab the latest solution file, see what got changed and then add back/remove their files and check in the solution file again. It's become sort of a problem because sometimes people don't realize the solution file was changed, they make other changes and then when they check in everything other people do an update on their files they find that their files are gone from the project (although still physically on disk).
Is this normal? Is there a way to structure a project so that we don't need to check in solution and project files?
Your developers are not using TFS correctly. You should have multiple check-outs turned on, and everyone needs to be careful to merge their changes correctly when checking in. TFS will prompt you to do this, and accepting the defaults is nearly always the right thing to do.
It's not uncommon to have one or two developers who never get it, and you might have to help them now and then. But every programmer who works on a team needs to learn how to use source control tools correctly. If they can't manage that, they shouldn't be writing software.
[edit] It occurs to me that you might run into these problems if you check in the *.sln file directly, rather than choosing to "Add Solution to Source Control".
I don't think it's normal - what are you using for source control? It sounds like developers aren't respecting changes that others a making - checking in without merging first.
I know that early on in a project, when lots of files are being added & deleted, it can be a problem to keep up - you need to check out the project file, add your files, then check in the new file & project so other developers can also update it. You'll probably have multiple project files in a solution - perhaps one interim solution would be to have one "holding" project for each developer, then clean them up periodically - though these types of temporary fixes do have a tendency to become permanent.
I don't know of a way to set up a project file that's not in source control, though I suppose you could create a script that would generate them.
Having been through this, the key is respect & good communication between the developers.
This tends to happen with TFS multiple check outs. It can be hard to grasp coming from VSS to TFS as VSS allowed one person to check a file out at one time. Auto-merge should work most of the time for you but a couple of rules should ease the pain:
Check in early and often (if you add remove or rename a file check it in straight away even if it is a blank holder)
Before you check in do a get latest, this will ask you to resolve conflicts locally
Try to get continuous integration set up so that developers always know the state of the buidl and whether it is OK to check in\out.
We had a bit fo pain at the start of our current project but it soon settled down when we followed the rules above.
Personally, I think making changes to project and solution files requires discipline and clear (well understood) rules throughout your development team. These files (.sln, .*proj) are the bottlenecks of your project, and any errors or inconsistencies can cost you in team downtime. Changes need to be well thought out, planned and then executed.
They must be secured by source control (which you're already using, excellent) and your team members should work on the basis of only making the changes they need, and not leaving project or solution files checked out for an extended period.
If you are allowing multiple (shared) checkouts, this could become problematic in terms of overwriting another user's changes. Depending on your source control mechanism, people may be required to manually merge changes. Personally, I'd ask people to negotiate their project/solution changes with each other over merging (this can't always be achieved).
A third option if you are using TFS is the shelve feature. If someone needs to make changes locally, they can shelve the changes and merge later.
Lastly, another strategy is to try to architect your solution to be as modularized as possible - so people are distributed, working on separate projects and do not (ideally) have to overlap on too many common areas.
I'm not sure if you are using TFS, as people have mentioned, but if you are (or if you are using source control with similar capabilities) you can set it such that sln and csproj files are exclusive lockouts and are not able to be merged.
We have done this with quite large teams and while it causes some initial issues as people get used to it in the long run it has resolved many issues that were previously causing problems. Essentially you trade longer term merge issues/complexity for short term compile/checkin issues which we have found to be a good trade off.
Once you have set it to forced exclusive checkout and no merge you then get your dev teams used to the fact they should keep locks on the sln and proj files for as shorter time as possible.
Always check them in.
Always check out latest (merge if possible), make sure your change is there, before checking in a new version.
If your source control doesn't require a special action to check in from an old version, GET A DIFFERENT SOURCE CONTROL.
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Background
I work on a lot of small projects (prototypes, demos, one-offs, etc.). They are mostly coded in Visual Studio (WPF or ASP.NET with code written in C#). Usually, I am the only coder. Occasionally, I work with one other person. The projects come and go, usually in a matter of months, but I have a constantly evolving set of common code libraries that I reuse.
The problem
I've tried to use source control software before (SourceGear Vault), but it seemed like a lot of overhead when working on a small project, especially when I was the only programmer. Still, I would like some of the features that version control offers.
Here's a list of features I'd like to have:
Let me look at any file in an older version of my project instantly. Please don't force me through the rigmarole of (1) checking in my current work, (2) reverting my local copy to the old version, and (3) checking the current version back out so I can once again work on it.
In fact, if I'm the only one on the project, I don't ever want to check out. The only thing I want to be able to do is say, "Please save what I have now as version 2.5."
Store my data efficiently. If I have 100 Mb of media in my project, I don't want that to get copied with every new version I release. Only copy what changes.
Let me keep my common library code files in a single location on my hard drive so that all my current projects can benefit from any bug fixes or improvements I make to my library. I don't want to have to keep copying my library to other projects every time I make a change.
However, do let me go back in time to any version of any project and see what the source code (including the library code) looked like at the time that version was released.
Please don't make me store a special database server on my machine that makes my computer take longer to start up and/or uses resources when I'm not even programming.
Does this exist?
If not, how close can I get?
Edit 1: TortoiseSVN impressions
I did some experimenting with Subversion. A couple observations:
Once you check something in to a repository, it does stuff to your files. It puts these hidden .svn folders inside your project folders. It messes with folder icons. I'm still yet to get my project back to "normal". Unversion a working copy got me part of the way there, but I still have folders with blue question mark icons. This makes me grumpy :-/ Update: finally got rid of the folder icons by manually creating new folders and copying the folders over. (Not good.)
I installed the open source plugin for Visual Studio (AnkhSVN). After creating a fresh repository in my hard drive, I attempted to check in a solution from Visual Studio. It did exact what I was afraid it would do. It checked in only the folders and files that are physically (from the POV of the file system) inside my solution folder. In order to accomplish item #5 above, I need all source code used by solution to be check in. I attempted to do this by hand, but it wasn't a user friendly process (for one thing, when I selected multiple library projects at once and attempted to check them in, it only appeared to check in the first one). Then, I started getting error dialogs when I tried to check in subsequent projects.
So, I'm a little frustrated with SVN (and its supporting software) at this point.
Edit 2: TortoiseHG impressions
I'm trying out Mercurial now (TortoiseHG). It was a little bit difficult to figure out at first, no better or worse than TortoiseSVN I'd say. I noticed an RPC Server on startup (relates to item 6). I figure it should be possible to turn this off if I'm not sharing anything with anyone, but it wasn't something I could figure out just by looking at the options (will check out the help later).
I do appreciate having my local repository as just a single .hg folder. And, simply throwing the folder in the Recycle Bin seemed to be all I needed to do to return everything back to normal (i.e., unversion my project). When I check in (commit), it seems to offer a simple comment window only. I thought maybe there would be a place to put version numbers.
My (probably not very clever) attempt to add a Windows shortcut (a folder aliasing my library projects) failed, not that I really thought it would work :) I thought maybe this would be a sneaky way to get my library projects (currently located elsewhere) included in the repository. But no. Maybe I'll try out "subrepos", but that feature is under construction. So, iffy that I'll be able to do items 4 and 5 without some manual syncing.
Any of the distributed source control solutions seem to match your requirements. Take a look at bazaar, git or mercurial (already mentioned above). Personally I have been using bazaar since v0.92 and have no complaints.
Edit: Heck, after looking at it again, I'm pretty sure any of those 3 solutions handles all 6 of your requested features.
Distributed Version Control Systems (Mercurial, Bazaar, Git) are nice in that they can be completely self-contained in a single directory (.hg, .bzr, .git) in the top of the working copy, where Subversion uses a separate repository directory, in addition to .svn directories in every directory of your working copy.
Mercurial and Subversion are probably the easiest to use on Windows, with TortoiseHG and TortoiseSVN; the Bazaar GUIs have also been improving. Apparently there is also TortoiseGit, though I haven't tried it. If you like the command line, Easy Git seems to be a bit nicer to use than the standard git commands.
I'd like to address point 4, common libraries, in more detail. Unfortunately I don't think any of them will be too easy to use, since I don't think they're directly supported by GUIs (I could be wrong). The only one of these I've actually used in practice is Subversion Externals.
Subversion is reasonably good at this job; you can use Externals (see the chapter in the SVN book), but to associate versions of a project with versions of a library you need to "pin" the library revision in the externals definition (which is itself versioned, as a property of the directory).
Mercurial supports something similar, but both solutions seem a bit immature: subrepository support built-in to the latest version and the "Forest Extension".
Git has "submodule" support.
I haven't seen anything like sub-respositories or sub-modules for Bazaar, unfortunately.
I think Fog Creek's new product, Kiln, will get you pretty close. In response to your specific points:
This is easily done through the web interface -- you don't need to touch your local copy or update. Just find the file you want, click the revision you want to see, and your code will be in front of you.
I'm not sure you can do things exactly like "Please save this as version 2.5", but you can add unique tags to changesets that allow you to identify a special revision (where "special" can mean whatever it wants to you).
Mercurial does a great job of this already (which Kiln uses in the back end), so there shouldn't be any problems in this regard.
By creating different repositories, you can easily have one central 'core' section which is consistent across various projects (though I'm not entirely sure if this is what you're talking about).
I think most version control systems allow you to do this...
Kiln is hosted, so there's no hit on performance to your local machine. The code you commit to the system is kept safe and secure.
Best of all, Kiln is free for up to two licenses by way of their Student and Startup Edition (which also gets you a free copy of FogBugz).
Kiln is in public beta right now -- you can request your account at my first link -- and users are being let as more and more problems are already resolved. (For some idea of what current beta users are saying, take a look at the Kiln Knowledge Exchange site that's dedicated to feedback.)
(Full Disclosure: I am an intern currently working at Fog Creek)
For your requirements I would recommend subversion.
Let me look at any file in an older version of my project instantly. Please don't force me through the rigmarole of (1) checking in my current work, (2) reverting my local copy to the old version, and (3) checking the current version back out so I can once again work on it.
You can use the repository browser of Tortoise Svn to navigate to every existing version easily.
In fact, if I'm the only one on the project, I don't ever want to check out. The only thing I want to be able to do is say, "Please save what I have now as version 2.5."
This is done by svn copy . svn://localhost/tags/2.5.
Store my data efficiently. If I have 100 Mb of media in my project, I don't want that to get copied with every new version I release. Only copy what changes.
Given by subversion.
Let me keep my common library code files in a single location on my hard drive so that all my current projects can benefit from any bug fixes or improvements I make to my library. I don't want to have to keep copying my library to other projects every time I make a change.
However, do let me go back in time to any version of any project and see what the source code (including the library code) looked like at the time that version was released.
Put your libraries into the same svn repository as your remaining code and you'll have global revision numbers to switch back all to a common state.
Please don't make me store a special database server on my machine that makes my computer take longer to start up and/or uses resources when I'm not even programming.
You only have to start svnserve to start a local server. If you only work on one machine you can even do without this and use your repository directly.
I'd say that Mercurial along with TortoiseHg will do what you want. Of course, since you don't seem to be requiring much, subversion with TortoiseSvn should serve equally well, if you only ever work alone, though I think mercurial is nicer for collaboration.
Mercurial:
hg cat --rev 2.5 filename (or "Annotate Files" in TortoiseHg)
hg commit ; hg tag 2.5
Mercurial stores (compressed) diffs (and "keyframes" to avoid having to apply ten thousand diffs in a row to find a version of a file). It's very efficient unless you're working with large binary files.
Symlink the library into all the projects?
OK, now that I read this point I'm thinking Mercurial's Subrepos are closer to what you want. Make your library a repository, then add it as a subrepository in each of your projects. When your library updates you'll need to hg pull in the subrepos to update it, unfortunately. But then when you commit in a project Mercurial will record the state of the library repo, so that when you check out this version later to see what it looked like you'll get the correct version of the library code.
Mercurial doesn't do that, it stores data in files.
Take a look on fossil, its single exe file.
http://www.fossil-scm.org
As people have pointed out, nearly any DVCS will probably serve you quite well for this. I thought I would mention Monotone since it hasn't been mentioned already in the thread. It uses a single binary (mtn.exe), and stores everything as a SQLite database file, nothing at all in your actual workspace except a _MTN directory on the top level (and .mtn-ignore, if you want to ignore files). To give you a quick taste I've put the mtn commands showing how one carries out your wishlist:
Let me look at any file in an older version of my project instantly.
mtn cat -r t:1.8.0 readme.txt
Please save what I have now as version 2.5
mtn tag $(mtn automate heads) 2.5
Store my data efficiently.
Monotone uses xdelta to only save the diffs, and zlib to compress the deltas (and the first version of each file, for which of course there is no delta).
Let me keep my common library code files in a single location on my hard drive so that all my current projects can benefit from any bug fixes or improvements I make to my library.
Montone has explicit support for this; quoting the manual "The purpose of merge_into_dir is to permit a project to contain another project in such a way that propagate can be used to keep the contained project up-to-date. It is meant to replace the use of nested checkouts in many circumstances."
However, do let me go back in time to any version of any project and see what the source code (including the library code) looked like at the time that version was released.
mtn up -r t:1.8.0
Please don't make me store a special database server on my machine
SQLite can be, as far as you're concerned, a single file on your disk that Monotone stores things in. There is no extra process or startup craziness (SQLite is embedded, and runs directly in the same process as the rest of Monotone), and you can feel free to ignore the fact that you can query and manipulate your Monotone repository using standard tools like the sqlite command line program or via Python or Ruby scripts.
Try GIT. Lots of positive comments about it on the Web.