Version Control is the most effective method of managing electronic design data that evolves over time. To control the various versions of your electronic data, you need a Version Control System, or VCS as they are often called. As part of Altium Designer's Design Data Management System, support is provided for creating and connecting to version-controlled Design Repositories that utilize SVN (Subversion) or CVS (Concurrent Versions System) as the version control provider. Both of these Version Control Systems are free, with information and downloads available on the Web. Subversion is, however, the recommended provider since, in true keeping to its unified nature, Altium Designer includes Subversion capabilities built-in!
A Design Repository becomes the central repository from which multiple team members can check data in and out, all the while maintaining a complete revision history of all changes made to the design. A design is therefore stored as a series of versions of its constituent project and source documents, building a progressive picture of the intent of a designer over time. By using a version-controlled Design Repository, you have the integral assurance that no revision of a design is ever lost, allowing for safe collaboration on the same design between members of a team that can be geographically diverse in their locations. The very nature of the version control system provides an audit trail for the design. Full accountability arises through transparency of who changed what, in which source document, and when.
Additional features and capabilities within the software, such as PCB Design Collaboration, allows multiple designers to run with the same design, confident in the knowledge that their individual layout changes can be collated and merged into a single PCB design document, and checked safely back into the Design Repository with controlled ease. The repository's history of the design – the various checked in versions of the project representing incremental changes made over its lifetime – allows you to 'rollback' to any of the previous versions, with total control.
By connecting to a repository you are, in effect, registering that repository with the system –- telling Altium Designer of its existence as it were. Furthermore, there is no manual specification of paths to 'unofficial' or 'rogue' repositories. Through Altium Designer, you can only interact with those VCS-based Design Repositories you have purposefully connected to the system.
Install this plugin to add Subversion VCS capabilities to your Altium Designer installation. This includes:
- Addition of this version control provider to the Data Management – Version Control page of the Preferences dialog.
- Ability to create a new, or connect to an existing, SVN Design Repository, through the Data Management – Design Repositories page of the Preferences dialog.
- Addition of version control related commands to both the Project menu and the Storage Manager panel.
With Subversion capability added, Altium Designer's built-in Subversion will be chosen for use by default. You can opt to use an external Subversion installation if required, pointing to the
main and
admin executables accordingly – the choice is yours.
See Also:
Important!
This plugin is only available for Altium Designer 13.0 or older versions.
Altium Designer 14.0+ Users: You can install this plugin in the Extensions & Updates section in Altium Designer.
