1. Setting up ChangeVue 2009
Software developers have been using Source Code Control Systems for quite some years now. Most people involved with any kind of electronic files or document have a kind of ad-hoc version control usually using some file naming scheme.
Something like:
InfrastructureOct2007.doc
InfrastructureJan2008.doc
InfrastructureMar2008.doc
Many administrators though, have stayed away from the developer oriented source control software packages. A feeling of overkill and the tendency to have a complicated setup can keep you away even if you recognize a basic need for that type of thing. After all, who wants to create databases on servers, user-ids, projects, and manage all that just to keep a few scripts under control.
ChangeVue 2009 makes this a little simpler and scales more easily from a single user to a team system.
The startup wizard makes short work of setting things up initially:
– You specify where to store your files’ versions: A “repository”, preferably somewhere on a NAS or some other network location.
– You should provide a friendly name, which prevents you from having to deal with the full path name to your repository all the time.
– The simplified user management just uses the name you specify rather than requiring you to login into yet another user-id/password protected system.
– It can automatically make ChangeVue the default source code control provider for PrimalScript.
That’s pretty simple so far. Now all you have left is to set up a ‘project’ for your files. A ‘project’ is basically a folder in your repository. It’s just not called “folder” to avoid confusion when you talk about the two items in one sentence.
If you have all your scripts in one folder, you can simply map that one folder to a project. If you have a complete folder structure, just as easy, simply check the appropriate box.
Now all your files are under version control. It is worth to note at this time that all these files are now read-only on your local hard disk. This state is usually used by IDEs and text editors to determine that some file might be under version control.
Note that even binary files, like ZIP files, bitmaps etc. can be part of a version control repository. ChangeVue’s binary difference mechanism will make certain that large files are not replicated over and over again.
That’s it for part one. If you don’t need any other tool, you can even start editing your scripts right within ChangeVue.
I’ll be back with part two soon, showing you how to set up PrimalScript in one simple step to seamlessly work together with ChangeVue 2009.
