Modeling collaboratively with CVS

Written Date: February 28, 2007
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Concurrent Versions System (CVS) is a popular version control system that store artifacts centrally and keep track of changes and histories. All Visual Paradigm client products are integrated with CVS to facilitate collaborative modeling. Your team can use CVS repository to store project files, keep track of changes and perform modeling concurrently. Tagging and Branching of project will be available in the next release.

Teamwork Server, another product of Visual Paradigm, is not required for integrating with CVS. The integration is supported in the following products (and editions):

Product Edition
Visual Paradigm for UML Standard or above
Smart Development Environment Standard or above
DB Visual ARCHITECT Java, PHP, .NET and Professional
Business Process Visual ARCHITECT Analyst
Agilian Standard

* The viewer edition of all products support check-out and update Visual Paradigm project from CVS server.

In this page, we will describe how to work collaboratively using CVS. Operations such as importing a project into CVS repository, committing a project to server, and updating a project from server will be covered.

Importing a project to CVS Server

Developers who take part in the project can add a Visual Paradigm project to the CVS server. We call this process to import a project to the CVS server. To import a project to the CVS server:
1. Select Tools > Teamwork > Open Teamwork Client... from the main menu.
This shows the Login to the Teamwork Server dialog box.
2. Select CVS as Server
This expands the dialog box to show additional fields for connecting to the CVS server.
3. Fill in all the fields to connect to the CVS Server. You may need to contact the repository administrator for assistance in filling in the information.
Field Description
User name The name of user under which to connect
Password Password for the user
CVS Path The path of the cvs.exe file (The default is pointed to the cvs.exe inside $vp-suite-install-dir/bin/vp_windows/cvs)
Connection type The type of CVS connection for the repository (The default is pserver)
Host The address of the host
Repository path The path of the repository at the host address
4. Press the Login button to connect to the server. This shows the Manage Project dialog box, which is for selecting a project file to work with.
5. Press OK to skip this dialog box. This shows the Teamwork Client dialog box.
6. Press Import... This shows the Import Project dialog box.
7. Enter the project name of which to import.
8. Specify the source of the project to import to the CVS server.
Option Description
Currently opened project The project that is opened in the running application
Create new project A blank and new Visual Paradigm project
Import existing project An external project file
9. To create a remote folder to store the project in server, right-click on a tree node and select New Remote Folder from the pop-up menu.
If Create folder for project is checked, this will create a remote folder, which have the same name as the project file, for storing the project file.
10. Click OK when done.

Checkout a Project

By importing a project to the server, clients can check that out from the CVS server to the local machine.
1. Select Tools ;> Teamwork ;> Open Teamwork Client... from the main menu to open the Teamwork Client project dialog box.
2. Select the project to check out with.
3. Press Checkout to proceed with checking out the project.
Notice that by checking out a project you get a copy of the teamwork project. In order to work with the project, you need to open it in the application. To open a teamwork project, simply click Open Project, which is next to the Checkout button from the Teamwork Client dialog box.

Committing a Project

Local changes that made on a project can be made available on the project in the server. This can be done by committing the project to the Teamwork Server.
1. Click on the Commit button from the tool bar.
This shows the Commit Project dialog box.
2. Enter the description of the change and press OK.
This shows the Commit Model(s) dialog box, which list the changes that will be made to the server copy of the project.
A conflict might be found if someone else's committed change(s) cause conflict with the change(s) you made. You must resolve all the conflicts to proceed with committing the project. There are two ways of resolving a conflict, Overwrite and Revert. By Overwriting, the server version will be overwritten by the local version for that particular change. By Reverting, the server version will be selected.

Updating a Project

The update project function updates the project by downloading changes made by other team members from the Teamwork Server to the client's computer.
1. Click on the Update button from the tool bar.
2. Press OK to proceed with updating the project.

Related Articles

• Learn how to integrate with Subversion
Subversion Integration
• Get more tips on using Visual Paradigm's products
Tips and Tricks

Related Resources

• Know more about Teamwork Server — The Version Control System for Visual Paradigm's products
http://www.visual-paradigm.com/product/vpts/
• Look at the features of Teamwork Server
http://www.visual-paradigm.com/product/vpts/features/
• Get the Free 30 Days Trial of Teamwork Server
http://www.visual-paradigm.com/product/vpts/vptsdownload.jsp
• Browse the Teamwork Server's online documentation
http://www.visual-paradigm.com/product/vpts/vptsdocuments.jsp
• Learn from Tutorial of carrying out a Collaborative Software Development using Teamwork Server.
http://www.visual-paradigm.com/documentation/vptstutorial.jsp
• View Teamwork Server's Interactive Tutorials
http://www.visual-paradigm.com/product/vpts/tutorials/
• Know more about Visual Paradigm for UML — A powerful visual UML CASE tool
http://www.visual-paradigm.com/product/vpuml/
• Know more about Smart Development Environment — An UML modeling extension for leading IDEs
http://www.visual-paradigm.com/product/sde/
• Know more about DB Visual ARCHITECT — Java Persistent Code Generator for Relational Database
http://www.visual-paradigm.com/product/dbva/
• Get the Free 30 Days Trial of Visual Paradigm's Products
http://www.visual-paradigm.com/download/
Software Maintenance VP-UML User's Guide

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