When several developers are working on the same project and the same code-base, it can quickly become very messy and very hard to keep track of all the files and changes. So it's very useful to use some sort of version control system to keep track and merge files cleanly. With the current hosting plan we have here at TorchModders, it's not possible to host a version control system.

However, there's a great free service called Bitbucket, where you can host code privately and share it with up to 5 collaborators, for free. Bitbucket use Git as its version control system, which can appear somewhat daunting at first. But there is a great GUI front-end for Git, called SourceTree, which integrates smoothly with Bitbucket. And this combo makes it quite easy to use Git as version control for novice developers.

If you're not sure what version control, or Git is. I suggest you watch the first two videos found here:

I also found these videos, which explains using Bitbucket and SourceTree:




I will try to create a step-by-step guide on how to set it all up. It might take me some time, but I really suggest have a look and considering using this for collaborative development.

The push-back is straight from GUTS into GIT? That does sound  fantastic!

This sounds great.

On Bitbucket you can have a Bug Tracker and a Wiki for your project, in addition to the version control. How much of this is used and if it's open to the public is up to the project owner.

I use it mainly to share TLA code with Slacker, and anybody else who wants to contribute. I might also use it to keep track of bugs and issues.

I don't think it weakens us in any way. It's an optional free service. So is what we provide here. Our greatest resource and value are our combined skills and our will to cooperate and help each other. After that I'm guessing it's the forums and the wiki, which are our greatest resources. How we choose to facilitate ourselves in regards to code sharing, development and issue tracking is less important and does not take away anything IMHO.

So, any helpful hints for this?

I was doing the tutorial and when I went to 'push' it asked for my BitBucket password and login.  I provided them.  Several times.  Unfortunately, it refused to recognize them.  I'm stuck at this point.

Hi! Thanks for that vid-tut @Wolven! I'll need to go back over it  few times more, but it was right on the money

Sorry, I'd been posting my Sourcetree adventures over in the TL1CP public forum. Let me update in here...

I got a push going and it seemed to be proceeding okay. But about 2 hours into the upload, it errored-out I copied the error message to the clipboard, but lost it when I copied something else without thinking!

I didn't use the SSH key method. Is it preferable to use that rather than https?

Now it gets weird...

On a whim, I checked in the "source" tab of our repo on bitbucket - and there were all the files!

I'm still visually comparing them with what I have locally, to see if they are the same and not truncated (MY EYES!). But if there is an automated way to do this, PLEASE let me know LOL!