[GSoC Proposal] Better Version control front-end

[Miha Čančula]

There are a few (maintained or not) plugins for version control in KDevelop,
which mostly provide their own GUI for different tasks. There is also a
framework composed of interface classes. What I would like to do is a
unified front-end for them. It would display features common to all VCS's,
and also some specific views. Those would be enabled based on what
interfaces the specific plugin implements.

One part would be directly related to version control features. It could be
done as a single ToolView with tabs, or one ToolView per feature (my
favourite), or perhaps even in its own window. Those windows/views would be:
 - Modified files monitor (all)
 - Diff viewer (all)
 - Branch viewer/manager (branching VC)
 - Local and remote repository tracker (distributed VC)
Maybe others, if needed.
They will operate only on the Interfaces defined in KDevPlatform's vcs
module and should be independent from specific plugins. A view should load
the currently used VCS plugin, check its supported interfaces, and provide
UI for that interfaces.

Additionaly, I would add "Import from KDE SVN" and "Import from Gitorious"
options next to "Import existing project". This could be paired with
one-click exports of new projects to the same servers.

The currently most used VCS's for KDE are subversion and git. Subversion has
its plugin in trunk that can be used through the IBasicVersionControl
interface, but the Git plugin is incomplete and unmaintained. That is
probably going to change, especially as I read another proposal for
completing that plugin. Otherwise, I might have to implement at least the
basic functionality in it.

Would such a unified front-end be a wanted feature? Or should I focus more
on implementation of specific plugins?
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kdevelop/attachments/20100329/474476e0/attachment.html>