Welcome to the September openCollabNet Technical Newsletter. The Subversion developers are hard at work to finish Subversion 1.5 and you can help with testing. Subversion 1.5 pre-release binaries for Windows and Linux are available at http://merge-tracking.open.collab.net. Download and install Subversion 1.5, start testing and provide feedback in our discussion forum. You can also download previews of CollabNet’s new GUI Merge Client for Subversion and our Change Set Merge Client, which lets you track code changes related to a particular issue.
Best regards,
Guido Haarmans
Developer Relations, CollabNet
In this Issue:
The newsletter archive is at http://www.open.collab.net/newsletter/newsletter.html.
CollabNet Desktop – Eclipse Edition – What’s New?
CollabNet Desktop - Eclipse Edition is a set of plugins that allows you to manage code and issues from within the Eclipse IDE. The desktop includes Subclipse for version control and a Mylyn-based plugin to connect to issues from within Eclipse. No more surfing web pages to manage your defects, enhancements, and other tasks: view and edit your issues without leaving Eclipse. The CollabNet Desktop – Eclipse Edition also contains a CUBiT plugin for provisioning build and test servers and a plugin for openCollabNet. Two new additions are in the works: a GUI Merge Client and a Change Set Merge Client. You can try them now!
Try the GUI Merge Client for Subversion 1.5
The CollabNet GUI Merge Client is built on top of the merge tracking features of Subversion 1.5. The client takes advantage of these new features and provides a simpler merge user interface, while at the same time giving you access to all of the features provided by the Subversion merge functionality. In the GUI you choose source and target branches, select the revisions and merge options, view the merge results, and of course resolve conflicts. And if the merge did not go well, you can undo.
Documentation and a preview of this new addition to the CollabNet Desktop – Eclipse Edition are available at http://merge-tracking.open.collab.net. Try out the client and give us your feedback in the discussion forum.
Change Set Merge
In the context of the new Change Set Merge Client, a change set is all of the Subversion revisions associated with a specific logical change, defined by an issue in CollabNet’s issue tracking module (called “Project Tracker”). When you perform a Subversion commit - using any Subversion client - you can associate it with one or more artifacts by referencing them in the commit message. A hook running on the Subversion server links this commit with the artifacts. In the new Change Set Merge Client, you can see the list of commits that have occurred for a given artifact, directly from within Eclipse, and you can link the artifact with related artifacts, for example to link a requirement to one or more development artifacts.
The Change Set Merge Client of CollabNet Desktop – Eclipse Edition greatly improves usability because it is more in line with the workflow and mental model for changes and it improves traceability because you can ask questions like: “Where did we merge the changes related to this bug fix?”.
Documentation and a preview of the Change Set Merge Client are available at http://merge-tracking.open.collab.net. Try it out and give us your feedback in the forum. If you do not have CollabNet Enterprise Edition (which is required to link to artifacts), a free fifteen user download is available at http://downloads.open.collab.net/cee15.html.
Help the Community: Test Subversion 1.5
The Subversion community relies heavily on users to test new releases and provide feedback. If you are an active Subversion user, this is your opportunity to give something back to the community by testing the new software and providing feedback. You can download pre-release binaries and a 1.5 repository with merge tracking history built-in from openCollabNet (http://merge-tracking.open.collab.net). Start testing and participate in the discussion forum with your feedback and bug reports. If we uncover any issues, we will use Subversion’s normal processes to report them.
Branching and Merging with Subversion 1.5
The September 26th webinar “Branching and Merging Strategies for Subversion 1.5” was a huge success (the biggest webinar in CollabNet’s history). Our Subversion and SCM experts Bob Jenkins and Auke Jilderda discussed general branching and merging strategies and how they apply to Subversion 1.5.
The new merge tracking capabilities of Subversion 1.5 will facilitate the adoption of more sophisticated branching policies. Many companies will want to re-evaluate their branching policies and adopt new ones that more closely fit the need of their development teams. View the replay of this thought-leadership webinar and start developing and implementing branching policies that best fit your organization. Or take it to the next level and let our consultants help you.
Wikis in CollabNet Enterprise Edition 5.0 Make Life Easier
Last month’s newsletter described two new features of CollabNet Enterprise Edition 5.0: Subversion reporting and combined Discussion forums and Mailing lists. This month Ted Kuster describes another great new feature: project and domain level wikis:
Your users want to jump directly to content without having to follow link after link. They want to write notes and comments that others can use, but they don’t always want to spend their time coding html project pages, or the project lead might not want to give them edit-rights to the project pages.
When you upgrade to CollabNet 5.0, you will have wikis for every project. A wiki is a collection of Web pages that project members can create or contribute to through their Web browser. Type the name of a new page: it is automatically created and you can start writing.
Information in a wiki, even one that runs to hundreds of pages, is surprisingly easy to find. Readers can jump around inside a set of wiki pages without having to learn complex navigation.
If you support multiple projects, you’ve probably set up project categories to help organize them. Each of those categories has its own wiki, which members of any of the involved projects can use. This way you can promote idea-sharing and information exchange across projects.
Will your wiki turn into a free-for-all, like some big public wikis? It’s up to you: Using fine-grained CollabNet roles and permissions, you control who can read and write in your wiki. A combination of a common purpose and reasonable security rules will keep your project wikis clean.
Free 15 User SourceForge Enterprise 4.4 Download
You can find the new free 15 user SourceForge Enterprise 4.4 download at http://downloads.open.collab.net/sfee15.html.
SubConf 2007 – Now with English-language Technical Track
The first-ever conference dedicated to Subversion (http://www.subconf.com) will take place October 17-18 in Munich, Germany, with power workshops the two days before. The conference has a solid English-language track and the in-depth workshops by CollabNet will certainly be worth your while. Learn all about Subversion, see what Subversion 1.5 is about and meet our Subversion committers.
CollabNet sponsors this conference and made reservations for a limited number of tickets that we offer to openCollabNet members at a reduced rate. Register online before October 5th and put the code „(SR)“ beside your company name to get a discount of €100 for the conference and €50 for the workshops: http://2007.subconf.de/anmeldung/ ( http://www.subconf.com/registration for English).
Recent blog posts
Subversion merge made easy
Subversion Merge Tracking – The Basics
Subversion 1.4.5 Released
A list of all our posts is at http://blogs.open.collab.net/svn/archive-titles.html.
Recent CollabNet News
CollabNet Enterprise Edition 5.0 strengthens ALM capabilities for distributed software development – Sept. 10
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