How to version control with IntelliJ - intellij-idea

I'm looking for a way to control versions of my project through IntelliJ. However, I know Git can manage it the best way and I already did started experiencing Git with the help of Madara Uchiha's Git tutorial. I must say it is incredibly useful, but I rather have version control arranged on my harddrive which is constantly backed up.
I decided doing my version control manually and it's pretty slow and annoying. Is there an easier and more efficient way to clone the current project files in another folder?
For example, clone the current project files on another folder named v1.4.2 outside my project structure without relocating my project files, also having them refactored as project on its own so they be runnable whenever.

Set up a local Git repository for the project. It will start with a master branch. Then create a working branch that you make your changes in. You can merge this branch back in to master as you are ready. You can create as many branches as you need and switch between them very quickly. All using the one directory.
If you are new to git you can use something like Sourcetree - (a GUI for Git) it will allow you to manage the repository. It makes it really fast to switch between branches of your repository. It also helps with pushing changes to another location. GitHub, Bitbucket, etc.
For backup, you could always set up the project on Bitbucket. You can create public and private repositories for free. I really recommend setting this part up.
Depending on the environment that you are building on, you could build a shell script / batch script that would copy files to the duplicate location. Without knowing what type of project you are developing in/for it is hard to say what would be the best strategy.
Ideally if your project has a build output you could have the compiler/IntelliJ IDEA place the results into your result folder. You could then copy the results to your Builds/v1.4.2 folder or wherever. Whether you check in the files that are built will depend on your project. You can always exclude files/folders like your ../Builds that you don't want to track via your .gitignore file.

Related

How can I clone a CodenameOne IntelliJ project and continue working on it?

I'm using a .gitignore file that was recommended for use with CodenameOne projects (See the blog post) and have committed my project to GitHub. Now I want to retrieve that project to a new PC and continue working on it but I'm having endless troubles doing it.
Shai shared a "quick trick" workaround which involves creating a new project then copying the relevant files from a clone of the Git into it, but then it's not a proper clone of the github repo that can be worked on and then synced back up to the remote.
So what I'm asking is: what steps (and troubleshooting resouces) would I use to ensure that:
I am storing the right files to the GitHub Repo to enable success
The IntelliJ Project will work with the retrieved files
I can commit changes back to the Repo going forwards.
Sorry, I'm a bit new to juggling GitHub repos and CN1's plugin structure for Idea has me mystified (I tried merging a new project with a directory which has a clone of the GitHub repo and the CN1 plugin is disabled - can't click on it)
I resorted to using the following .gitignore (using Codepoint One with IntelliJ IDEA):
# macOS
.DS_Store
# build artifacts
/build/
/dist/
/lib/impl/
/native/internal_tmp/
/out/
# idea
/.idea/**/workspace.xml
/.idea/**/tasks.xml
*.iws
With this setting, most of the IntelliJ configs are committed, as well as some binaries: CodeNameOneBuildClient.jar, JavaSE.jar, lib/CLDC11.jar, lib/CodenameOne.jar, lib/CodenameOne_SRC.zip.
This is not optimal (the binaries don't really belong in Git and take about 40 MB combined). But this way I can clone the project on a different machine and start working right away. It also doesn't produce Git diffs on every build — but only if the libs are updated.
IntelliJ/IDEA Codename One projects are nearly identical to NetBeans Codename One project with the one major difference being the additional idea directory. Just copy that directory from a working intelliJ project and add it to the gitignore. The project should work.

IntelliJ: How to create a local Java project copy for backup?

I'm new to JavaFX 8 and the IntelliJ IDE. I have a JavaFX8 project that works but not as I would like. I'd like to try another approach but the substantial changes may not work. I don't want to loose code I have working.
To save code I have working, I've been creating a new project and then locally copying all the folders(.idea, out, src) and files except .iml, of the working project into the appropriate folders in the new project with the newly generated .iml.
This always seems to work but is it proper procedure?
I'm not on a team of developers and have yet to learn Git/GitHub.
Please advise. Thanks.
Maybe you should learn how to use a Version Control System like Git, then you can create a project repository and have different branches for things you want to try out. Keeping the working code in your master branch will prevent you loosing your working code. Also, when using a vcs you can always revert to versions of your code that have been working. The IntelliJ Idea IDE has perfect support for working with all different types of version control systems. If you don't want to learn any forms of vcs then there is no other way to "backup" your working code.
Is it proper procedure? It's probably not how most people would go about achieving what you want to achieve but it's certainly workable. If you wanted to stick with that for simplicity now, I'd copy the whole directory structure, delete the .idea and .iml files, and then create a new project in IntelliJ on that clean copy: IntelliJ will automatically set up folder structure based on the existing source without you having to go through any additional manual setup.
If you're willing to experiment with the git route, to achieve the basics of what you want to achieve is not very complicated and I've written a small quick-start below. IntelliJ offers very good support for Git, and once your repository is created you can do everything you need from the IDE. I'm going to assume you're working on Windows, although the steps shouldn't be too far removed on other platforms.
Install Git
You can download and install Git from https://git-scm.com/download/win, which will install a command shell called Git Bash.
One-off setup for your project
Open up git bash and go into the directory containing your source. Rather than seeing separate drives as Windows does, Git Bash assumes there is a logical 'root' directory under which all your files are accessible. Your C: drive will be /c. To move around you can use cd to change directory (using / instead of ) and ls to list files instead of using dir.
Assuming your source code is in C:\projects\myproject:
cd /c/projects/myproject
git init
The second line above creates a git repository in that directory. This doesn't affect your code, it just creates a folder called .git that contains all of the book-keeping information.
You don't want to have every file under version control - in particular you don't want your build outputs. You need to set up a file in your project directory called .gitignore which tells git which files and directories should be ignored. As a starting point you can copy https://github.com/github/gitignore/blob/master/Java.gitignore and rename the file to .gitignore
Basic Commands and committing your initial version
There are a small number of basic commands:
git status
Running git status will tell you which files have been modified, which are not under version control, and which files have been added to the staging area to be committed next time.
git add path/to/file
This adds a file to the staging area waiting to be committed. You can add multiple files to the staging area before committing them in one go.
git commit -m "description of your change"
This commits all of the staged files as a new version, which the specified commit message.
If you go into your project directory, do a git status and check through the list to make sure there's nothing you don't want to have under version control, then you can do git add . to add everything to the staging area and git commit -m "Check in initial version of the source code" to commit it to the repository.
After you've committed, you can run
git log
To see a history of all of the changes. IntelliJ has a view that will show you the same thing.
Creating an experimental branch
This is where git shines; if you want to try something experimental you can create a branch of your project while allowing git to preserve the original version.
git checkout -b experiment1
Will create and switch to a branch called experiment1. You can delete, rename, move, rewrite and develop whatever you like on this branch. The changes you commit will be independent of your original working version.
You can switch back to your original version (preserving all of the changes you've committed on that branch) using:
git checkout master
Where master is just the name of the default branch created when you ran git init. The experimental version will still be there and can be switched to again using git checkout experiment1 or from IntelliJ using the branch selection in the bottom right corner of the status bar.
If you decide that the changes you've made in experiment1 are to become your new "good" version, you can merge them back into the master branch and repeat the cycle from there.

Can a git repository have N working trees

I try to write a file store based on libgit2.
Software snapshots should be saved as branches mysoftware and specific versions committed and tagged. Then later I want to checkout the tags to different directories.
When looking at git_checkout_tree, it seems like there is only one working tree for a repository and thus it does not even seem possible to checkout multiple working trees concurrently.
Is this correct!?
EDIT:
Additionally, I would like for this thing to work on Windows without the need for cygwin!
The git_checkout_opts structure in libgit2 contains a target_directory option that will allow git_checkout_tree() to write to a different directory instead of using the default working tree for the repository. This would allow you to custom build a solution with libgit2 that maintained multiple checked out copies.
Without using that option, a libgit2 git_repository object expects there will be just one working directory and looks to the core.worktree config option if it isn't the "natural" working directory for the repository.
The git-new-workdir tricks with symlinks in the .git directory don't work great with libgit2 right now, I'm afraid, and particularly doesn't work well on Windows. I'd love to see this addressed, but it isn't too high on my priority list.
Git doesn't support this natively, but you can use git-new-workdir to do it.

darcs equivalent for git's submodules?

so yeah just wondering if darcs has anything equivalent to git's submodules.
i.e. lets say I have a repo (myapp) and I have a folder in it called mylibrary. mylibrary doesn't really have anything to do with myapp's development, it just has to be included. mylibrary's development happens in it's own repo, but when someone pulls myapp, it'll also pull an up-to-date version of mylibrary. any ideas?
My first thought: Since darcs is simpler than git (i.e., no branches and remotes--instead you just use directories and URLs, and it's your task to manage them), a darcs submodule would not give much more than what you can achieve with standard things like subdirectories or files inside you darcs repo.
If you needed a submodule in order to fix a certain state of the source of the used library, you could perhaps simply put a copy of the library's repo as a subdir and add it to your project's darcs. Compared to git, this would have the disadvantage of bloating the data transfer when someone gets your repo.
If you needed a submodule to tell those who get your repo where to get the updated source of the library (without bloating the size of your repo), you could simply put an URL and an instruction into a README file, or a script, or whatever. Compared to git, the disadvantage is that the state of the library's source as it was when you used it wouldn't be recorded in your commit, so people might get another version of the library, and the compilation wouldn't succeed, and it wouldn't be clear why.
So, the really interesting goal of a submodule could be not just to tell people where to get the library source from (as you write in the question), but to record the state of the subproject that you have actually used for compiling your project, and not to bloat your repo for those who don't want to get the source of the subproject.
Probably, this goal could also be achieved by storing more complex metadata about the state of the subproject, and a more complex hook to get exactly that state (or--by choice--another state) of the subproject. AFAIK from the docs, there is no built-in mechanism for such submodules.
Update (found on the darcs site):
http://darcs.net/Ideas/Subrepositories;
http://darcs.net/Ideas/NestedRepositories.
So, darcs will notice another darcs repo inside your working and it won't touch it. So the first way I've suggested above is shut (if you leave the darcs metadata there).
The second way is like something suggested in one of the section of the latter link. (They suggest an "uglu" script for something like this.)
Another (3rd) idea
Import the patches from the repo you intend to have as a submodule, but first move all files into a subdir. If it were possible just to apply such a moving special patch once and if it was effective for all the patches you import from the repo intended as submodule, but not to the patches you import from a "branch" of the main repo...
...well, it could be a special variant of the pull command (say, import) and of the push command (say, export) that would additionaly translate the paths accordingly.
I don't know of any submodule concept for darcs, which means the usual way to refer to another (shared) repo from a darcs repo would be through symlinks.
Since symlinks aren't supported with darcs, that means you needs to put in place a "posthook sh update-symlinks.sh" hook script to restore those links.
But you could also use add to this hook a check to see first what version of the lined repo is currently loaded, and update that version if needed (provided you have store in one way or another the exact version you need for that shared repo).
That last suggestion is actually close to the implementation of Git submodules or Mercurial subrepos.

Configure the .bzr directory path in a bazaar repository

I want to create a bazaar repository and have the .bzr directory not alongside the versioned files.
I'm searching for an option like "--git-dir" in git, or a way to achieve the same thing. Evenctually I'd accept an hack too.
A solution using bzrlib is feasible
Example current structure
project/.bzr
project/foo_versioned_file
project/bar_versioned_file
Wannabe structure
project/foo_versioned_file
project/bar_versioned_file
/unrelated_path/.bzr
There is nothing like --git-dir in bzr, but if you only need avoid having the full history along your working tree, then it's worth to consider using lightweight checkouts. Lightweight checkouts allow you to use only small number of files in .bzr/ directory (but you have to have it anyway) and the real branch with its repository and its history can be kept outside the working tree. So:
bzr branch bzr+ssh://HOST/REPO/BRANCH /unrelated_path
bzr checkout --lightweight /unrelated_path project