How should WebMaker be used with source control systems?

Hi,

There is mention of a table to illustrate which metadata files change during project modifications. I don't see one and am wondering if it is possible for someone to post that table in this thread.


Thank you,
Mike

Could you confirm the folder to be placed under version control for WebMaker 7 when using third party Source Control System?

Thanks

Hi Kevin,

WebMaker 7 includes built in version control using the Team Server component. Is there a specific reason why you can't or don't want to use this?

If you do still need to use an alternative solution, all the project specification information etc is now stored within the 'users' directory under the WebMaker installation location.

Regards,
Gerard

Due to some restrictions here at my company, we are unable to have a Team Server installed.

I have tried to use our TFS repository for the "users" folder, but I keep getting GIT issues, it seems like things get out of sync with a fresh pull.

Do I need to have both the "users" and "repository" folders in TFS?

Any guidance on this sisue would be WONDERFUL

Hi kboyd31,

That is a shame that you are unable to install the Team Server. Are there any changes that we could look to make in the future that could overcome the restrictions you have?

Unfortunately I don't have a TFS setup to test with at the moment, but can you provide some more details of how you are trying to set things up, and the issues you are having?
Are you trying to place the complete users directory under source control, or just the individual workspace or project level folders?
Are you getting errors from TFS, or within the WebMaker studio? Do you have any more details on the error? Does it happen when trying to have multiple people work on a project or just a single user?
Are the GIT files being tracked in TFS?

You don't need to worry about the repository folder, as starting with v7 this doesn't contain any files for the projects you are working on.

Hopefully we will be able to get a workable solution for you.

Regards,
Gerard

Thanks for the reply Gerard. Unfortunately for the near term I don't know if it will be likely we will get access to use Team Server.

I have been trying all sorts of combinations of files.

I tried just the user1 folder, I tried all the folders in the users table. Each time I did it seemed that the internal versioning (seems to run on GIT) gets out of symc and I get a message like "Unable to sync with repository" in the WEbMaker screen.

Ideally we would like to just put each separate project into TFS and have the developers create a workspace and just add these projects to that workspace.

Either that or have a workspace in TFS where the developers could pull down the whole thing.

Let me know if I can clarify anymore!

Hi kboyd31,

Thanks for the info.

I believe some people have had success with the following approach using SVN, so hopefully you can do something similar with TFS:

The first developer sets up the workspaces and projects in WebMaker as required.
They then check in to SVN either the user1 directory, or a workspace/project directory as required, making sure to exclude any '.git' folders.

The second developer then also creates the projects in their WebMaker studio, but then checks out the code from SVN to replace the blank default projects they have created.

They can then continue working and committing/updating from SVN as needed using the options provided by the SVN client.

Hopefully this approach will also work with TFS, and while not ideal, it will allow you to get working ok without seeing errors in the studio.

It is important that the check in and check out options provided within WebMaker for versioning are not used, as this information will not be synchronised between developers with this approach, and so could lead to issues.
You should still be able to use the 'Project Save History' option to revert recent changes however.

One thing to remember is that each project is for a specific workspace. So if you choose to put the individual projects into version control using this approach, you must make sure that all developers keep the projects under the same workspace name.

I hope this helps. Please let me know how you get on.

Regards,
Gerard

We were able to get a win finally, after much fighting with TFS we finally convinced the IT department to let us install TeamServer!

However now I have another issue, and since this is for version control I'll keep it going here :) (if you'd like me to post it somewhere else, please let me know!)

When adding the new TeamServer to WebMaker I can connect fine, however when I try to share the project out to the repository it gives me the error:

"Share Project failed: Failed to create GIT repository: HTTP call failed. Status: HTTP/1.1 403 forbidden"

Not sure what this means. The project existed in a local TeamServer I had set up as a test server, but I have disconnected it from that server.

Any ideas?

Hi kboyd31,

That's good that you have been able to install Team Server.
Hopefully we can now get it working properly! :)

There are two different parts of the Team Server, which talk to each other to perform the required functionality. One provides the main processing, and the other manages the GIT repositories. From that error message, it is a call between these two parts that has failed.

Firstly, can you confirm if you are using the BizFlow WebMaker Team Server variant or the standard version, as there are different authentication steps involved in each.

Then can you check in the Tomcat logs on the server to see if there are any additional details being output? In addition can you also check the teamserver_log.txt file under the webapps/(bf)wmteamserver/doc directory within Tomcat?

I don't think having previously shared the project with a local Team Server should cause an issue, but you could always try sharing a new project as a test to prove this.

Regards,
Gerard