Support for Additional VCS features

[roy.keene@…]

A useful feature to support in the future would be support for using
"Subversion" instead of "RCS" for managing documents under version control.

[michael.gerz@…]

Agree. RCS is dead. It's a shame that we still support it but ignore the modern
svn tool.

[levon]

Nonsense. RCS is not dead, it is still widely used. However, support for more
modern version control systems would be great.

[alexl@…]

Can somebody update the Summary to note that this is in addition to CVS/RCS, not
just a replacement (I tried but didn't have the permission). Ideally it would
autodetect which version control system was being used in the current direct and
use the correct one make it transparent to the user (the way Emacs can figure
out whether to cvs or svn).

[gregory.rome@…]

I think that svn support is a great idea but it is not sufficient, I think that
the following functionality should be implemented:

+ visual revisions comparison: the user can compare two revisions with a two

pane s window as text comparison tools (winmerge...). The user can compare
either the latex code or the standard view.

[Richard Heck]

Updating the summary.

This should not be hardcoded but should instead use something akin to the
Formats or Copiers section of the preferences dialog. Installed VCS should be
detected and configured, and there should be some way of tweaking the settings.

[ps@…]

unfortunately some hardcoding for each VCS is necessary as they often differ
philosophically, not just by some syntax sugar. the current infrastructure is
set for RCS and have to be changed if we want something like git.

[ps@…]

svn support ​http://www.lyx.org/trac/changeset/25785

For future references:

• the error handling has to be completely rewritten
• cvs update after that or check it the same way as in svn
• locking architecture governs now, but its appropriatte only for RCS, so this should be changed too
• svn/cvs diff would be very easy job
• and the biggest problem : we don't have any annoucement/log of successful case i would love to have it in statusbar, but have failed to put it there. current lfun handling simple destroy any message sent from LFUN_MESSAGE.

mail thread about these:
​http://www.mail-archive.com/lyx-devel@lists.lyx.org/msg142097.html

[ps@…]

* #5105 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. *

[ps@…]

From the bug:

Many projects are using distributed version control such as Bazaar, Git or
Mercury (HG).
It would be nice if Lyx could support any of these through a wrapper library.
Maybe there is a python module that does this.
At least for bazaar there is a python module which may be used.

two possibilities:

1. completely refactorise vcs code.
2. add only basic support for others in the same manner as here:

​http://www.lyx.org/trac/changeset/25785

the more i think about 1. the more nightmares i get :) it seems quite
problematic to devise some API which would cover all so different concepts.

the point 2. is just question of copy/paste the VCS child class and some tuning
about error logs. except git and arch(which i dont belive to be accepted by
other developers, so it would be my personal branch of lyx:) i'm not intersted
in implementing different VCS like bazaar or mercury, but you are free
to post patches, it shouldn't be hard :)

if you have some wrappers/libraries in mind, you can add links...

[younes]

I don't see why we should forbid git now that cvs and svn are in...

[ps@…]

that was about arch :)

[timmichelsen@…]

Hello,
I checked on the python oackages available.

There is one being agnostic about the VCS used:
​http://pypi.python.org/pypi/qct/1.5

such a tool was what I had in mind.

With bazaar for instance you can use the usual aliases such as
bzr co
bzr commit
bzr log

I think that we would have a option in the preferences where one may select the
used control system.
Then, Lyx would choose the appropriate commands.
How is this currently implemented?
Does this support only Linux or as well Windows users who may only have
TortoiseSVN on their system?
Does lyx actually controll SVN or just pass the appriate commands through a
command line wrapper?

Kind regards,
Timmie

[ps@…]

How is this currently implemented?

currently it is automatically detected which VCS is used (rcs/cvs/svn).
for details read extended features manual and even more details are in
src/LyXVC.cpp and src/VCBackend.cpp :)

Does this support only Linux or as well Windows users who may only have
TortoiseSVN on their system?

you can try to test it and report back :) basically only "svn" binary in the
path is needed.

Does lyx actually controll SVN or just pass the appriate commands through a
command line wrapper?

it just runs commands like svn -q commit file -m "message"
or so.

[timmichelsen@…]

Does lyx actually controll SVN or just pass the appriate commands through a
command line wrapper?

it just runs commands like svn -q commit file -m "message"
or so.

This seems to be kind of a wrapper approch. Very nice and flexible.
It could be easy to call
bzr commit foo -m "committing foo"
instead of
svn -q commit file -m "message"

I will try to look at the source. I donno C. Only python and bash.

Thanks!

[ps@…]

It could be easy to call
bzr commit foo -m "committing foo"
instead of
svn -q commit file -m "message"

the hardest part would be error detection,i.e. some log parsing.

[timmichelsen@…]

first proposal: added section for bzr and its commands

[ps@…]

the key functions (BZR::scanLogFile, BZR::findFile) remain as it was before, ie
to make your patch work is equivalent to write it from the scratch; sorry i dont
have time for it.

[timmichelsen@…]

the key functions (BZR::scanLogFile, BZR::findFile) remain as it was before, ie

to make your patch work is equivalent to write it from the scratch;
maybe it was worth the intention. And someone who knows can help out.

[timmichelsen@…]

I just remembered:
I host my repository on a server (FTP) which needs password entry.
Does Lyx already support that?

[ps@…]

lyx knows nothing about the network communication, thats the job of vcs.
either you will be asked on console for some password (by vcs, not lyx)
or you have to automatize ftp login (in linux there is .netrc file for it).
good luck.

[Richard Heck]

We can come back to this for 1.7. It's too late for 1.6 anyway.

[timmichelsen@…]

There is a pythonic abstraction package in development that we could use here:

Be-devel] shameless promotion of my simple vcs abstraction lib
​http://void.printf.net/pipermail/be-devel/2008-September/000045.html

​http://www.bitbucket.org/RonnyPfannschmidt/anyvc

[ps@…]

vc-command for customizations was recently added to the codebase

[timmichelsen@…]

Could you please tell, what vc-command would mean?

[ps@…]

look for LFUN_VC_COMMAND in LFUNs.lyx once 1.6.2 is released

[timmichelsen@…]

Ah, found somehing at:
​http://www.lyx.org/trac/changeset/28151

But will this be included in the next 1.6.x?

[Uwe Stöhr]

But will this be included in the next 1.6.x?

Yes, ​http://www.lyx.org/trac/changeset/28151 was the commit for the stable LyX
1.6.x tree, that will become LyX 1.6.2.

What's the status of this bug now?

[ps@…]

i would let it open

[ps@…]

1.6.3 will support svn file locking