How to use Altium with Git?

Question

Altium has built in support for Subversion but we do have a need for version control at multiple sites. WANdisco can synchronize multiple SVN repositories but it is expensive. Has anyone used Altium with Git? If so, how?

Answer 1

I recently got this working. I'm using a private repo on github, so I unfortunately can't show proof. But here is how to do it, I hope this helps others as it took me a few hours to figure it out. Note, there should be nothing special about using github, they are probably using the git-svn as Paul mentioned.

I'm using the 'built in version' of SVN under Altium Version Control preferences. I do have tortoise svn installed, although that's just so I can use some of the GUI features. (I'm using tortoise 1.8.5, which seems to work fine with github).

Here is the thing that got me stuck... For SVN to work, you CAN NOT have an empty repo, you have to have at least one commit. So assuming you are on github, start a repo, and then follow the instructions they give. (just so the repo is not empty):

touch README.md
git init
git add README.md
git commit -m "first commit"
git remote add origin [email protected]:flirc/altium.git
git push -u origin master

Now go to Altium, Preferences->Data Management->Design Repositories

Then click "connect to" SVN. A dialog should appear. The name is just a local reference so you can distinguish the server if you have multiple.

For github, and my example above:

• Method: https
• Server: github.com
• Server Port: Default
• Repository Sub Folder: /flirc/altium

It should be able to connect, and you should be able to seamlessly use SVN in Altium now. Seems to be working great so far. Hope that helps.

Answer 2

I recently re-raised this question with Altium and got the following reply:

Eric Anderson, good question! I am sorry to say that there is only support for SVN and CVS as you were aware. I have not heard of any future plans for the other storage/version control software packages. The only thing that comes to mind is to use the built in SVN and in the "working directory" try adding that to Git (or others) and do the commits/updates external from Altium.

I can also suggest going onto AltiumLive and into Ideas section and enter an idea. If enough people like it and vote for it the possibility for implementation exists (no promises of course).

AltiumLive ideas is at http://bugcrunch.live.altium.com/#Ideas/New if anyone feels like commenting there.

Answer 3

Have a look at git-cvsserver it's a a CVS server emulator for git. It appears to offer the pserver protocol directly to a CVS client. It's doesn't support watches though.