I was trying to find if we could do version controlling in Domino without using any paid software (something like Teamstudio). I had a curiosity if Eclipse having tight integration with the Concurrent Versions System (CVS) and Subversion (SVN), so can domino 8.5.1 provides the same? To keep this in mind I've started my R&D and found some possibilities. Here they are,
My first task was to find the way to enable Subclipse ( Subclipse is a project to add Subversion support to the Eclipse IDE )in domino designer. In Eclipse it can be achieved easily using Help->Software Updates menu option but it's not available in designer 8.5.1
However designer 8.5.1 has this feature hidden ( not completely the same as Eclipse ). To enable this feature you need to add following line in plugin_customization.ini file which is located at \Notes\framework\rcp path.
com.ibm.notes.branding/enable.update.ui=true
You must need to start designer after modification. Now here is your Install option,
Next task to enable Subclipse. Steps are,
Use Subclipse update site "http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.0.x"
Once done you will be asked to restart Notes
Now go to designer and change your perspective to SVN Repository
Add new SVN repository ( For demo I'm connecting to Subclipse site where SVN is setup),
Login id is : guest and password is space.
Once connected you can see existing repositories from SVN server,
To create version on SVN server use Team->Share Project option,
Stay tune for more..
Posts
November 1, 2009 at 7:58 PM
Wow Rishi, that's a great writeup. Thanks for putting in the effort with all the screenshots. :-)
November 1, 2009 at 8:17 PM
Great stuff Rishi. I am staying tuned......
November 1, 2009 at 8:18 PM
Hey Kevin, Just trying to explore hidden treasures in 8.5.1 designer :)
November 1, 2009 at 11:42 PM
Very interesting. Good luck.
November 2, 2009 at 12:13 AM
Should also work for CVS. A week ago I installed CVS support to DDE by adding the update site URL of Eclipse Ganymede to the Designer platform.
When you then select the Eclipse CVS client from that site, it downloads a whole lot of other Eclipse platform stuff, too (which is required by the CVS plugin).
But keep in mind that there is a reason why there is no CVS/SVN support in DDE 8.5.1. The DDE virtual file system is not really supported in those plugins and DXL does not fully round-trip.
Karsten Lehmann
November 2, 2009 at 5:30 PM
Hey klehmann, Sorry I didn't try for CVS. Do you have plugin url, I would like to try.If you "Share Project" from "Package Explorer" view you may get java supported files along with the Domino design elements. I guess you should try from Desginer perspective. Did you try from there ?
November 27, 2009 at 2:13 PM
This is the url for the update site:
http://download.eclipse.org/releases/ganymede
No, I didn't try a lot to use CVS support in there. We have included our Java projects as Eclipse "link sources". They are stored as normal Java projects, separated from the DDE NSF project where they are used. So versioning on a CVS server is not a problem.
December 3, 2009 at 4:49 AM
"But keep in mind that there is a reason why there is no CVS/SVN support in DDE 8.5.1. The DDE virtual file system is not really supported in those plugins and DXL does not fully round-trip."
What are we missing here then? Some specific type of objects or what?
December 11, 2009 at 9:54 AM
remarkable. Would like to see a full integration with any free version control system. When IBM?
January 11, 2010 at 9:27 AM
Hi all,
unfortunately I was not able to get this to work. I have Domino Designer 8.5.1 and first tried with Subclipse 1.6 little did I first pay attention that this is for eclipse 3.2+ only. So i tried to uninstall but could not complete the job via UI (got some nasty errors). However I tried to manually clean up all features and plugins and was finally able to install Subclipse 1.0.7.
However, when I try to connect to the repository via the perspective "SVN Repository" I get the error "Malformed Network Data". When I tried to update to Subclipse 1.4 I may connect but when trying to commit any design element I get the error svn: 'C:\Program files\IBM\Lotus\Notes\Data\workspace\servername_2fDomain\troublet.ntf\Views' not found.
I get this error every time except for the "plugin.xml" design element.
Is subclipse really working for design elements or only for java agents or script libraries or do I miss something big time.
Thanks all
Jens
March 12, 2010 at 11:20 AM
I was able to install the cvs capability in DDE but do not see a way to synchronize with the repository. I have a separated normal eclipse project for my java agents as well and normally synchronize that way. It is a manual process to move code back and forth between eclipse and DDE. I was hoping that by establishing this connection I would be able to sync directly from DDE but that does not seem to be the case. If anyone has had success in synchronizing directly from DDE your help would be greatly appreciated.
March 15, 2010 at 7:29 AM
I ended up figuring out a way to synchronize. If you check out the project from CVS then you can copy paste directly from your DDE agent into your CVS version and then push your changes back up to CVS. This is better than opening eclipse and copy pasting. It's too bad that they do not provide the ability to update a project directly from a database but this method is better than nothing.
March 18, 2010 at 2:51 AM
I am getting the same results as Jens... After setting up the SVN, it seems impossible to get all elements of the database in the repository:
add -N D:\Lotus\Notes\Data\workspace\Local\testvoorSVN.nsf\Forms
Can't find a working copy path
svn: 'D:\Lotus\Notes\Data\workspace\Local\testvoorSVN.nsf\Forms' not found
Any thoughts anyone?
December 15, 2010 at 1:49 AM
i changed plugin_customization.ini in lotus version 8.5.2, but i did not get the Application -> Install menue.
does anybody know how to do this in this version?
February 9, 2011 at 2:22 PM
Thanks!! Keep up the good works!!
April 6, 2012 at 3:57 PM
excelente