My dev environment differs from that of most Drupalees. I have a webserver running on Ubuntu but my IDE is on Windows 7 (Eclipse with Egit).
I understand Mig5's workflow as illustrated by Adrian Simmons.
I understand the difference between platforms and instances.
I have succesfully installed gitolite on my development server.
I have put my build/make files under git version control. I use these files to deploy platforms with Aegir.
I have created a naming convention to bring Feature module exports to a separate git controlled repository. I can add these Feature modules to my version controlled make files to achieve platform updates.
So far so good. My staging workflow seems to be in working order.
There is one thing that I still need to do. I need to bring a single site instance under git version control as well.
I want to be able to pull that repo to my Eclipse IDE on Windows as an Egit project, mainly for theming purposes. Setting this up must seem very basic to most of you, but I would be much obliged if anyone can suggest a best practice or give me pointers. Is it as simple as a symlink from the gitolite main repository directory to the site instance's theme directory?
NB I have disabled Aegir's caching on my dev server. My goal is to see my changes in the Drupal development site instance as soon as I push them from the IDE.
Obviously, if I switched to Ubuntu altogether, this would not be an issue. I could integrate my IDE. Linux is the superior server platform for Drupal (better cli, security, lamp, drush, drush_make, aegir). However, running the IDE on Windows 7 makes life easier for me in other ways. I experience its GUI, support and documentation as better and some of my non-Drupal daily applications do not have an equal or equivalent on Ubuntu.
References:
http://www.mig5.net/content/drupal-deployments-workflows-version-control...
http://groups.drupal.org/comment/reply/34926/104934
http://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite/blob/master/doc/progit-article.mkd
Comments
version control and aegir on my development server
Can you guys suggest some tips for best dev practice with aegir? Please bear with me. I may come across as a stupid n00b but i'm also just illinformed.
I focus on content strategy, theming, ux and design. I'm not one for module development.
For site organization purposes I try to export to features as much as i can and do new platform builds with aegir with the new features.
For simple css and jquery i often do not use a website and just work on some local files in eclipse or firebug, tracking my changes with egit.
However, more often than not - when working on ckeditor ux under wysiwyg, or when theming - inevitably, i need a real development site to work on. For the duration of the theme or other development, I wish to keep my adjustments under version control.
But the outside world moves on and often patches, updates or new features see the light of day during the development cycle. Normally I would migrate my platform to a new version when that happens.
I assume that this would reset the version control on the testing environment so i wait with the migration.
Obviously, this is not a desirable way to work. Who can suggest some tips to work around this?
Normally my work is done on contrib modules, themes and libraries. Before drupalcon paris and honestly until recently, i worked with a multisite setup instead of aegir. I symlinked to the codebase, leaving my site specific modules right where they were, so my own stuff stayed put and platform updates could still be executed. I just had to point my bridge-symlink to another source.
I have noticed that aegir doesn't touch my site specific folders (the ones where I do my work) when I migrate, allowing me to move them manually. So i plan to reinstate my old approach for these folders. If i can achieve my "symlink bridge" i can get aegir speed and reliability, version control on my actual code ánd platform updates. Good idea? Can somebody suggest a better approach? I'd love to have some input.