Kevin.Gao.Blog

SourceAnywhere: A SQL Server-based version control software designed to be a replacement of Microsoft Visual SourceSafe (VSS). It is developed for both local and geographically distributed development teams.

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Subversion (SVN): An open-source revision control system, which aims to be a compelling replacement for CVS.

Both SourceAnywhere and Subversion are great version control products. So which one is the right product for you?

SourceAnywhere is THE ONE for Experienced VSS Users.

If you are an experienced Visual SourceSafe user, SourceAnywhere is definitely the right choice. First, all your source code history can be easily imported to SourceAnywhere. Second, the resembling user interface makes developers’ learning curve almost zero.

Otherwise, it depends on which working mode you prefer. Typical working flow in SourceAnywhere is “(multi) check-out — edit — (merge) check-in”, while typical working flow in SubVersion is “edit local copy — (merge) commit to server”. In another word, with SourceAnywhere, when you edit a file, you know whether other people is also editing it. With SubVersion, you don’t know.

More detailed comparison follows. I will try to be unbiased in the comparison. Comments which disagree with me are well welcomed.

Where Subversion is better than SourceAnywhere

If any of the following situations apply to you, I recommend Subversion:

• Command Line SubVersion Command Line is suitable for auto scripting. Although SourceAnywhere provides Command Line Client as well as Java GUI Client, SourceAnywhere’s main focus is for IDE integration on Windows platforms. If you are working on OS X, Subversion command line provides better flexibility.
• Open Source Project SubVersion suites well for personal and open source projects. Subversion, released under an Apache-style license, is an open source system. People can get a version control system with no regard to cost.
• Integration with Windows Explorer Subversion supports integration with Windows Explorer while SourceAnywhere does not.
• Third Party SupportSVN is better supported among third party tools. For example, Hudson and Redmine.

Where SourceAnywhere is better than Subversion

If any of the following situations apply to you, I recommend SourceAnywhere Standalone:

• Tech Support Dynamsoft provides phone, email, forum, and 16 hours per weekday online chatting support. For the difficult issues, an online meeting session will be scheduled. A developer from the R&D team is involved when necessary.And, all the tech support is free.
• Microsoft Platform Support Dynamsoft is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. SourceAnywhere passed Optimized for Microsoft Visual Studio, Certified for Windows Vista, and Certified for Windows Server. SourceAnywhere offers better integration with Microsoft products than Subversion.
• Security Powered with SSL Protocol, Sophisticated Password Policy, Database Encryption, IP & MAC Filter Rules and other security tactics, SourceAnywhere Hosted online source control is designed to be more secure than most in-house deployment.For more information about security features, please refer to the white paper: Secure Your Source Code.
• Web development Besides of Dreamweaver integration and cross-platform access, SourceAnywhere offers a unique feature, Web Deployment through FTP. SourceAnywhere can automatically detect which files are changed, and only transfer the changed/added files.

Where SourceAnywhere and Subversion are different

• User Interface SourceAnywhere has VSS style UI. There is virtually no learning curve for developers who know Visual SourceSafe already.
• Server Setup and Maintenance SourceAnywhere Server requires Microsoft SQL Server (Express). For SVN, you need to set up either Apache2 or an “svnserve” server.
• Distributed team Both Subversion and SourceAnywhere are designed for local and distributed team. SourceAnywhere takes a step further. Its cache server can greatly improve distributed team’s productivity.
• Product integration SourceAnywhere comes with GUI client, command client, SDK, Eclipse plug-in, Visual Studio integration, Dreamweaver/flash integration, cross-platform client. All are in one product.

  Subversion comes only with core product. For IDE integration, cross-platform access and other tools integration, you need to deal with several independent sources.

All editions of Visual Studio 2010 support the source control integration feature but the Express Edition. In this article, I will demonstrate how to use version control in Visual Studio 2010. For ease of the screenshots and article writing, I take SourceAnywhere Hosted, an online version control tool, as the example. Other MSSCCI compatible or VSPackage solutions should work in a similar way.

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Before everything else, we need to put our project under source control.

The first developer adds a project to Source Control

Adding a new or existing project to source control is easy:

1. Start Visual Studio 2010, and click menu Tools -> Options -> Source Control.
2. Choose your favorite in the Current source control plug-in combo box.
3. Open your project/Create a new project, and then add the project to source control by right-clicking the solution in Solution Explorer and selecting the content menu Add Solution to Source Control.

4.  Input the credentials for login and choose a server path. And the project will be added to source control successfully.

Now you can perform the basic version control operations in the right-click content menu in Solution Explorer. More commands, such as Properties, Change Source Control, etc, can be found under the menu File->Source Control.

Other developers retrieve the project from server

Most of today’s projects need the collaboration of a team. Therefore, after the first developer adds the project to source control, other developers working on the same project need to retrieve these files from server to local and possibly upload some local files to server.

To retrieve files from server, we can click menu File -> Source Control -> Open from Source Control in Visual Studio 2010. After inputting the login info, the Get Project from Dynamsoft SAW Hosted to Local dialog box is displayed. In the text box, type the desired local path or click the ellipses (…) to browse for one.

If a developer has been working on the project for some time and thus has a local project folder, I suggest he chooses a different project path other than the existing folder.

For files exist locally but not on server, we need to decide whether to share the files with other team members. If yes, we can add the files to Solution Explorer using Add | Existing Item. A yellow plus icon is displayed before the file name, and we can perform Check In to commit the files to the server.

Simultaneous development

Most of the times, developers don’t need to work on the same file at the same time. But there are situations where parallel development is needed.

Multiple check-outs
In Solution Explore, files checked out by others appear with a human glyph while files checked out by ourselves appear with a green check mark. If a file is checked out by two developers, merge happens when the second check-in is performed.
Depending on whether there are conflicts, visual merge or auto merge occurs. About how merge works for a file, you may read File Merge.

Branch

Branch can be used for many purposes, such as, a branch for a minor feature or bug, tailoring program behavior in several files for two clients who have the virtually identical needs, etc. More information can be found in Branch.

Some version control solutions, such as SCM Anywhere, support Folder Merge.

SAK and SCC (source code control) info in Visual Studio 2010

After adding a project/solution to source control in Visual Studio 2010, where is the binding info stored? The behavior depends on the design of SCC plug-ins. Some put the info within the .sln/.prj files and others write it to external MSSCCPRJ.SCC files.

Take Microsoft Visual SourceSafe for example. In older versions (previous to version 6.0c) of VSS, the binding information was stored directly in the .sln and .proj files. Since VSS 6.0c, all binding information is kept locally in MSSCCPRJ.SCC on each developer’s machine.

Most MSSCCI compatible version control solutions use the second design. When the source control binding is established, some lines similar to the followings are added to the .sln files.

GlobalSection(SourceCodeControl) = preSolution

SccNumberOfProjects = 2
SccLocalPath0 = .
SccProjectUniqueName1 = FormsApplication1\\FormsApplication1.csproj
SccLocalPath1 = .
SccProjectFilePathRelativizedFromConnection1 = FormsApplication1\\

EndGlobalSection

And the following lines are added to the .prj files. The “SAK” might stand for Should Already Know.

<SccProjectName>SAK</SccProjectName>
<SccLocalPath>SAK</SccLocalPath>
<SccAuxPath>SAK</SccAuxPath>
<SccProvider>SAK</SccProvider>

Meanwhile, a local, client-side MSSCCPRJ.SCC file is generated by the plug-in for every directory that contains source-controlled files.

This article explains how to source control stored procedures and other objects in SQL Server Management Studio 2008. We use SourceAnywhere Standalone for example, which is a SQL-based source code control software designed to be a replacement of Microsoft Visual SourceSafe. Other MSSCCI compatible source code control solutions work in a similar way.

The detailed steps are as follows:

1) Open SQL Server Management Studio.

2) Initiate source control for SSMS. Please click menu Tools | Options | Source Control. In the dropdown list, choose Dynamsoft SourceAnywhere Standalone 2.3 as the current source control plug-in.

3) If we have an existing application solution, we can click menu File | Open | Project/Solution to open it in Solution Explorer.
And then we can add the solution/project into version control. Right-click on the solution/project and then choose Add Solution to Source Control in the content menu.

You can also start a solution from the ground. Click menu File | New | Project and choose a proper template. Don’t forget to check the Add to Source Control option.

4) Put the correct server info and credentials.

5) In the project tree, choose a location to put the solution/project.

At the end of the step, the solution/project is under version control.

6) Now it’s time to add a new or existing stored procedure into the solution.

To create a new stored procedure, in Solution Explorer, we can right click on the project name and hit the Add | New Item menu.

Under SQL Server Query, navigate to the Stored Procedure category and choose a template.

Adding an existing store procedure is easier. Instead of selecting New Item in the Add popup menu, we choose Existing Item.

7) Finally, we can perform the basic source code control operations in Solution Explorer, such as Check Out and Check In, by right clicking on an object. All the objects checked out to be edited can be found in the Pending Checkins window.

If you want to try SourceAnywhere Standalone, please install its Windows GUI Clienton the machine where SQL Server Management Studio resides. The can be integrated with all MSSCCI compatible IDEs, such as Visual Studio 6.0, 2005/2008/2010. Downloaded link:
https://www.dynamsoft.com/Secure/Register_ClientInfo.aspx?productName=SAWstandalone&from=FromDownload

Good news for SourceAnywhere for VSS users. Version 6.0 is available today!

Users of SourceAnywhere for VSS would be very excited to find the interface changes made in version 6.0. In previous versions, our developers paid more attention to the functions/features of the product, expecting SourceAnywhere for VSS to be the fastest SourceSafe web access add-on tool. After many years’ efforts, I must say SourceAnywhere for VSS has become stable and mature. We received much positive feedback from our customers saying that they are very impressed with the robust features of the software.

In this background, when we decided to develop version 6.0, we focused more on making it “user friendly“. From the customizable skin type, menu bar & toolbars, dockable windows, working folder with “hyperlink”, to the improved error/warning messages, we want to make sure that SourceAnywhere for VSS a powerful yet easy to use tool.

I cannot wait to share one of the skin styles here:

In addition to the optimized user interface, many features are also added or improved in version 6.0: integration with Dreamweaver CS 5, improved “showing differences” feature on projects, support for sharing historical version of project and moving items in IDE clients etc. Upon our customers’ request, source control operations (Check In, Undo Check Out and Get Latest Version) on multi-files from different directories are also available in the Search Result dialog. To learn more about what’s new in version 6.0, please click here.

Here is the download link of SourceAnywhere for VSS 6.0 Trial:
http://www.dynamsoft.com/Downloads/SAW_TryIt.aspx

Productive Season! Following SourceAnywhere 2.3.1 and SCM Anywhere 2.2, Dynamic Web TWAIN 6.1 is released today.

Cookie/session integration has been supported by Dynamic Web TWAIN ActiveX since version 5.1 and is liked by many customers. This exciting feature is now added to the Plug-in edition.

Besides that, we added support for Forms Authentication to Dynamic Web TWAIN Plug-in Edition. And you can now remove selected images in the new version of Dynamic Web TWAIN. We also optimized the installation process of the Plug-in Edition on clients’ side. For more details, please check What’s new.

Annotation is a tough one. Our developers discussed a lot regarding this feature. Should we add the feature into Dynamic Web TWAIN? What kind of functions should be included if we decide to go this way? Finally, as per one of our customers’ suggestion, we decided to add a simple annotation feature first into version 6.1. Hope you enjoy it. All your suggestions and comments are very important to us to perfect the product.

To evaluate these new features in Dynamic Web TWAIN 6.1, you can download the trial version here.

I’m glad to announce that SCM Anywhere Hosted 2.2 is released today! (What’s new in version 2.2.)

We are providing Issue Tracking Web Client in version 2.2. It is designed for the team members who don’t need IDE or the version control part. Via the Issue Tracking web client, all project stakeholders can work as a team in an efficient way: Managers track the project progress and assign tasks with several clicks, test teams submit bugs, support teams submit feature requests from customers, and even clients can have their own accounts to easily get involved.

If you are interested in SCM, you can sign up a hosting plan here.