IDE integrations


Chapter 1: MS Visual Studio integration

Plastic SCM provides a comprehensive integration with Visual Studio 2005 and newer versions. In the form of a Visual Studio Extensibility Package, this integration offers the user most of the functionality found in the Plastic SCM GUI right inside Visual Studio.

This section will describe the functionality and commands of the Plastic SCM Source Control Package for Visual Studio. Basic knowledge of Plastic SCM concepts and terminology is needed. Things like a workspace, checkout / checkin, branch or merge should be familiar to the reader. For more details, please refer to INTRODUCTION TO PLASTIC SCM and the PLASTIC SCM GUI GUIDE.


Installing the Visual Studio Source Control Package

The Plastic SCM Source Control plug-in is installed as part of the full Plastic SCM installer or the "Client + Plugins Plastic SCM installer".

The component "Visual Studio Integration Package" has to be selected in the component selection screen of the installer. Note that Visual Studio needs to be installed for this component to be enabled.

Component selection screen in the installer


Selecting Plastic SCM as the source control provider

Once Plastic SCM has been installed and configured, the next step is to configure Visual Studio to use Plastic SCM as the source control provider. To do this, you need to go to:

Tools > Options > Source Control

There, select "Plastic SCM Source Control Package" as shown in the next figure, and click OK. The plug-in is ready to be used.

Note: If you selected "Plastic SCM SCC plug-in" during the installation, you will see this plug-in as well in the dropdown list. The SCC plug-in was designed for the old SCC version control interface that was standard in versions of Visual Studio prior to 2005. The "Plastic SCM Source Control Package" is a far more complete solution and is the recommended integration for Visual Studio 2005 and newer versions.

Selecting Plastic SCM as the source control provider


Adding the solution to Plastic SCM

Before using Plastic SCM inside Visual Studio, the solution has to be added to Plastic SCM. Adding the solution to Plastic SCM binds them together and this binding is stored inside the solution and project files.

Note: the solution should be contained in a single Plastic SCM workspace. If the projects inside the solution are located in more than one Plastic SCM workspace, many operations of the plug-in will choose to act only on the workspace of the first project (for instance, displaying any view from the Plastic SCM menu, or checking in pending changes right clicking on the solution will be applied only to the workspace of the first project).

Adding a solution for the first time

If no other developer has added the solution to Plastic SCM already, it has to be added for the first time. This is done by right clicking on the solution in the Visual Studio's Solution Explorer and selecting Add to source control.

Adding the solution to Plastic SCM

If the solution directory tree is not contained inside a workspace, the Plastic SCM plug-in will show a dialog to create a new workspace. This dialog is the same used to create a new workspace in the Plastic SCM GUI client. For more details, refer to the PLASTIC SCM GUI guide.

New workspace dialog

The new workspace configuration can be customized using the following commands:

Workspace name
This is a name chosen by the user to identify the workspace. This name will appear in the Plastic SCM GUI workspaces tab.
Path on disk
This is the directory where the workspace will be created. By default, the plug-in will fill in this field with the top directory of the solution.
Default repository
This is the repository where the solution will be added. The dropdown list contains all the repositories in the Plastic SCM server. When adding a new solution to Plastic SCM, you will normally want to create a new repository for it. This is done using the New button.

The New button will open a new dialog that lets you create a new repository to contain all the data of the solution you are adding to Plastic SCM. This dialog is the same used to create a new repository in the Plastic SCM GUI. Refer to the PLASTIC SCM GUI guide for more details.

New repository dialog

If the solution was already contained in a workspace, although it had not been added to Plastic SCM yet, the new workspace dialog will not appear and the solution will be added automatically.

Once the workspace and optionally the repository have been created, the solution is added to the source control. All the items inside it are added to the repository and checked in. Being controlled items (as Plastic SCM defines it) they are decorated with a lock icon.

Items added to source control

Open an existing solution

When the solution has already been added to Plastic SCM by another user, you can directly open it from within Visual Studio. To do so, go to:

File > Open > Open from Plastic SCM...

Open from source control

This command lets you open a solution from one of the Plastic SCM repositories. The sequence is this:

  • Choose a workspace or create a new one. The source code will downloaded to this workspace from the repository.
    • If a new workspace is created, choose the repository it will be pointing to. Keep in mind that, by default, the workspace points to the latest changeset in the /main branch.
  • Browse the repository directory structure and select a solution file.
    • The repository browser will use the same branch that the workspace is pointing to.
  • Once a solution file is chosen, the workspace is updated to download the selected versions (if it was created in the first step).

Binding a solution already in Plastic SCM

If the files that make the solution are already in a Plastic SCM, but the solution and projects are not bound to Plastic SCM, binding them is just a matter of adding the solution to source control. The solution and project files will be modified to include the binding information, so they are automatically checked out.

Binding an existing solution to Plastic SCM

To complete the binding, you will need to checkin the changes. To do so, right click on the solution and select Checkin. The Pending changes view will appear, letting you enter a comment to checkin. This is the same Checkin dialog that appears when you select the Checkin command in the items in the Plastic SCM GUI.

Checkin pending changes window


Basic operations

Once the solution is bound to Plastic SCM, most of the changes in the solution are handled transparently by the Plastic SCM integration. When a file is modified, it is automatically checked out. When a file is moved (even between projects), the change is detected as a moved item.

You can review all the pending changes by right clicking in the solution in the Solution Explorer and selecting Checkin. This will open the Pending changes window and let you check in the changes or undo some of them. The Pending changes view details the items whose content has changed as well as moved, added and deleted items. For more details on the Pending changes view, refer to the PLASTIC SCM GUI guide.

Items commands

Plastic SCM provides several commands when right clicking a file or folder in the Visual Studio Solution Explorer.

Plastic SCM commands for items in Solution Explorer

The following commands are added to the context menu by the Plastic SCM Source Control Package.

Checkout for edit
Explicitly checkout the item so that Plastic SCM knows that it is going to be edited. By default, the plug-in will automatically checkout the files that are modified inside Visual Studio. If an item is modified outside the IDE, however, you may want to check it out explicitly.
Update to Latest Version
Update the selected item to the latest changes in the repository.
Diff with previous
Open a Side-by-side Diff tool that compares the selected file with its previous version. If the item is checked out, the diff view shows the changes made.
Diff...
Display a dialog in which you choose two revisions of the selected item and then open a Side-by-side Diff tool to compare those revisions. By default, one of the revisions is the item as it exists in your workspace.
Annotate
Open an Annotate view for the selected item. The annotate view displays the contents of the file with annotations for each line detailing its author as well as the branch and changeset where the change was made.

Annotated view of a file

History
Open a History view of the selected item. This view details all the revisions created for the item, as well as any namespace change (i.e. if the file has been moved, renamed or deleted).
History as 2D revision tree
Open a Branch Explorer for the selected item showing the revisions and their types as described in the 2D revision tree.
Change revision type
Change the revision type of each selected item, to binary or text. The type of an item controls how it is handled by the Diff and Merge tools.
Refresh status
Reload the status (checked out / checked in / controlled / added) of the selected item and its children, updating the decorators.
This command is useful when some items have been modified outside Visual Studio, to set the status up to date again in the IDE.
Permissions
Open a new window to view or edit the permissions of the selected item.

Text file commands

Any open document in the code editor has an associated context menu. The Plastic SCM plug-in adds some options to that menu, detailed below.

The code editor context menu

Show semantic history
Open a new window with a browser for the history of the specific method where the right click was made. This option works on C#, Java and Vb.net projects.

Many times a developer looks at a piece of code and wonders how it ended up written like it is. In such cases, she can use the history and annotate view to find out how the method evolved. But in this process, she has to go find the method inside the file each time a new revision is compared.

With method history, the developer can focus on a specific method and browse the changes specific to it. The method history view can filter the revisions in which the analyzed method had changes, so the answer to the question "What happened to this method?" is quickly answered.

The method history view will download the different revisions of the item from the repository, and parse the code to find the requested method, so it is found even if it has been moved.

The method history view

The view contains a top panel with a table displaying all the revisions of the file that contains the selected method. When a revision is selected in the top panel, the changes made to the method in that revision are shown in the bottom panel. This panel contains a Side-by-side diff tool as described in the PLASTIC SCM GUI guide.

The revisions table on the top panel has one row for each revision of the file. It has the following columns:

Change type
Show the change type of the revision. These can be some of the possible values: Unchanged, Added, Deleted, Changed, Moved from...to..., Moved down..., Moved up..., Renamed from...to...
Contains element
Indicate whether or not the selected element is in the revisions showed.
Changeset
The number of the changeset that contains the revision.
Branch
The name of the branch that contains the revision.
Comment
The comment of the revision.
Owner
This is the author of the revision.
Date
The timestamp when the revision was created

The top panel has several controls to filter the list of revisions upon the following criteria:

Show only revisions that contain the element
Filter out those revisions where the element is not present.
Show only revisions with changes
Filter out those revisions that don't have changes in the revision. Only revisions with "Change type" column different from "Unchanged" will be showed.
Show full file differences / Show only element differences
Show in the bottom pane all the differences in the file. Or show only the differences involved in the selected method.

The Plastic SCM menu

Toolbar

The Plastic SCM Toolbar shows the most common views available.

To enable this toolbar click on

View > Toolbars or Tools > Customize

and select "Plastic SCM".

Plastic SCM Toolbar

By clicking on these buttons the corresponding view will appear the same way as clicking on the View > Plastic SCM menu (see picture below).

Accessing views

Most of the work in Plastic SCM happens inside a "view". The most relevant views can be open right inside Visual Studio, through the View > Plastic SCM menu.

Plastic SCM entry in the "View" menu

The views available under that menu behave in the same way as their counterparts in the Plastic SCM GUI. Since they are fully described in the Plastic SCM GUI guide, that information will not be duplicated here. Please refer to the pointers given below for more details on each specific section.

Pending changes under Solution
Open a Pending changes view with all the changes of the solution. This is mostly as the Checkin command available on the solution explorer. Both commands differ only in their extent: while this includes changes for the whole solution, the one in the solution explorer only affects the selected item and its children.

If you want to see all the pending changes in the workspace instead of only those of items in the Visual Studio solution, check the Pending changes on workspace command described below.

Branches
Open a Branches view with the branches of the repository loaded in the workspace. The view is fully functional and lets the user perform all the operations available to branches such as creating new child branches or switching the workspace to a specific branch.
Branch Explorer
Open a Branch Explorer view for the repository loaded in the workspace. The view is fully functional letting the user perform all the operations available to branches, changesets and labels, like comparing changes or opening new filtered Branch Explorer views.
Labels
Open a Labels view for the repository loaded in the workspace. Again, all the operations normally available for labels on the Plastic SCM GUI are available here as well.
Changesets
Open a Changesets view for the repository loaded in the workspace. This lists all the changeset of the last month by default. It operates as the same view in the Plastic SCM GUI.
Repositories
Open a Repositories view that contains the list of repositories in the default Plastic SCM server and possibly repositories in other servers as defined by the server connection profiles (in Preferences, see below). This view behaves as the Repositories view in the Plastic SCM GUI client.
Sync replication
Open a Sync replication view.
Workspace explorer
The Workspace explorer view is the same as the Workspace Explorer in the Plastic SCM GUI. Normally items are handled in Visual Studio through the Solution Explorer, but this view can be better suited for files in the workspace that are not contained in the Visual Studio solution.
Pending changes on workspace
Open a Pending changes view displaying with the changes of the whole workspace. Like the Workspace explorer view, this one makes more sense when the user needs to look at changes on items not contained in the Visual Studio solution.
To open a view that only contains the changes in the solution, see the Pending changes under solution view above.
Show workspace working info
Open a workspace status view. It contains details about the workspace, such as the location on disk of the workspace as well as the repository and branch loaded in the workspace.
This view is slightly different to the Plastic SCM GUI counterpart (the workspace status bar) and is meant to be docked in a visible place inside Visual Studio. But the information shown is essentially the same.

Workspace working info view

For more details, refer to chapter Introduction to the Graphical User Interface in the PLASTIC SCM GUI guide.

Plastic SCM preferences
Open a Preferences dialog to change Plastic SCM settings. This window is the same as the Preferences window available in the Plastic SCM GUI.

Rearranging the windows

All the views opened from the View > Plastic SCM menu can be arranged with the usual docking controls found in Visual Studio.

Plastic SCM views docked inside Visual Studio

To dock any Plastic SCM view, drag the window or tab title and drag it. Visual Studio will display the docking guides that let you dock the window in the desired location.

Docking a Branch Explorer window in Visual Studio


Working offline and unbinding the solution from Plastic SCM

When a solution has been bound to Plastic SCM, the plug-in will try to connect to the Plastic SCM server to perform each operation (checkout, checkin, diff, annotate, etc). If the server is not available for some reason, most of the operations will fail, after some time spent waiting for the network timeout.

It is possible to set the Plastic SCM plug-in into "offline mode", so that the operations that require the server are not available (like annotate or diff), but still it is possible to make changes in the code. Later, when the connection with the server is back, those changes can be sent to it by setting the plug-in online again.

To set the solution offline, go to:

File > Plastic SCM Source Control > Change Source Control

The bindings dialog appears and displays the status of the solution and the different projects inside it.

Plastic SCM bindings window

To work offline, select all the items in the table and click the Disconnect button. The green status line "The Plastic SCM plug-in is Connected" changes to a red "The Plastic SCM plug-in is disconnected (Working offline)".

If you right click on an item in the Solution Explorer, the only Plastic SCM command available is Checkout for edit. When an item is modified, it is indeed checked out in the workspace.

To go online again, open the bindings dialog and select all the items in the table and click the Connect button. The red status line changes back to green and the items that were checked out locally while offline are now checked out in the source control.

Offline changes are checked out when back online

Binding and unbinding

This same dialog also lets you remove the bindings from the solution so it is no longer connected to Plastic SCM, as well as bind it back if needed.

To unbind the solution, select all the items in the table and click the Unbind button. The status column for all the selected items should change from "Bound" to "Not bound".

To bind the solution with the Plastic SCM plug-in, select all the items in the list and click the Bind button. The status column changes from "Not bound" to "Bound".


Configuring Plastic SCM options

Additional options can be configured inside Visual Studio once the "Plastic SCM Source Control Package" has been selected as the source control plug-in. Go to:

Tools > Options > Source Control > Plastic SCM settings

Plastic SCM additional options

Preferences
This button opens the Preferences dialog from the Plastic SCM GUI. It is the same as the menu command View > Plastic SCM > Plastic SCM Preferences.
Delete files in Plastic SCM when they are deleted in Visual Studio
Visual Studio provides hooks to notify the Plastic SCM plug-in when certain operations happen. For instance, when a file is moved, Visual Studio notifies the Plastic SCM plug-in of this fact.

However if you move a file between different projects inside the solution, Visual Studio notifies this as a deleted item in the source project and a new added file in the destination project. This is normally not desirable from the source control perspective because the history if that item is "lost" (it is there, but you will have two items, the old and the new, instead of the one single item that has been moved).

Plastic SCM is capable of detecting when a file has been moved on its own, so when this option is not set (the default), the moved items detection is handled by Plastic SCM. The only thing to consider is that, in the pending changes view, the option to "Show deleted items" has to be checked and everything will work smoothly.

If Delete files in Plastic SCM when they are delete in Visual Studio is set, then moving a file between projects will appear in Plastic SCM as if the file has been deleted from the source and added new in the destination.

Chapter 2: Eclipse integration

Plastic SCM provides a complete integration plug-in for the Eclipse IDE covering the most common operations needed by developers. Eclipse version 3.1 and higher are supported.

Component selection screen in the installer

This section will describe the functionality and commands of the Plastic SCM Eclipse integration plug-in. Basic knowledge of Plastic SCM concepts and terminology is needed. Things like a workspace, checkout / checkin, branch or merge should be familiar to the reader. For more details, please refer to INTRODUCTION TO PLASTIC SCM guide and the PLASTIC SCM GUI guide.


Adding projects to the source control system

Most likely the first operation a developer can do is putting some existing code project in the source control system. In Plastic SCM, this means adding the code to the repository (the repository is the database on the Plastic SCM server that holds all the data about files, directories, versions and branches).

Adding a project to Plastic SCM is a two step process. First create the workspace and bind the project to Plastic SCM, then add the files to the repository.

To add an existing Eclipse project to the repository, a Plastic SCM workspace a needed. Normally the workspace will be created in the same directory where your code already sits.

In the following example, the workspace is located in 'c:\wks', and the project structure will be the following:

C:\wks
C:\wks\project
C:\wks\project\src\

Open the project in Eclipse as usual. To add the project to Plastic SCM, right click on the top directory (that of the project itself) in the Package Explorer and select:

Team > Share project

Eclipse will ask about the repository type. Depending on the plug-ins available to your Eclipse installation, different options may appear. Choose "Plastic SCM" to continue.

Choosing your version control: Plastic SCM

The plug-in needs to find the Plastic SCM binaries directory. It will try to locate the Plastic SCM command line interface executable "cm" in the PATH environment variable automatically, but if it is not found, a dialog will be displayed so the user can enter the location of such file. This file is located under "client" in the Plastic SCM installation directory.

Then the plug-in will ask to create a workspace. The next figure shows the fields needed for this.

  • Workspace name - The name assigned to the workspace. This name is used to refer to the workspace in the Plastic SCM GUI and some other administrative commands.
  • Workspace path - By default this is the directory where the project is located. You can adjust it to a different directory, but keep in mind that it should contain your project code.
  • Repository - This is the Plastic SCM repository where the code will be stored. Select an existing repository from the dropdown list or create a new one using the button on the right.

Creating a workspace inside Eclipse

Once this is done, the project is bound to Plastic SCM. The next step is to add the files to the repository. You can add the whole project or just a part of it. To add the whole project, right click on the project in the Package Explorer and select:

Team > Checkin pending changes...

Adding items to Plastic SCM

Once added, the items in the Package Explorer display the status as "Controlled" through a decorator.

Items added to the repository


Checkout from Version Control

Once the project is in the repository, other developers don't need to add it again; they will simply download it from the repository. To do this, go to:

File > Import...

The import dialog opens up. Select "Plastic SCM" and "Projects from Plastic SCM" inside it:

Import projects from Plastic SCM

The step in the wizard lets you select the data source. In Plastic SCM, this means the repository where the project is contained in the Plastic SCM server, as well as the specific branch whose content will be downloaded to the workspace.

First select the repository:

Select data source - Repository

Then click Next and, in the new dialog, select the branch to proceed to the next step.

Select data source - Branch

In the next step of the wizard, you can select an existing workspace or create a new one. The workspace is the directory in the local disk where the code will be downloaded from the repository.

Select workspace dialog

Normally you will create a new workspace to work on the new project you are connecting to. To do so, click the Create new workspace button. The new workspace dialog appears, with the same fields described in the Adding projects to the source control system section.

The next page summarizes the details of the workspace that will be created. It contains the directory where the code will be downloaded and the repository and branch (or label) from which the code will be downloaded.

Review checkout configuration

Clicking Next, the workspace will be updated and the code downloaded from the repository. Once this is done, the next page of the wizard lets you import the code from the Plastic SCM workspace into Eclipse, as shown in the figure below:

Configure Eclipse project

Now you can choose whether to import using the familiar Eclipse wizards: "Import resources wizard" or "New project wizard". Three options are available once all the data is downloaded into the workspace.

  • First, you can configure an Eclipse project importing resources from the workspace content; this process uses the Eclipse Import Resources Wizard and at the end of the wizard all the resources imported will be bound to Plastic SCM automatically.
  • The second option is to create a new project in the new Plastic SCM workspace; this new project will be bound to Plastic SCM.
  • Finally, you can exit directly without configuring any Eclipse project. It can be later done using the File > Import dialog.

If using the "New project wizard", make sure to select the location of the workspace you have just created, overriding the default. For instance, if your Eclipse workspace is located in:

c:/Users/tester/EclipseWk

and the Plastic SCM workspace you just created is located in:

c:/Users/tester/plastic/prjwk

you want to specify this directory as location, opposed to the default location c:/Users/tester/EclipseWk.

Import using the New Project Wizard


Bind a project in an existing workspace

Another possible way to work in a project is to create the Plastic SCM workspace and downloading the contents from the repository outside Eclipse, and then bind the project. Creating the workspace and updating it can be done using the Plastic SCM GUI or the command line interface (the cm command).

Once the workspace is populated with the code from the repository, it only needs to be bound to Plastic SCM inside Eclipse. To do so, right click on the project in the Package Explorer, and select

Team > Share project...

Then proceed as described in the Adding projects to the source control system section, but this time the source code files are already added and that part can be skipped.


Item Operations

The Eclipse plug-in lets you perform the most common operations on files. These operations can be found under the Team submenu right clicking on a file in the Package Explorer.

Eclipse plug in operations

Here is a description of the Plastic SCM specific operations in the Team menu:

Checkin pending changes
Check in the selected items. A Pending changes window appears (see the next figure) listing the items grouped in categories according to the type of change: changed, added, moved or deleted.
You can select what items will be checked in using the checkboxes in each row of the table. Enter the comment associated to the changes in the textbox at the top and press the Ok button to check in the changes.

Pending changes window

Note that if the selected items are directories, this operation will also list the pending changes inside those directories. If this operation is performed on the project itself, then all the pending changes are listed. This is, indeed, the most common use of the check in operation.

Checkout for edit
When an item is to be edited, it is checked out so that Plastic SCM tracks the changes. This operation is rarely used, since files are checked out automatically when they have been changed and are saved.
Undo pending changes
Open a new window listing the pending changes of the selected items to confirm that they are being undone. The list of items is grouped in categories for changed, added, moved and deleted, similar to the pending changes window described above in the Checkin operation.
Again, if the selected items are directories, this operation will also list the pending changes inside those directories. If the operation is performed on the project itself, then all the pending changes are listed and can be undone.
Update workspace
Download the latest changes from the repository.
Refresh Status
Refresh the state (checked in or checked out) of the selected items. If any project file has been modified and checked out or checked in outside Eclipse, the state can be refreshed with this operation.
Show Plastic SCM history
Open a new tabbed table with the history of the selected item.

History of a file

The history view lets you open any given revision in the editor, as well as compare the selected revision with the current one in the workspace, or compare any two revisions.

When two revisions are compared, a differences tab is open inside Eclipse. The figure below shows this.

Comparing revisions using the history view

To compare any two revisions, select both by holding down the Control key (or Command in a Mac computer) and clicking on the desired revisions. Right click and select Compare revisions.

Diff with previous
Open a differences view (as described above) comparing the contents of the latest revision of the selected item with its previous revision in the workspace.

If the selected file is checked out, the content of the file in the workspace is compared to the latest revision of the item in the repository.

Annotate
Display an annotated view of the selected item. This is a normal editor window with an annotations column on the left. The different colors in this column represent the different changesets that each line belongs to. Hovering the mouse over this column displays a tooltip with extended information about the specific change for the line on the right.

The tooltip displays the author that created the change, the changeset number, the date it was created and the comment associated to the changeset.

Sample annotated view

Unbind project from Plastic SCM source control
Unbind the project from the version control. This effectively disables the Plastic SCM plug-in for the current project.

Decorators

Decorators are small overlay icons drawn on top of items in the Package Explorer that tell you the status of the item. This is a summary of the possible status:

Item decorators

Decorators are activated by default when the Plastic SCM Eclipse plug-in is installed. It is possible to enable or disable them by going to

Window > Preferences > General > Appearance

Check or uncheck the Plastic SCM Decorators option to enable or disable the decorators, respectively.

Plastic SCM decorators in Eclipse


Plastic SCM views inside Eclipse

Plastic SCM provides several views to access repository objects and their operations right inside the Eclipse IDE. Although the functionality in these views is not as complete as the Plastic SCM GUI, they provide enough functionality to a developer to work comfortably without leaving the IDE.

The next figure displays the available Plastic SCM views. To show any of these views, go to:

Window > Show View > Other...

In the dialog that appears, open the Plastic SCM category, select the views you want to show in the IDE and click the Ok button.

Plastic SCM views

Branch Explorer view

Open a Branch Explorer view similar to the one in the PLASTIC SCM GUI guide.

Branch Explorer view

Inside the Branch Explorer view you can run the following operations right clicking in a branch:

Create child branch
Create a child branch of the selected branch. A window is open to enter the details of the new branch to be created.

New branch window


This dialog lets you set the name of the new branch, as well as the comment and the branch base. The branch base indicates the point where the branch starts and lets you select a label, or a specific changeset in the parent branch (the last one being a special case and having its own option).
Refer to the PLASTIC SCM GUI guide for more details about the Create child branch command.
Switch to this branch
Change the workspace configuration so that it downloads the contents of the selected branch to the workspace. Refer to the PLASTIC SCM GUI guide for more details about workspaces and the Switch workspace to this branch command.

Switch to branch confirmation

Merge from this branch
Open a merge branch window. This window lists the items that need to be merged from the selected branch to the current configuration of the workspace. For more details about the functionality of this window and the merge operation in general, refer to The Merge Organizer Window chapter in the PLASTIC SCM GUI guide.

Merge branch window

Diff branch
Open a Diff window and shows you the differences existing in the selected branch.

Diff branch window

Properties
Display a window with the properties of the branch, such as name, comment and merge history.

Branch properties window

If you right click in a changeset in a branch in the Branch Explorer view you can execute this operations:

Diff changeset
Open a Diff window and shows you the differences existing in the selected changeset.
Switch to this changeset
Change the workspace configuration so that it downloads the contents of the selected changeset to the workspace. Refer to the PLASTIC SCM GUI guide for more details about workspaces and the Switch workspace to this changeset command.
Label this changeset
Create a new label and applies it to the selected changeset. A new window opens to let you enter the name and comment of the new label.
Go to parent changeset
Show the parent changeset of the selected changeset.

Branches view

Open a new view that shows all the branches created in the workspace.

Branches view

The Branches view has these operations:

Create child branch
Create a child branch of the selected branch. This is the same command as Create child branch in the Branch Explorer view.
Switch to this branch
Changes the workspace configuration as the same command does in the Branch Explorer view.
Merge from this branch
Open a merge branch window. This is the same command as the above in the Branch Explorer view.
Show in Branch Explorer
Open a Branch Explorer view and highlight the selected branch.
Properties
Display the same Properties window as the same command does in the Branch Explorer view.
Compare with
Compare the selected branch with an Eclipse API baseline.

You can get further information about the Branches view in the PLASTIC SCM GUI guide.

Changesets view

The changeset explorer view lets you explore the changesets of the repository currently loaded in the workspace. This view is a table with the list of changesets where the comment, date, branch and author of the changeset are displayed.

Changesets view

In the Changesets view you can execute the following commands:

Show in Branch Explorer
Open a Branch Explorer view and highlight the selected changeset.
Compare with
Compare the selected changeset with an Eclipse API baseline.

Labels view

Open a new view where you can see all the labels created in the current workspace.

Labels view

These are the label operations:

Switch to this label
Switches the workspace to the selected label. This loads a read-only confirmation in the workspace, since labels are not mutable. For more details, refer to the Switch workspace to this label command in the PLASTIC SCM GUI guide.
Apply label to workspace contents
Applies the selected label to the changeset currently loaded in the workspace.
Merge from this label
Opens a merge window to merge the status marked by the label with the items currently loaded in the workspace. At the end, this is the same as merging the changeset to which the label is applied with the changeset currently loaded in the workspace.
For more details, refer to the Merge from this label command in the PLASTIC SCM GUI guide.
Show in Branch Explorer
Open a Branch Explorer view and highlight the selected label.
Compare with
Compare the selected label with an Eclipse API baseline.

Pending changes view

Display the Pending changes view with its own toolbar:

Pending changes view

These are the commands available in the toolbar:

Refresh view
Reload the view to show any new change.
Checkin selected changes
Check in the selected items.
Undo selected changes
Undo the selected items.
Show view options
Display a new window to select the items you want to appear in the pending changes view.

Show view options in the Pending changes view

Paste last used comment
This option lets you select a used comment o paste the last one used.

Workspace Explorer view

The workspace explorer view lets you explore all the previous views of the repository currently loaded in the workspace.

Workspace explorer view of the Plastic SCM perspective

Besides, lets you execute the following operations:

Show pending changes for this workspace
Display the pending changes view including all the changes in the workspace.
Update
Download the latest changes from the repository. This is the same as right clicking in the project in the Package Explorer and selecting Team > Update workspace, described in the Item operations section above.

Refactor support

Plastic SCM provides complete support for refactor operations, especially effective when renaming and moving items from one directory to another.

Note for Eclipse 3.1: Due to an Eclipse 3.1 restriction, solved in Eclipse 3.2, refactor for renaming a package could show an error at the end of the process, like this:

Note for Eclipse 3.1

This behavior is due to the way in which Eclipse handles refactor and plug-in communication. You will only have to click Back and Next again and the refactor operation will correctly finish.


Preferences

To set the preferences for the Plastic SCM Eclipse plug-in, go to:

Window > Preferences > Team > Plastic SCM

Plastic SCM preferences

A dialog is shown where the following option can be set:

  • Command line executable - This is the directory to the Plastic SCM cm executable. The Eclipse plug-in can detect this setting automatically if the Plastic SCM directory is contained in the PATH environment variable. Otherwise, it can be manually set here. Changing this setting is normally not needed unless you need to use several separate Plastic SCM installations on the same machine and want to force the Eclipse plug-in to use one of them.

Mylyn integration

Plastic SCM provides integration with Mylyn 3.0 or later; this version of Mylyn works fine in Eclipse 3.4 or later.

This feature is very useful when using task controls (see the TASK AND ISSUE TRACKING SYSTEMS guide of Plastic SCM to obtain a list of task controls that can be connected to Plastic SCM), because the user will be able to work on his / her tasks from the Eclipse environment, checking out and checking in the files and linking those changes to a certain task.

Note: To learn about Mylyn, please visit the official website of this Eclipse plug in.
It is mandatory to have Mylyn installed in Eclipse in order to use this integration.

Installation

To install the Mylyn integration it is necessary to check the following option when installing or upgrading the Plastic SCM client:

Installation of the Mylyn integration

Then, the installer will ask you for the Eclipse location. Specify this information and proceed with the installation process.

When the installation is finished, the Mylyn integration is ready to work with (as long as you have Mylyn installed in Eclipse; otherwise this plugin will not work at all).

Configuring the Mylyn integration

If you have Plastic SCM GUI configured with a task control you do not need to do anything else. Continue reading the section Using the Mylyn integration; otherwise you will need to configure the Mylyn integration. To learn about configuring task controls in Plastic SCM GUI, please, check the TASK AND ISSUE TRACKING SYSTEMS guide.

To configure the Mylyn integration, go to

Window > Preferences > Team

and finally Plastic SCM for Mylyn in the list provided in the left pane. You will see something like this:

Configuring the Mylyn integration

If you have the Plastic SCM GUI already configured with a task control you do not need to change anything.

You can choose if you want to link branches with tasks or changesets with tasks. The most common scenario (and the one we recommend) is the first one.

If you have chosen to link issues with Plastic SCM branches, specify the branch prefix that will be linked with the tasks ID. Finally, click on Ok.

Using the Mylyn integration

Once the appropriate task control is configured in Mylyn, and having the 'Task list' view opened, just click on the bullet that appears on the left of a certain task, as you would do when working on a task from Mylyn as usual. The following dialog appears:

Working with the Mylyn integration

In this dialog you can select a workspace that is configured with the opened projects (by default is selected the current one, opened in Eclipse). In the list shown below Plastic SCM lists the branches which prefix matches with the task ID of the selected task. This information will be taken from the Plastic SCM GUI or from the Preferences window, as explained before.

You can select the branch that will be associated with the selected task, add and select another one that is not listed, remove branches from the list or create a new one, which will take the configured prefix by default. Finally, press OK.

Plastic SCM will switch to the specified branch automatically; this way working in a specific task from Eclipse is very easy: you simply select the desired task, specify the branch to work on and automatically you are doing changes in that branch.

Mylyn will filter the Package Explorer view with the files that have been modified previously in other tasks, as it believes that a user often modifies the same files; anyway you can see the whole project by clicking on the icon in this view.

Note: If you cannot see the Task list view, please click on Window > Show view > Other on the Eclipse menu and select Mylyn from the list. Select Task Repositories to configure a repository of a task control if you do not have specified one before, or click on Task list to see this view if you have already configured your task control system. Finally, press OK.

Note show view










Last updated

August 12, 2014
  • Semantic history
  • July 24, 2014
  • Updated Plastic SCM views inside Eclipse and their operations.