FirstSpirit "External Synchronization"
Support for the distributed development of FirstSpirit projects
FirstSpirit projects are generally developed in a team. For distributed project development involving several team members, each team member works in their own local FirstSpirit development environment. The development processes operate at several workplaces (decentrally), at different times (asynchronously), and often at different development strands (nonlinearly). To support these projects successfully, adequate tools (such as version control systems, integrated development environments, etc.) need to be used.
FirstSpirit External Synchronization supports these concepts by providing FirstSpirit objects in a format which allows developers:
- to export templates (and other project content) from a FirstSpirit project into a file system structure with a folder hierarchy and
- to import modified content from the file system structure back into a FirstSpirit project.
This export/import functionality makes it possible to:
- edit FirstSpirit objects externally (e.g., via an IDE – see Simple Scenario – External Editing).
- version FirstSpirit objects via an external version control system (therefore forming the basis for successful distributed development – see Advanced Scenario – Distributed Editing of FirstSpirit Objects).
License
In order to use the function from external components (such as the FSDevTools command line tool), it is necessary to establish a connection to the FirstSpirit Server. The “API-Access” license feature is required for this.
Information about this documentation
This documentation refers to “distributed development” and how FirstSpirit can support this with the FirstSpirit External Synchronization functionality. A knowledge of developing templates with FirstSpirit and of any external components that may be used is assumed.
As the FirstSpirit development process is not the same in all companies and there are different ways of working with External Synchronization, this document describes best practice. This means that recommendations are provided on how External Synchronization can be best used. Other or new recommendations may arise as a result of experience with External Synchronization gathered in real projects by customers and partners. These will be constantly integrated into this document. As a result, user feedback is expressly welcomed.