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As a long-time Visual SourceSafe user (and hater) I was discussing switching to SVN with a colleague; he suggested using Git instead. Since, apparently, it can be used as peer-to-peer without a central server (we are a 3-developer team).
I have not been able to find anything about tools that integrate Git with Visual Studio, though - does such a thing exist?
What are the technologies available for using Git with Visual Studio? And what do I need to know about how they differ before I begin?
In Jan 2013, Microsoft announced that they are adding full Git support into all their ALM products. They have published a plugin for Visual Studio 2012 that adds Git source control integration.
Alternatively, there is a project called Git Extensions that includes add-ins for Visual Studio 2005, 2008, 2010 and 2012, as well as Windows Explorer integration. It's regularly updated and having used it on a couple of projects, I've found it very useful.
Another option is Git Source Control Provider.
I use Git with Visual Studio for my port of Protocol Buffers to C#. I don't use the GUI - I just keep a command line open as well as Visual Studio.
For the most part it's fine - the only problem is when you want to rename a file. Both Git and Visual Studio would rather that they were the one to rename it. I think that renaming it in Visual Studio is the way to go though - just be careful what you do at the Git side afterwards. Although this has been a bit of a pain in the past, I've heard that it actually should be pretty seamless on the Git side, because it can notice that the contents will be mostly the same. (Not entirely the same, usually - you tend to rename a file when you're renaming the class, IME.)
But basically - yes, it works fine. I'm a Git newbie, but I can get it to do everything I need it to. Make sure you have a git ignore file for bin and obj, and *.user.
Git Source Control Provider is new plug-in that integrates Git with Visual Studio.
I've looked into this a bit at work (both with Subversion and Git). Visual Studio actually has a source control integration API to allow you to integrate third-party source control solutions into Visual Studio. However, most folks don't bother with it for a couple of reasons.
The first is that the API pretty much assumes you are using a locked-checkout workflow. There are a lot of hooks in it that are either way expensive to implement, or just flat out make no sense when you are using the more modern edit-merge workflow.
The second (which is related) is that when you are using the edit-merge workflow that both Subversion and Git encourage, you don't really need Visual Studio integration. The main killer thing about SourceSafe's integration with Visual Studio is that you (and the editor) can tell at a glance which files you own, which must be checked out before you can edit, and which you cannot check out even if you want to. Then it can help you do whatever revision-control voodoo you need to do when you want to edit a file. None of that is even part of a typical Git workflow.
When you are using Git (or SVN typically), your revision-control interactions all take place either before your development session, or after it (once you have everything working and tested). At that point it really isn't too much of a pain to use a different tool. You aren't constantly having to switch back and forth.
I find that Git, working on whole trees as it does, benefits less from IDE integration than source control tools that are either file based or follow a checkout-edit-commit pattern. Of course there are instances when it can be nice to click on a button to do some history examination, but I don't miss that very much.
The real must-do is to get your .gitignore file full of the things that shouldn't be in a shared repository. Mine generally contain (amongst other stuff) the following:
*.vcproj.*.user
*.ncb
*.aps
*.suo
but this is heavily C++ biased with little or no use of any class wizard style functionality.
My usage pattern is something like the following.
Code, code, code in Visual Studio.
When happy (sensible intermediate point to commit code, switch to Git, stage changes and review diffs. If anything's obviously wrong switch back to Visual Studio and fix, otherwise commit.
Any merge, branch, rebase or other fancy SCM stuff is easy to do in Git from the command prompt. Visual Studio is normally fairly happy with things changing under it, although it can sometimes need to reload some projects if you've altered the project files significantly.
I find that the usefulness of Git outweighs any minor inconvenience of not having full IDE integration but it is, to some extent, a matter of taste.
Microsoft announced Git for Visual studio 2012 (update 2) recently. I have not played around with it yet, but this video looks promising.
Here is a quick tutorial on how to use Git from Visual Studio 2012.
Also don't miss TortoiseGit...
https://tortoisegit.org/
There's a Visual Studio Tools for Git by Microsoft. It only supports Visual Studio 2012 (update 2) though.
Visual Studio 2013 natively supports Git.
See the official announcement.
The Git support done by Microsoft in Visual Studio is just good enough for basic work (commit/fetch/merge and push). My advice is just to avoid it...
I highly prefer GitExtensions (or in less proportion SourceTree). Because seeing the DAG is for me really important to understand how Git works. And you are a lot more aware of what the other contributors to your project have done!
In Visual Studio, you can't quickly see the diff between files or commit, nor (add to the index) and commit only part of modifications. Browse your history is not good either... All that ending in a painful experience!
And, for example, GitExtensions is bundled with interesting plugins: background fetch, GitFlow,... and now, continuous integration!
For the users of Visual Studio 2015, Git is taking shape if you install the GitHub extension. But an external tool is still better ;-)
TortoiseGit has matured and I recommend it especially if you have used TortoiseSVN.
The newest release of Git Extensions supports Visual Studio 2010 now (along with Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2005).
I found it to be fairly easy to use with Visual Studio 2008 and the interface seems to be the same in Visual Studio 2010.
The simplest solution that actually works quite well is to add the TortoiseGit commands as external tools.
Solution to adding a Git (TortoiseGit) toolbar to Visual Studio
As mantioned by Jon Rimmer, you can use GitExtensions. GitExtensions does work in Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008, it also does work in Visual Studio 2010 if you manually copy and config the .Addin file.
Currently there are 2 options for Git Source Control in Visual Studio (2010 and 12):
Git Source Control Provider
Microsoft Git Provider
I have tried both and have found 1st one to be more mature, and has more features. For instance it plays nicely with both tortoise git and git extensions, and even exposed their features.
Note: Whichever extension you use, make sure that you enable it from Tools -> Options -> Source control -> Plugin Selection for it to work.
As of 2013-02-11, the Microsoft Git plugin for Visual Studio 2012 should work with the Express version as well.
Related
Please suggest the option of Uninstalling the GIT Source Control Provider. I've never used it and have used TFVC for many years. I have no intention of ever using GIT but today when I added a project to source control it went to GIT instead of TFVC even though my default provider was and always has been Visual Studio Team Foundation Server
I've never used it and have used TFS for many years. I have no intention of ever using GIT
Don't presuppose of the future! 😉
There is a big switch movement for a reason (even Microsoft switched to it internally). Perhaps you should have a careful look at it because it brings a lot more flexibility and other things that could improve your development workflow.
Also FYI, the right term is TFVC, not TFS (which is the whole ALM solution and that could host TFVC or git repositories) .
Anyway...
You must not uninstall git tool but uninstall git plugin of visual studio. There are some solutions proposed (remove some registry keys or rename extension file) here:
How can you disable Git integration in Visual Studio 2013 permanently?
My dev environment is Visual Studio 2010, with Resharper 5.1.3000.12 and AnkhSVN 2.1.10129.17 installed.
It's my understanding that Resharper should notify AnkhSVN (or VisualSVN, etc) when a Refactor->Move command is done on a file, to maintain the SVN history on the file. However, when I do such a refactor through the Solution Explorer in Visual Studio, AnkhSVN treats the file move as a delete/add, thus losing the SVN history for that file. In fact, Ankh doesn't even add the new version of the file, it just deletes the old one, and I have to manually "add" the new one before I can commit.
HOWEVER, if I do a Ctl-X,Ctl-V through the Solution Explorer to move the file, Ankh detects it as a copy/move and maintains the history, auto-adds the new file, and generally behaves as one would expect.
Does this work for anyone else, and if so, did you have to do anything tricky to get it to work? Have I missed a setting somewhere to wire up AnkhSVN with Resharper, do I perhaps need new versions of either plugin, or perhaps this is some kind of installation order problem? (I installed Resharper first, then Ankh).
A certain amount of work has been done during ReSharper 6 release cycle to make sure that ReSharper's Move refactorings resulted in VCS moving them instead of deleting and adding new files.
However, as there has been no comprehensive QA for this piece of functionality, it has not been announced as a part of ReSharper 6 set of improvements.
In other words, there's no guarantee that ReSharper 6 will behave better in your scenario but it's worth a try upgrading.
Accordingly to the Jetbrains task tracker, it's still not fixed. You may track it here: http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/RSRP-179384.
Issue is related to TFS but it's also reproducible with AnkhSvn in VS Professional 2012.
ReSharper version: 7.1.1 C# Edition (Build 7.1.1000.900)
I'm currently working on .Net projects that are using either Git or Mercurial (Hg) source controls. I use Visual Studio 2010 for all of these projects. As I often have to switch source control providers I was wondering if there's a quick way to do this, so I don't have to go Tools -> Options -> Source Control once an hour.
A much better solution would be if Visual Studio would recognize which source control provider it needs or maybe remember which provider was used for a certain project. Can that be done?
With a nudge in the right direction I managed to handle this problem even better then expected - no switching necessary.
For Mercurial solutions I use VisualHG and for Git I use Git Source Control Provider. I also installed HgSccPackage. Now I don't really know how or why this works, but I've got GitSCC selected as the Source Control Provider in the settings, but when I load a Mercurial project VisualHG takes over. All I have to do is set the SCC to VisualHG the first time I open the project, close the project, change back to GitSCC and when the project is reloaded VisualHG will be used for it.
Interestingly it does not work without HgSccPackage installed. If someone can explain this, please do.
Note that it does not seem to work the other way round.
I use Git in combination with VS 2010 by keeping a commandline screen open. I do my work in Visual Studio and when I'm ready to make a commit, I switch to the commandline screen.
If you do this, you can use Git and Mercurial side by side in combination with VS 2010.
I am looking for TFS free alternatives to manage source code. I ve worked with CVS and SVN. I know GIT and Mercurial, but I still haven´t worked with them.
I would to use anyone of them integrated with Visual Studio, with the same ease which use TFS (Solution Explorer contextual menu, a dockable source explorer, etc).
Do you know free plugins to do this?
I would highly suggest using Mercurial.
With visual studio, there is a free plugin http://visualhg.codeplex.com/.
In addition, there is a windows shell package you can install called tortiseHG which makes it super easy to deal with Mercurial in windows. http://tortoisehg.bitbucket.io/
There are other plugins that you can use for SVN and GIT.
For GIT, you might use msysGIT, which again has nice shell integration features:
http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/
As well as visual studio extensions
http://code.google.com/p/gitextensions/
For SVN, there is AnkhSVN http://ankhsvn.open.collab.net/
If you havent used alot of SCM's, I would highly recommend trying out Mercurial. Distributed SCM's are quickly becoming the optimal way to deal with source control. It's just the right way to do things.
Here are a couple of resources to get you started if you are interested in Mercurial:
Excellent tutorial by Joel Spolsky:
http://hginit.com/
Thorough coverage of Mercurial features:
http://hgbook.red-bean.com/
Best of Luck.
I use Git Extesions. It has nice windows gui and visual studio plugin. It works with cygwiin and msysgit.
I use Mercurial with TortoiseHg which provides Explorer context menus and status icons and the VisualHG plugin which provides Visual Studio integration and.
The level of integration with Visual Studio is not quite as slick as the level of integration that you get with TFS, nethertheless combined they make a very productive working environment. In fact in certain areas I prefer the integration over the TFS integration - in particular I find the TFS explorer a tad cumbersome as it requires that an instance of VS be running. In contrast the TortoiseHg repository explorer is very lightweight and quick to start.
I used "AnkhSVN" (http://ankhsvn.open.collab.net/) plugin to access SVN. Worked like a charm :)
I haven't done many things with GIT at the moment, but if you are familiar with SVN and are working under Windows you may have found TortoiseSVN yet. I recommend to give TortoiseGIT a try.
In fact I do not see any need for a tight integration into MS Visual Studio. I'm currently working with Access and (shame on me) Visual Basic 6, and there is no Subversion integration at all. Checkin/out, viewing the logs, branching and many other things work quite well under TortoiseSVN.
The last time I used this integration was Visual SourceForge, which by default provides file locks. This made it necessary to get a good integration. As SVN and GIT don't provide locks in the first place, I prefer to use a stand-alone client.
If you are using Tortoise SVN and Visual Studio, I highly recommend VisualSVN Visual Studio plugin. It is not free, but it's well worth the money.
My company is using Visual SourceSafe (VSS) and Visual Studio 2005 (soon 2008). They want to switch to CVS, but the developers don't want to lose the integration we get with VSS and Visual Studio.
I know there are CVS plugins, but what functionality, if any, is lost with CVS?
If you're going to switch, why not switch to something better? CVS is a long way from state of the art in version control. A more modern system like Subversion or Vault not only offers better features, but it will get you better Visual Studio integration as well.
Screaming at VSS for lost source code, etc. Seriously though, it is a very different model (optimistic locking), so you will probably lose some productivity for the first little while. I would probably look at using TortoiseCVS and "Open Folder In Windows Explorer" right-click or the Visual Studio Explorer plug-in rather than a CVS plug-in if you are using Visual Studio 2008 (all of the CVS plug-ins I have tried have had either serious functionality issues, or serious stability issues).
VSS is really a terrible source control system, and moving to a modern style (optimistic locking) source control system will be a huge boon in the long run. You might want to skip the 1990s all together though and move to Subversion/Git/Mercurial and get into the 2000s.
If you must switch to CVS (Subversion or a distributed VCS would be better) then the script we used to migrate and keep the change history can be found here.
We are very happy with CVS, although we don't use Visual Studio integration as we find TortoiseCVS and SmartCVS much better. However if I was switching now I would look at Git or Mercurial.
My hack is as follows:
I am mainly a Java developer and I use Eclipse/RAD. The support for CVS is great and is very easy to work with.
For the C# work I do I tried to find a CVS plugin for Visual Studio but was unhappy with the one I found. In the end, I decided to use Eclipse to handle the versioning of my C# projects.
The procedure:
Create a simple project in Eclipse
Open VS and save the project into the directory created by Eclipse
Return to Eclipse, press F5 to refresh the project
Share the project (i.e. add to CVS)
Add .sln to the list of externally handled files in the Eclipse settings
VS can now be opened directly from Eclipse by clicking the .sln file, the project can be worked on within VS. Upon exit from VS the project must be refreshed in Eclipse and can be synchronised with CVS
Although I have not yet used the Subversion plugin, I guess that would work in a similar way.
This solution works well for me especially as I spend most my time in Eclipse anyway.
I did try using TortoiseCVS but found it tricky to use. Eclipse is free and the CVS interface is very usable.
Visual Studio has a bad integration inside the IDE for CVS and SVN. Those free ones don't work well. I use Tortoise (outside Visual Studio), and it works fine. If you want something inside Visual Studio, you might check for not free plugin or to use TFS.