Dreamweaver CS5 and GIT... is it possible?

[god_is_love]

My web development company would like to use GIT to handle file versioning since the programming community at large seems to be the recommending GIT instead of SVN.  What is the best way to utilize GIT in Dreamweaver CS5?  Is the only option to use this Dreamweaver GIT extension?  Are there any other methods?

[ChrisMcKeeDesigns]

As it stands my extension (the one you listed) is the only available method of using GIT within Dreamweaver;

Dreamweavers file manager doesnt make use Explorer so cant display the usual Tortoise menu options; mines simply an abstraction of those Tortoise functions.

There is a full SCM API in the latest version of Dreamweaver but its so damn convoluted its painful to deal with; and if you've tried the new SVN integration you'll realise that its not worth the effort as the results are naff.

[Saucey]

Chris, will there ever be a Mac version?  Please?  With a cherry on top?

[ChrisMcKeeDesigns]

Unfortunately it requires TortoiseGIT to run; which of course isnt available on the mac. Sorry.

[greenbluewave]

Adobe really needs to build GIT into Dreamweaver natively as an option ASAP.  And Adobe wonders why Mac users are so displeased with them?  Mac user's money and support for Adobe products has been there for them for decades from the very beginning.  We Mac users brought Adobe to where it is today with our initial and ongoing support.  So the thanks we get is being thrown to the curb.

Adobe has an opportunity here to help bridge Mac & PC workplaces with compatiblity with GIT in Dreamweaver for both Mac & PC.  Show us you're NOT a giant, lazy corporation and DO IT.

[Nancy OShea]

This is a user-to-user forum. If you want to submit a feature request to Adobe Engineers, use the form below.

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

Nancy O.

Alt-Web Design & Publishing

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[ChrisMcKeeDesigns]

If you've tried the SVN integration in CS5/5.5 you'd know that the integral explorer (which is a gloopy mix of c and jscript) is slower than a slug through salt.

They could implement GIT quite easily, but I wouldn't say it was of any real advantage, you'd be better off getting an extension that opens terminal at the working path root.

[greenbluewave]

I'm currently using Subversion with Dreamweaver because it's unfortunately really the only "easy" choice built into Dreamweaver.  Of course, I put "easy" in quotes because I had to set up a bunch of crap in Terminal, etc. to get it going using scores of steps in this nightmare here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/using_subversion_pt3.html

I think Adobe could allow Mac users of Dreamweaver to one-up Windows users by integrating Dreamweaver with Mac's built-in Versions app.  I've found versioning to be unneccessarily cumbersome and complex because too many programmers and not enough people with better user interface experience build these systems.

The fact that you say things like "you'd be better off getting an extension that opens terminal at the working path root." instead of speaking in common terms that most people can understand just goes to show my point on how arcane programmers have made versioning.

I know you guys like fancy acronyms, etc., but if you really want to be smart, make it simple.  When it really comes down to it, it's just a way to make changes to documents and keep track of them and merge changes.  It's sad that it's 2012 and it's still so cumbersome and overly complex to set up and maintain.

I see an opportunity for Adobe to make versioning easier to set up and use with building websites, etc.  But, Adobe has missed so many opportunites in the past, I'm skeptical.

[ChrisMcKeeDesigns]

Funnily enough the Subweaver extension integrates TortoiseSVN/GIT into Dreamweaver so Integrating Versions wouldn't really be a "one up".

And please, stop for a second, consider what you read, remove that 'I've read Steve Jobs mantra' rod from up your arse; I wasn't suggesting that using a terminal was the be all and end all, or the optimal solution, I merely suggested that considering the current implementation in CS5+ of SVN is grindingly slow, it wouldn't kill you to learn the basics of a few of these tools.

Shit if you don't understand "working path", which is a very basic term used in most IDEs and every version control system since CVS, real integration is probably going to be too complicated. How do you handle JavaScript, HTML, XML, XSD, XSLT, CSS1/2/3, Cross Browser Development, aka THE JOB, if your terrified of actually having to learn the terminology of the tools of the trade. If its was some free for all for every idiot in the world with no modicum of intelligence required, it would be paid on par with most admin jobs.

If you can live without the "click to edit style" spoon-fed, WYSIWYG, drag and drop development system that Dreamweaver is, look at the tools JetBrains creates like Webstorm, that has fully integrated version control, or Aptana which is based on Eclipse and supports every version control system to pop into life in the last 19 years; Coda which has all of the same toys; or any of the other hundreds of tools out there with version control integrated.

You could even move to GIT for development and use SVN as a central repository; and the tools are fricking free, try http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/ It will let you work in a "git" fashion locally and push your changes to SVN. Unfortunately though every tool requires some learning, its life, and no developer/designer/ux muppet is going to change source control into something where you just hit a big frickin button that says STORE-THE-CHANGES and provide you with no way of working on what's happened, how its changed, commit messages, branching.

Adobe could pull their finger out and fix dreamweaver, drop masses of the slow, badly built architecture they inherited and never bothered to change, but its unlikely; and considering the competitive nature of the web design and development industry I simply put it to you to Man/Women up and take some responsibility to learn more of the tools of your trade, the industry as a whole isn't going to slow down evolving in order to dumb everything down to a microsoft paperclip "so your trying to version a file" wizard system and nor-should it.

</Rant>

[chuckejpiano]

Awesome and well written rant - and appropriate.  I've been living in Dreamweaver land and have gotten used to the blend of design/code/css etc._ i haven't found it to inhibit development yet, but I'm starting diminish it's utility with php includes, classes etc.  .    Now I'm on a project with some collaboration where GIT seems like the best way to go for version control.  I'm going to try your extension - and possibly consider one of the other IDEs in the future. 

[Steve_SF]

worse than all that terminal editing is I went through all that tutorial from adobe and it ended up wrong and useless waste of a day learning because the latest mac OS turns off the web server option described in the tutorial and you have to go through a whole new set of tutorials I gave up on to get the server turned on.

[dt216]

@RapidFyre

I would recommend you just run a GIT client in the background e.g. SourceTree, Tower, or GitHub client.

I've used the Subversion integration, and IMHO the standalone clients are a lot more flexible and offer more functionality than the built-in SVN support.

[davidmdawson]

I use Source Tree on Mac.