15 minute guide to the ultimate workflow
1st minute: Create a new project
The essential element of a project in Springloops is its source repository - the place where your code is stored. The significant feature of the source repository is that it remembers each state of your project. Hence, your source is safe from lost files and overwritten changes. Creating a new project, you are asked only to provide the project name. As you can notice, below the name form, there is also generated a URL address to the source repository.
We connect with the repository every time we update files with our teammates changes or send your changes.
2nd minute: Assign project members
Now we can build our project team. The people we assign to our newely created project in the Team tab will be able to access the project and its source repository.
To access the project and its source they will have to authenticate themselves. Here, they use the same login and password as to their Springloops web account.
3rd minute: Get the working copy
The working copy is a directory on your PC where you store files of the project. It represents the current version of the repository. It is only your own development of the project that takes place in the working copy. Each project member has its own working copy.
You can download a working copy, work anywhere and submit your changes when you are back online. Creation of a working copy is called checkout of the repository. Checkout downloads the latest version of the repository. And this is the step we have to do with our Subversion client.
Choose Subversion Client for your operating system
4-8th minute: Go into the flow
Having the working copy, we can start developing the project. Each time we accomplish something (Ex: a new function, text corrections, or a bug fix), we should send it to the project repository so as our teammates stay up-to-date with our progress. This action is called a commit. In the log message of each commit a short description of what has been done should be included.
The version number is incremented by one whenever a new change has been committed. Each version is called a revision. Each revision includes all changes made since the last revision. We can deploy a particular revision on a web server and continue our work, while someone else can preview our progress or start testing.
We use Update action to keep our working copy up-to-date with the project repository.
9th minute: Track the progress
Changes our teammates make are gathered on the Log tab in the Springloops project account. We can see there our colleagues log messages and files they have modified. Although you can browse the Log message in your Subversion client, Springloops Log gives you a different - better - approach to display it.
10-12th minute: Deploy to web server
When our project is advanced enough we can deploy it to the web server. Web servers in Springloops are divided according to the roles they serve. There are production, staging and development servers. Having just started developing our project, we can make a preview of the progress to the development server.
13-15th minute: Live with the ultimate workflow
At this stage we know the bases necessary to use the ultimate work flow. The following simple rules make your web development easier, faster and professional:
- Commit only accomplished items, commit frequently
- Update your working copy regularly
- Deploy to the development server firstly for early previews, deploy to the staging server for testing and clients previews, as well as deploy to the production server things perfect enough.
May 29th, 2007 at 12:49 am
This is a very cool tool!
July 11th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Hi
how i can deploy database schema changes in my new project Version.
July 11th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Hi Alex,
We contacted you via our support, because we need more details about your issue.
July 28th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
the link on image in top of right column is wrong. please fix it. may be need a starting /.
July 29th, 2007 at 1:00 am
Guys, I wanted to watch your “getting started” movie but the link (http://www.springloops.com/ptn/2007/01/17/15-minute-guide-to-the-ultimate-workflow/2007/01/17/15-minute-guide-to-the-ultimate-workflow/)
goes nowhere. Please fix it.
July 30th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Thanks guys. It’s fixed.
The link directs to this very page
September 1st, 2007 at 12:34 pm
ok first impressions: way cool, well done guys..
this could be just what i’m looking for (as im managing a small team offshore, and i need to get some pm hosted software (and am looking at basecamp) and also hosted source control system… just some questions:
we are developing asp.net solutions using visual studio 2005 ide. are there issues here?
given that deployment files are generated post-compile (ie, just aspx and dlls [plus maybe config files and images]), how would this work in springloops?
September 1st, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Thanks DermotR. We know that Springloops is used for asp.net projects. Probably people use option for compiling files at first run on the server, so they deploy pure source files as they are in repository.
Tips for config files you will find in the doc in your repository (initial checkout).
You will have no problem with DLLs as libs if you don’t need to compile them on each deploy.
After we will finish changes tracking funcionality for Springloops we will upgrade Deploy feature to more sofiticaded uses.
If you need more help, please contact our support .
September 17th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Hello
Very interesting information! Thanks!
G’night
September 20th, 2007 at 3:16 am
Good info.
September 29th, 2007 at 2:29 am
Any successful Plone usage for your product yet?
October 12th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
This looks like a great way of using Subversion without worrying about keeping it up to date. Nice demo. I’m in!
October 26th, 2007 at 7:12 am
Has basecamp intergration been removed? I’m just not seeing the option to add it.. (was it required to be added on setup?)
October 26th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Christopher,
No, it hasn’t… You will find it in Options tab of your account (on the very bottom).
October 31st, 2007 at 9:12 am
** we are developing asp.net solutions using visual studio 2005 ide. are there issues here? **
Visual Studio is not a good friend of Subversion’s “.svn” directories. I think in late versions of Subversion, they allow to change the name of the directory to something like “#svn” or something.
I worked on a ASP.Net project in 2005 with visual studio and the problems with .svn directories meant that I could not have folders in my website to group .asp files. A pain in the ass.
December 2nd, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Question:
How does springloops support subversion branches and trunking?
Ie. we have a live website that needs an update and we have done some other work on our development area.
Thoughts would be appreciated!
December 2nd, 2007 at 8:19 pm
You branch and tag as you always do in Subversion. You can select particular branch to deploy from. As everything is a directory, you just provide a path in your repository, which you would like to deploy from.
December 12th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Hi
I wondered if it is possible to keep Server specific (for example configuration) files in the system which will only be updated on the specific server?
Regards
Joop
December 13th, 2007 at 12:09 am
Joop,
not yet.
Right now we suggest to keep config template in repo and upload via FTP for each server its dedicated config file. The good thing is that you need to do it once at the very beginning.
December 26th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Thank you VERY much!
Springloops seem like a great tool, and with this walkthrough you a realy ready to go…
Can´t wait to get my flow on
January 17th, 2008 at 6:32 am
This looks like an easy way for my team to keep its PHP, HTML and Javascript files under version control. I like having someone else host Subversion, because it’s been a pain to try to host it ourselves. I think to host Subversion internally you really need a full-time sysadmin, and we’ve never had that.
January 30th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Hey, I can not figure out how to get the “Deploy” function to work. What I want is for Springloops to use the FTP info to upload files from the Subversion repository to the actual site.
What do I put for source?
What do I put in for the relative path? I’m very confused.
Does Subversion/Springloops just sort of magically know that that the exisint folder structure should be installled, as is, under the relative pather folder?
January 30th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Hi Lawrence,
In source you need to put relative path to directory in your repository (ex: /trunk/)
Relative path in “Server and site location” section of the form is path that should be opened after logging in via FTP. For example, when you log in to the server and when you open directory “/www” to see your site files, than the path is “/www”.
Springloops will put exactly the same folder structure from the first path, under the second one. If you have any more questions please contact our support.
April 24th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Excellent tool ! truly nice
April 28th, 2008 at 7:12 am
Wow!! It’s a great tool.