Plastic SCM 4.0 Beta

The Beta version

We are now making Plastic SCM 4.0 beta versions publicly available, you can download using the link on the right. The Beta Evaluation Guide can guide you on the setup and limitations of the current version.

If you want to receive news and updates about the progress, signup in the form below to stay informed. Be the first to know when the beta versions are released and get access to the downloads.

Download

Grab the Windows installer!

Awesome branching and merging

Lightning fast branches

Branching is a very efficient process, so you can easily work with feature branches or go even further and use task branches, the model we recommend.

Powerful merge

The merge backend will smartly reconcile the changes that you made with those of your colleagues.

Code that has been moved as the result of a refactor is detected and that information is used to ease the merge for the user. Complex refactor merges become trivial thanks to the “similar code” detection. This is our unique Xmerge technology.

Visual merge tools

Our algorithms will merge your changes between branches automatically most of the time. When a case arises where two developers touched exactly the same lines of code, our tools make it easy to solve the conflicts visually.

To better understand what changes are being merged, you can also visualize their relationship in the branch explorer.

Fully distributed

Clone branches

Replicate code branches from the repository on your laptop or between distant offices.

Lightweight server

Installable on laptops with an embedded database or in the central office server with corporate databases.

Integrated code review

Plastic SCM has it's own light code review system. It's distributed as well, so you can work on that offline and push your changes when you get connection again.

DAG core

In 4.0 we moved to a more "changeset centric" way of thinking, basically moving our "dynamic DAG" to a "pure DAG" repository model, making replica faster, easier and more robust. Cloning branches, working in parallel, reconciling remote conflicts, or inspecting remote changes are seamless and efficient operations.

Server profiles

You can connect to as many different servers as you want from your Plastic SCM client. It will manage the credentials needed for each of them and automatically choose those needed.

Synchronization view

The new synchronization view lets you configure your relations with other servers and replicate with a single click all the changes, so all the servers contain the same changesets. Robust, clean and efficient.

Transparent SCM

Changes detection

You don't need to worry about moving or renaming files and losing the synchronization with the version control. With Plastic SCM 4.0, you work with your files, make changes, move them around, create new ones or even remove them. When you are ready to check your changes in, just go to the pending changes window. Plastic SCM detects all those actions and records them to the repository with a single click. It's transparent version control.

Checking out is no longer needed

With transparent SCM, you don't need to check out your files to edit them. Simply make a change and Plastic SCM will detect it and display it in the pending changes window. For those situations where don't want anybody else to touch your file while you are changing it, you can still check it out exclusively.

Labels are lightning fast

Apply labels (tags) to mark specific sets of changes. It takes milliseconds.

Distributed Branch Explorer

Let us draw it for you

The branch explorer is a representation of the changes made in your project. It's a diagram that depicts branches' relationships and evolution in time.

In Plastic SCM 4.0, it becomes more distributed and aware of remote repositories. It's easier than ever to explore the distributed repositories of your collegues and replicate back and forth from them.

This 5 minutes video summarizes the features of the Distributed Branch Explorer:

See where changes come from

The branch explorer can assign different colors to the source of each changeset. It's easy to view in which server changes were made.

Visualize merge contributors

Before merging branches, you can now visualize the contributors on a reduced version of the branch explorer. Only the branches involved in the merge are displayed.

View remote changes before replicating

Browse remote changes made by your colleagues on their repositories. Just connect them to your branch explorer, they are drawn with dashed circles.

Subdiagrams

Focus on the interesting bits. Reduce the clutter by selecting the branches you want and display them alone in a separate branch explorer window.

Display only relevant changesets

Read between the lines. You can now filter out changesets not involved in merge or branch operations.

Relayout branches

Move branches up and down in the diagram to fit your needs if the default branch explorer layout doesn't.

Visualize your distributed development

Diff branches, changesets, labels

Focusing on what you've changed is easier than before, just diff a cset and quickly understand what you changed.

Tabbed interface

All the windows inside the GUI are now organized in tabs, for a more streamlined experience. In addition, some operations like merge are non-modal so that other windows can be used at the same time.

Made by professional programmers for professional programmers

Integration

IDEs

Plastic SCM integrates with the most popular software development IDEs like Visual Studio and Eclipse.

The integration with Visual Studio 2008+ lets you access all the windows of the Plastic SCM GUI client right from within the IDE.

With the transparect SCM features, you can seamlessly work even with IDEs that are not integrated at all.

Task and issue tracking

Plastic SCM really shines when used for task-driven development. Accordingly, the ability to integrate with issue tracking systems is an important aspect of the product architecture. Plastic SCM offers out-of-the-box integrations with several systems...

Continuous integration

Cruise Control, FinalBuilder, Zutubi's Pulse, Hudson/Jenkins and JetBrains TeamCity are some of the CI servers Plastic SCM supports out of the box.

Windows Explorer integration

You can now use most of the features of the Plastic SCM GUI client from the Windows Explorer. All the views and common operations like checkin, add to source control and others are a right-mouse-click away.

Other

ACL based security

Every object in Plastic SCM has an Access Control List (ACL). The permissions it describes are inherited, both through the file system hierarchy and through the repository hierarchy. Read more...

Single port operation

Plastic SCM uses a single TCP port for all the communication between client and server. Easy configuration and administration.

Active Directory and LDAP

Plastic SCM can authenticate users from LDAP or Active Directory, or from Plastic SCM's own username/password database.

SSL communication

We support SSL encrypted communication for increased security.

Database backends

Plastic SCM stores all data and metadata using standard relational database backends. We didn't try to reinvent the wheel, and we won't force you to abandon the storage solutions in which you've placed your trust (and investments!)

MS SQL Server, MySQL, Firebird, SQLite and Oracle are supported. PostgreSQL is in beta as well.

Sign up for the beta

News and updates about the beta

We plan to release Plastic SCM 4.0 in Q4 2011, after a short beta period.

If you want to receive news and updates about the progress, signup here to stay informed. Be the first to know when the beta versions are released and get access to the downloads.