How do I get Flare to integrate into CVS?

[amberlink]

Hi,

I work for a fairly small company (under 100) and we use CVS here. I just purchased Flare and would like to check in my projects from inside of the flare IDE to check in/out my files. I see that I have to "bind" the project before I can check files in/out.

Now, I am not a developer, so I'm not completely sure what Flare instructions are telling me. I'm completely unclear as to how to register I see that I should download the SCC API from MS but then what?

I've done a google search on SCC API but besides a few vendors selling their implementations of it, I haven't found what I need.

I'd ask our local admins but we don't have any and they're all overseas and pretty inaccessable.

Any help on how to get CVS to work with Flare would be highly appreciated. Is there a writeup somewhere, the help is pretty generic but not completely helpful.

Thank you in advance.

[RamonS]

Flare is designed to work only with the single-vendor, proprietary MSSSC API. That is of course only available natively in expensive Microsoft applications. But, the folks at http://www.pushok.com made a plugin that gives CVS or SVN the MSSSC API capabilities so that it can be made work with Flare. Last time I checked, each license from pushok came in at 29$. Maybe that helps.

[doc_guy]

I use the plugin for SVN from PushOK. Be aware that they are a company in Russia, and they charge in Russian Roubles (so the price varies with the US dollar, or whatever your local currency is). However, they were professional and I had no problems with my purchase.

They provide a free trial download, so you can see if you like how it works. I think the trial is good for 30 days or something.

[lacastle]

I use CVS, but not directly from Flare. I just publish my projects to a specific directory, and then manually add/commit my files from there. I use TortoiseCVS, which makes it very easy (just a few right-clicks and my project is done).

[amberlink]

I think I became spoiled using VSS in a previous company. As much as an anathema VSS is to developers it's very easy to use and manipulate for tech writers not interested in code and the ooh factor of CVS.

Well, here I was thinking that like DreamWeaver, I could automatically tie my projects to a source control system like CVS by simply pointing to the repository. Seems I have to either purchase the other product or use the manual check in/out process.

I just wish when I asked this question of the salesperson of how Flare supports a CVS environment I wasn't snowed with the answer. Now, I feel a lot gypped that I didn't get the straight answer I had originally thought I had gotten. Integration with CVS was one of the primary motivations for me to buy this application.

[lacastle]

I'm sorry you thought Flare integrated with CVS. I'm not sure if it says that somewhere (I started using Flare before it integrated with any source control, but it would have been nice if CVS integrated), but seriously, the manual process takes me less than a minute to do (for a project with about 600 topics).

[RamonS]

Well, I proposed a different way to accessing source control systems: through the command line. All source control systems I ever came across have extensive command line commands, especially CVS and SVN, but also VSS for example. Sure, it would be open for goofups when editing the command line parameters, but with ample warnings and a reset to a known-to-work setting many popular source control systems could have been supported and adding new ones would be possible as well.
But MadCap again went the Microsoft only route ignoring that Flare users not always live in a Microsoft only environment, but work with developers that opt for others and in many cases better or less expensive solutions. Make your voice heard here:
http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx

[doc_guy]

I just wish when I asked this question of the salesperson of how Flare supports a CVS environment I wasn't snowed with the answer. Now, I feel a lot gypped that I didn't get the straight answer I had originally thought I had gotten. Integration with CVS was one of the primary motivations for me to buy this application.

I feel bad that you don't feel like you were given straight information. However, you should note that PushOK DOES provide a plugin that DOES work from within the Flare interface. It's not as easy of a solution as if you use VSS, but it DOES work from within Flare.

And at $30 bucks, the plugin isn't terribly expensive.

[amberlink]

You're completely right. $30 isn't a lot, I downloaded the 2.x version of the plug in and am binding the test project from within Flare now. It's very simple to use. I may just pony up the $30 and buy this thign if it does what I need it to do.

thanks for all the great advice.

[trent the thief]

I'm using TamTam CVS SCC. It's USD$10.

There is a free trial that does not expire, but it does pop-up a 15 second nag screen every 15 minutes.

You can buy it from BrotherSoft (http://www.brothersoft.com/tamtam-cvs-scc-76597.html they're reputable) or right from Dave's site (via paypal) http://www.daveswebsite.com/software/tamtam/

There is also a version for SVN.

[amberlink]

Thank you for the software, I tried it and initially it seemed very good. However, it doesn't seem to persist the information you put in the options fields. Every time I go to connect to my CVS repository and get the files I have to re-enter all the information again.

Plus, I'm getting a very strange error, which I'm sure is probably related to CVS but I have no one on this side who can troubleshoot this for me. If you have any ideas or know what this is caused by, any information would be very appreciated. The error I'm seeing are the following:

Source Control: CustomScc:AddFile - call failed with error code -15 (Nonspecific error.)
Source Control: CustomScc:CheckIn - call failed with error code -15 (Nonspecific error.)
Aborted.

And as you can see, the get aborts. I know something about CVS but am no expert.

[trent the thief]

Thank you for the software, I tried it and initially it seemed very good. However, it doesn't seem to persist the information you put in the options fields. Every time I go to connect to my CVS repository and get the files I have to re-enter all the information again.

Plus, I'm getting a very strange error, which I'm sure is probably related to CVS but I have no one on this side who can troubleshoot this for me. If you have any ideas or know what this is caused by, any information would be very appreciated. The error I'm seeing are the following:

Source Control: CustomScc:AddFile - call failed with error code -15 (Nonspecific error.)
Source Control: CustomScc:CheckIn - call failed with error code -15 (Nonspecific error.)
Aborted.

And as you can see, the get aborts. I know something about CVS but am no expert.

Hiya,

Yes, I'm familiar with that. Your project was probably already in source control, yes? When you bind a project to source control, flare modifies the CatapultLaunch entry in the project file to add source control project information. Then, when CVS sees that you're trying to overwrite a file you haven't checked out (? or something), it chokes. Download WinMerge (freeware) and then when the error comes up, diff the file and merge the new catapultlaunch line to the CVS copy and commit that. Once you've done that, you'll also be able to save the remainder of the Flare project level files (target, etc.)

pm me with your email if you need more help. It's not a problem.

[amberlink]

Winmerge, duh, should have thought of that myself. no worries, I'll take care of that.

[trent the thief]

Winmerge, duh, should have thought of that myself. no worries, I'll take care of that.

No problem, honest. It's just that I've done so many help source in source control projects testing RH and Flare that I wasn't really aware of doing that step. It was just second nature. You can shift the lines in a text editor, but with WinMerge setup to act as your diff program it just drops back to flare and you can commit right away.