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Visual Studio Integration

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Surround SCM takes advantage of the MSSCCI API to provide seamless integration with Visual Studio. The integration is supported in all versions of Visual Studio, starting with Visual Studio 6.0.

1 Background
2 MSSCCI Functionality Overview
3 Consider the Working Directory
4 License Usage
5 Supported Versions of Visual Studio

[edit] Background

Because most developers use some type of Integrated Development Environment (IDE), integration between Surround SCM and the IDE greatly benefits the development team. Developers generally prefer to stay within the boundaries of their IDE when developing and maintaining code. Switching between an SCM tool and the IDE slows down the development process and prevents developers from reaching a high level of efficiency.

Convenience and ease of use are also important issues when working with an SCM tool. Therefore, the SCM tool must seamlessly integrate with the IDE.

[edit] MSSCCI Functionality Overview

The MSSCCI is an old API designed by Microsoft that dates back to the Visual Studio 6.0 days. It is strict in nature but includes a rich variety of options that a particular SCM provider can support. This interface has evolved over the years by offering additional functionality, better and faster communication between the provider and the IDE, and usability improvements.

The MSSCCI sets up a communication bridge between the provider and the Visual Studio environment. A Source Control Adapter resides inside Visual Studio and acts as a proxy between the IDE and the provider. All Visual Studio components, such as the Solution Explorer, the editor, the projects, and the source control UI, communicate directly with the Source Control Adapter. The Source Control Adapter passes information to and from those components via MSSCCI.

The provider, while adhering to the strict interface guidelines, can be quite flexible in the way certain operations are implemented. For example, the provider can display its own UI elements. In fact, this behavior is encouraged in order to provide a tighter integration between Visual Studio and the SCM provider. The ability to display UI elements also provides a way for the integration library to support advanced features for a number of operations in the MSSCCI.

[edit] Consider the Working Directory

The key when integrating any IDE project with Surround SCM is the association that Surround SCM has with the directory where the project is running from. For the association to take place, the directory where the project is running from has to be a working directory associated with the repository where you want to store the project in Surround SCM.

The working directory association can be set with Surround SCM or it can also be set from the IDE.

[edit] License Usage

A Surround SCM license is used when information about a file is needed from Surround SCM. Technically, if a user is working on a project in Visual Studio and does not perform Surround SCM actions, the user will not need a Surround SCM license.

However, by default, Visual Studio is set to automatically perform background status checks with the Source Code provider. Every time Visual Studio requests a file status from Surround SCM, it has to do so as a user with a valid license.