Integrating CS-RCS with HomeSite, ColdFusion Studio and UltraEdit

On this page:

Component Software RCS
Integration with HomeSite 3.01 / ColdFusion Studio 3.11
Integration with HomeSite 4.0 / ColdFusion Studio 4.0
Integration with UltraEdit-32
A few usage tips:

• Nothing is automatic
• Comparing New

Don't panic!
Bonus: Toolbar Tips

If you haven't already done so, you'll need to download and install CS-RCS (new version 2.0 build 120 with project milestones!) and familiarize yourself with it:

If you've never worked with a version control system before, give yourself some time to get familiar with it. And you may find you want to use it for other things than web development.

New: version 1.1 now has an extra button to call up the Document Manager from within HomeSite or ColdFusion Studio. Differences with the previous version are marked with a vertical line in the right margin.

To integrate CS-RCS with HomeSite 3.01 and ColdFusion Studio 3.11, follow these steps:

New: version 1.1 now has an extra button to call up the Document Manager from within HomeSite or ColdFusion Studio. Differences with the previous version are marked with a vertical line in the right margin.

To integrate CS-RCS with HomeSite 4.0 and ColdFusion Studio 4.0, follow these steps:

New: version 1.1 now has an extra entry to call up the Document Manager from within UltraEdit.

Since I know quite a few people use UltraEdit-32 as well as HomeSite, and even alongside HomeSite for those editing tasks that HomeSite cannot handle, I had a look whether I could create a similar integration of CS-RCS with UltraEdit-32.

That proved to be quite simple, in fact: there is an Advanced menu with a menu item called Tool Configuration... which leads to a nice dialog for creating up to ten new menu items for calling external programs. No toolbar buttons, like in HomeSite, since these are menu entries but otherwise quite similar. The entries created there end up in the [Tools] section of the UEDIT32.INI file in whatever is your default Windows directory. And they will show up at the bottom of the Advanced menu.

I've created a sample [Tools] section which you can download as UE_tools.zip. Unzip and open the file, then change all occurrences of
O:\Development\ComponentSoftware\
to your own installation path for CS-RCS. When that is done, you can either simply paste it in your UEDIT32.INI file (when UltraEdit is not open! - use NotePad, for instance) or --if you already have some entries defined in the [Tools] section-- use it as a guide to update yours.

When all that is done, you'll have exactly the same CS-RCS functions available from UltraEdit-32 as you do from HomeSite's toolbar.

With the SCC integration with the high-end packages a large amount of automation is possible: HomeSite and ColdFusion Studio will ask you at appropriate moments whether a file you're saving will need to be checked in, for instance.

With the simple command-line interface for CS-RCS this kind of automation is of course not possible. You'll have to rely on a certain amount of self-discipline. Actually, I like it this way: if I simply save a file to do a quick test, having a question pop up can actually get in the way. (But then I don't like on-the-fly spell checking or validation either.) So here are a few hints to get into the right work habits:

• If you have an existing web site that you want to bring under version control, add all of your material first, before using the HomeSite interface. The easiest way to do that is with the context menu in Windows Explorer: simply mark directories and files (multiple selection works!) and choose Add to RCS from the popup-up menu. Note that you can include binary files, so you web images can be brought under version control as well.
• If you work on several sites, it's also handy to define projects for each of them. For this, you need the ComponentSoftware Document Explorer. Use Project -> Settings... to create a new project. Each project is defined simply by a directory root; this means that parallel directories cannot be part of the same project; on the other hand it means you can define subprojects for subdirectories. See the help files for more. As soon as a project is defined, all files already in the Repository that are under the document root for that project are automatically in that project.
• When you have created and saved a new file in HomeSite, press the Create button in the RCS toolbar to bring the file under version control. (If the directory the file is saved in is part of an RCS project, the new file will also automatically be part of that project.)
• After each significant change to a file, Check it in (CheckIn button on the toolbar.). HomeSite will prompt you if your current file hasn't been saved yet: only the saved version of the file will be checked in.
• Use CheckOut if you need to get a previous version of a file back. HomeSite will detect the change: Depending on your HomeSite settings, you will be prompted to reload, it will automatically reload, or it won't. I prefer being prompted, but that's up to you.
• While file lists in HomeSite don't expose the context menus defined in Windows Explorer, the directory tree in the Local tab of the resource panel does. This means you don't only have the file-level commands available from the RCS toolbar, you also have access to the directory-level interface right from within HomeSite!
• The directory-level interface is especially handy if you have your web images under version control as well. If you use HomeSite to call up your image editor to make changes to image files, after you've saved them you can simply use Check in from the context menu for the image directory to add the latest versions to the Repository.
• You should also use the directory-level interface after you've saved a group of files with HomeSite's Save all command or button.

All of the above works the same way whether you're working with HomeSite 3.01 or HomeSite 4.0. Of course it also works the same way with the corresponding versions of ColdFusion Studio.

CS-RCS comes with a "diff" utility that lets you do comparisons of files or directories; it's functionally similar to the "diff" program found on many Unix systems but with a Windows graphical user interface. This is the program that is used by default when you choose "Compare Revisions" from the dialog that appears when you choose History from the toolbar.

You don't have to use CSdiff.exe for comparing files or versions of files. CS-RCS can interface with any comparison program that can accept two file names as command-line parameters; and you can set that up separately for any file type! The box to the right tells you how to set it up.

Hot tip: I use Beyond Compare for all (text) file and directory comparisons and directory synchronization. It's much more powerful than CSdiff.exe and interfaces flawlessly with CS-RCS for version comparisons (see the box above for how to set this up). Shareware, and well worth the $30 registration.

But CSdiff.exe can do more than just compare file versions: it can compare any two files or any pair of directories. If you want to have CSdiff handy within HomeSite or CFS, all you need to do is to add the program to your CS-RCS toolbar. Just use the normal toolbar customization dialog for adding an external program, and browse to CSdiff.exe in your CS-RCS system directory. A good place to put it is right next to the CS-RCS Document Manager icon on the CS-RCS toolbar. (Tip from Walter Torres.)

More tips?

These are of course just a few to get you started. And I haven't tested the work group aspects yet; I can't report on them here until I've done that.

If you discover some handy feature or have a tip, please let me know and I'll publish them here so all of us can benefit!

While working with CS-RCS I discovered a small bug which looks serious but is in fact quite harmless. I can't guarantee you'll ever see it, as the people of ComponentSoftware had never heard of it; they are investigating it now. Anyway, while adding new files to the Repository (using Add to RCS from the context menu or Create from the toolbar button) you may see an error message popup like the following:

While apparently there is indeed a memory access violation, at least under Windows NT I have found no harmful effects: other than the message suggests, when you press OK, the application just goes on working, and I found all files were nicely added to the Repository.

If you do notice the error, and have more information about it, please let ComponentSoftware know!

Creating new toolbars for HomeSite and ColdFusion Studio is pretty easy.

Except... when creating the RCS toolbars I found it's not always that easy. It took some experimentation - but I learned a few new (undocumented!) techniques that I'm sharing with you on the Toolbar Tips page. If you want to create your own custom toolbars check this page!