Sofware Development Team Projects

Git Version Control

Version Control Systems like Git are designed to assist software developers merge changes to source code that have been made by multiple team members. The system also keeps a complete history of all changes made and changes can be undone, or two or more versions of the software can be developed as alternatives are development paths are explored.

Most VCS work by mounting a master repository on a web server so that changes can be submited and copies updated by any team member over the internet. This may not work in College as connections to an external server may be blocked by the firewall. We shall have to test this out. Using you own laptop should get around such problems.

Installing Git Extensions for Windows

Git works in a distributed fashion soit needs to be installed locally on each PC that uses it. Git Extensions for windows includes Git as well as a GUI interface that integrates into Windows Explorer. Download if from Google Code and install it.

Git Extensions

Installing the Git Plugin for Visual Studio

Git Version control can be added to Visual Studio using the Extensions Manager in the Tools menu. Select Online Gallery and type in Git in the search bar. Select and install Git Source Control Provider. You will need to restart Visual Studio after installation.

Git

After installation and restarting go to Tools -> Options -> Source Control and select Git Sourse Control Provider from the drop down menu.

Git in Tools Options

This should provide you access to a Git menu in the menu bar, and extra menu items in the context menus such as right clicking on your project in the solution explorer and selecting Git -> Initialise New Source Repository. You should then see a new Pending Changes window (which can be docked). This will show all the pending changes you have made which need to be comitted. In this case all the files in the project need adding to the empty repository, so select them all and click commit. These changes are then added to the local repository

Git Changes

Tortoise Git

If you want another GUI interface to help using Git then Tortoise Git is available from Google Code and is similar to Tortoise SVN. It can also convert an SVN version controlled project into a Git controlled project. This is an optional extra.

Git Tortoise

Remote Git Repositories

Before submiting your changes to a remote server you need to set up a web based repository in a Git server such as those provided free by Bitbucket. You can then share your project with up to 5 team members (if you include me as a team member I will be able to take a copy and help you to debug your code).