Plastic SCM blog

Smart Locks with multiple destination branches

2024-08-20T11:21:00.005+02:00

At Unity, we're always looking for ways to make collaboration smoother and more efficient for development teams. One of the core features of Unity Version Control (formerly known as Plastic SCM) that has been instrumental in this is Smart Locks. It’s been a game-changer for teams working on the same project by preventing merge conflicts and ensuring that changes are made in a controlled manner.

But we didn’t stop there. Today, we’re excited to introduce a powerful evolution of Smart Locks: the ability to configure multiple destination branches. This feature opens up new possibilities for managing parallel development lines without the risk of interference between them.

Microsoft Entra SAML Support

2024-05-16T17:55:00.003+02:00

We are back in this blog to announce that starting from the 11.0.16.8622 version, our On-Prem customers for Unity Version Control (Plastic SCM) can now use Microsoft Entra (Azure AD SSO) as a new authentication method, using the SAML protocol.

This allows you to use your existing Microsoft credentials to log in to your repositories and start using the Plastic
GUI and the CLI.

This new authentication integration includes both the user and group permission settings, which you can configure
in the Azure Active Directory through the Microsoft Graph API.

Dynamic Workspaces (alpha) for Windows: A new way to interact with version control

2021-07-26T19:02:00.001+02:00

Big fanfare and excitement to announce the greatest, biggest addition to the version control space in years!

Here's what you can do with a Dynamic Workspace:

You can create a workspace pointing to a repository of 102 GB and see it consistently on your computer in under 2 seconds.
You can mount a huge repository in your laptop where the working tree is 25 TB and navigate it even when you don't have that much disk space available.

How cool is that? We believe it is the most significant capability we've ever added to Plastic. A giant leap. We believe Dynamic Workspaces will transform the way we interact with version control. They are the foundation for what we consider the future of version control.

Don't believe us? Watch this quick demo:

Announcing WebUI V2

2021-07-13T18:47:00.032+02:00

collaborate seamlessly any time, anywhere, and on any device.

Introduction

We've been working on an improved version of WebUI for our Enterprise and Cloud Edition users and are excited to announce its release to the public. Our goal for WebUI is to connect teams and help increase productivity for real-time content creators by providing deeply integrated role-based workflows so that all Plastic users can easily get their work done.

With this version, we explored some of the problems creators were encountering and asked how we might be able to address them. For example, if a technical artist needs to review their team's code but does not have a local setup, they can easily go to https://www.plasticscm.com/orgs/<your-org-name> to collaborate seamlessly any time anywhere and on any device.

How to connect Slack and Plastic SCM

2021-05-10T15:33:00.000+02:00

In a previous post, we saw how to connect Plastic with Discord.

Let's see now how to connect Plastic with Slack and receive Plastic events on our Slack channel thanks to webtriggers.

Plastic now supports Unity ID with two-factor authentication

2021-03-15T23:10:00.002+01:00

We just released Unity ID support through OAuth. Now, you can strengthen the security of your Plastic Cloud organization by asking users to login using Unity Id with two-factor authentication.

How to connect Discord and Plastic SCM

2021-03-01T19:36:00.003+01:00

Do you want to receive Discord notifications from Plastic SCM like the one below?

Follow me; it's easy!

Códice Software is now part of Unity Technologies!

2020-08-17T15:00:00.001+02:00

It's official! Códice Software, the company behind Plastic SCM, has been acquired by Unity Technologies!

This is very good news for all our users. We'll now have more power to expand and grow to make Plastic the best version control system available, which is what we always wanted to achieve.

Dockerizing our CI plugin test environments

2020-08-12T12:31:00.001+02:00

Docker is a fantastic virtualization tool that became a game changer when it was released a few years back.

Initially Linux-only, it's now a powerful system that enables users to save time setting up test environments regardless of the OS they use. That's a remarkable feature, especially when you're working with an extensible, multi-platform system such as Plastic SCM.

Spreadsheet Compare is now the default tool for Excel file diffs

2020-08-12T11:49:00.007+02:00

The Plastic SCM integration with Microsoft Office lets you diff Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and even PowerPoint presentations.

Since version 9.0.16.4345, when you diff Excel files (.xls or .xlsx) in Plastic and Gluon, we now launch Microsoft's Spreadsheet Compare tool by default.

Plastic SCM VS Code extension - Out now!

2020-07-15T15:42:00.002+02:00

Visual Studio Code is a nice little editor by Microsoft that is incredibly popular at the moment. StackOverflow 2019 survey ranked it as the most used code editor: more than half the respondents claimed to use it! Besides, it has a really active community and boasts a powerful set of extensibility options.

We use it here at Códice Software, too. Our websites, the Plastic SCM Server WebUI, some client plugins... All those are often modified and extended using Visual Studio Code.

So, one day we asked ourselves, 'Wouldn't it be nice to have Plastic SCM information embedded in this wonderful editor?' That was the event that triggered the birth of the Plastic SCM extension for VS Code.

.net core Plastic SCM Server on Windows Server Core

2020-07-06T16:04:00.002+02:00

Let us share how to create a minimalist Microsoft Windows installation to host our new .net Core Plastic SCM Server. Didn't you know we run on .net core? Check this blogpost.

What is Windows Server Core?

Windows Server Core is a minimal installation option that is available when you are deploying a regular Windows Server. It includes most but not all server roles, which makes the disk footprint around 3-5GB.

With Server Core, Microsoft stripped away the graphical user interface, so you must run all the operations using the command line. Not a problem for a server-side environment.

You can always install Windows Core Server in your office using a small machine, but as it requires a small number of resources, it is perfect for hosting it at Amazon.

Web triggers for Plastic SCM Cloud are here!

2020-06-15T17:58:00.000+02:00

You can now hook web triggers to Plastic SCM operations. It has been a reality for years on the on-premises Plastic SCM Server, but now Plastic Cloud also supports it!

Do you remember we recently released cloud2? Web triggers is one of the new features in the new Cloud. Stay tuned because there's much more to come 🙂

What a web trigger is?

PSPlasticBisect - a PowerShell module to bisect your repository

2020-06-02T14:21:00.000+02:00

Somebody introduced a bug in the codebase, as a failing test demonstrates. But the test is the symptom, and the cause might be too deep to know exactly where it is.

It would help a lot if you were able to pinpoint the changeset where the bug was introduced, but that's manual labor. You must first switch your workspace to a changeset, then build the necessary assemblies, then pass the specific test, and based on the result, decide which is the next changeset to test. That's an awful lot of steps!

That's where bisect is useful, and that's what I bring you today.

Let's bisect a Plastic SCM repository using PowerShell!

Announcing the new Plastic Cloud: cloud2

2020-05-30T22:49:00.000+02:00

We just launched our new Plastic Cloud, code-named cloud2. New users can evaluate and purchase this new offering, while we will migrate all current customers from cloud1 to cloud2.

The new cloud2:

It's incredibly fast. Better servers, more efficient, and intensive memory use and caching, and much faster metadata storage and improved data transfer.
Dramatically reduces latency. More metadata servers mean you are closer to your data.
Enables long-awaited features. Access shelves in the Cloud, move changesets to other branches, use cloud triggers, and much more. We have a very solid foundation for feature parity with on-prem servers.

Plastic SCM becomes 9.0!

2020-03-10T16:12:00.000+01:00

UPDATE March 17, 2020: You can now read a summary about what were the main features launched during Plastic 8.0.

As every year, we jump to a new number, 9.0 this time. For all of you using subscriptions, it will be transparent.

Plastic SCM server runs .NET Core

2020-02-28T00:49:00.006+01:00

UPDATE April 29, 2021: All the Windows installers will now bundle a netcore-compiled Plastic server.

UPDATE March 1, 2021: All the macOS installers will now bundle a netcore-compiled Plastic server.

UPDATE March 10, 2020: Edited the Install on macOS from tar.gz section. We updated the instructions for installing the Plastic SCM server .Net Core on macOS.

UPDATE March 2, 2020: We edited the Current limitations section because the Plastic SCM .NET Core Server includes WebAdmin, WebUI, and DevOps (mergebots) since release 8.0.16.4024

Great news! We just published the Plastic SCM server built on .NET Core, the cross-platform, rock-solid, super-fast and officially supported framework.

The new servers are available for Linux, macOS, and Windows beginning with version 8.0.16.4017.

The new servers are fully compatible with your current installation~~, but as of 8.0.16.4017, they don't include WebAdmin, WebUI, and mergebots.~~ ~~We'll release a new version packaging these features soon.~~ These features are available since version 8.0.16.4024.

The Linux servers are available as ~~tar.gz and also~~ regular packages.

~~Windows and macOS servers are only available as zip and tar.gz at this point. We'll make them full regular installers soon.~~
Read more »

Git sparse checkouts and partial clones

2020-02-18T10:29:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago, Git announced support for sparse checkouts and partial clones in beta. Since reading it, I have wanted to share my thoughts with you, so that you know we don't live in isolation of what Git does, and also, that we have an opinion about it. Hence, my intention is to share what we think these new features when compared to the current Plastic SCM functionalities that we already have in production.

In short:

The new Git features are about trying to avoid the mandatory local clones from growing too big by just cloning parts of the original repo.
In Plastic, this has been possible for a few years already but in an even more powerful way. On top of that, the clones are not even required if you decide to work centralized.

Definitive ignore.conf for Unity projects

2020-01-14T12:39:00.001+01:00

Why do you need a good ignore.conf?

Unity, like many other editors such as Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code, and many others, creates a wide variety of files that shouldn't be part of the repository. The ignore.conf file contains a list of rules that makes those files and directories not to be tracked by Plastic SCM.

The main advantages of a good ignore.conf are:

Smaller repository: Big assets are kept local; therefore, the repository size doesn't grow.
Avoid constant conflicts: Automatic files created by IDEs are changed continuously. If they are part of the repository, the users will face merge conflicts every time the IDE changes them locally.

Code Review now available for macOS

2019-12-20T15:39:00.000+01:00

UPDATE February 3, 2020: We updated the Restrictions and missing features section because some of them don't apply anymore.

The new Code Review is finally available for macOS starting on release 8.0.16.3859.

You can now request changes to code, ask questions, place regular comments and have full conversations (threaded if needed) about a particular section of code.

GUI episode 9 – a new hope

2019-12-10T14:44:00.000+01:00

Yeah, ok, maybe I went too cinematographic with the title.

We are redesigning the GUIs for the upcoming Plastic 9.

We'd like to share with you what we have and get some very early feedback, to ensure the improvements really make sense.

What's your first impression? Anything you miss? Do you like it overall?

Many more screenshots inside 😉

Improvements in the Plastic Proxy

2019-11-21T22:55:00.000+01:00

A few releases ago, we published a bunch of improvements related to the Plastic Proxy. These updates are about monitoring space and cleaning cache up on disk. This helps you manage your Proxy behavior.

Let's see in detail all these improvements.

Improving the new Plastic Code Review system: Part III

2019-11-06T00:17:00.001+01:00

Here we are again to show you the latest in the Code Review system.

In case you missed them, there are two previous posts (here and here) where we started to summarize the improvements in the Code Review system that we are releasing periodically.

In this blogpost, you are going to see what are the new available features in the Code Review. Remember that your feedback is more than welcome!

Single branch workflow improvements: announcing Incoming Changes

2019-10-30T17:39:00.002+01:00

UPDATE March 6, 2020: We updated the Availability section to highlight that the Incoming Changes feature is enabled by default.
UPDATE February 27, 2020: We updated the Limitations section because the ones related to multiple heads and writable Xlinks don't apply anymore.
UPDATE November 21, 2019: We updated the Limitations section because Incoming Changes is also available for macOS.
UPDATE November 8, 2019: We updated the Limitations section because some of them don't apply anymore.

Many teams, especially in the gaming industry, use a single branch. We have greatly improved their workflow so that they don't have to struggle anymore with unneeded merges.

We still recommend task branches but we understand not all our users can't adopt them. Plastic is all about flexibility (that was the story behind its name, after all) and we decided to greatly simplify the single branch workflow.

This is the new Incoming Changes view, a way to preview, download and solve conflicts when you are behind the head of your working branch.

Next, I'm going to guide you through each of the new features and improvements we included as part of the new Incoming Changes.

Plastic now checkouts before merge

2019-10-30T12:11:00.000+01:00

We introduced a huge change in 8.0.16.3673 (2019-10-29). From now on, your local changes will convert into controlled changes (checkout) before calculating a merge.