QVCS-Pro IDE Integration

QVCS-Pro supports Microsoft's SCC API. This means that it can integrate with those Integrated Development Environments that support that API. Support is provided within QVCSScc.dll.

You enable/disable IDE integration from within QWin. Under the Admin menu there is an IDE Integration sub-menu. The menu has 4 separate options:

Make QVCS the default Version Control tool
Add QVCS as a Version Control tool
Remove QVCS as the default Version Control tool
Remove QVCS as a Version Control tool

These are relatively self-explanatory. To enable IDE integration, you should select either 1 or 2. Some IDEs will only use QVCS's IDE integration if you select 1 (e.g. Microsoft's VC++). Others work fine if you select either 1 or 2. (e.g. Codewright).

These menu items cause QWin to update the registry with information that is required in order for SCC IDE integration to work. You can remove these registry changes by selecting item 4 above.

QVCS-Pro IDE integration supports simple file-oriented version control activities like check in and check out. QVCS-Pro does not allow you to define QVCS projects from within the IDE. This means that in order to get IDE integration to work, you must first define a QVCS project from within QWin. Only after you've told QVCS where to find the archives and work files associated with a project will QVCS be able to match the files that exist within an IDE environment with the QVCS archives that capture revision information for those files.

Some IDEs expect you to be able to name the version control project to associate with files you are working on within the IDE. Because QVCS figures out the project to associate with an IDE file based on the full pathname of the IDE workfile, it doesn't need to explicitly know the name of the project to associate with files you are working on within the IDE; the matched project name is just 'QVCS Projects.' If you want QVCS to succeed in figuring out which project to associate with workfiles within an IDE, you need to make sure that QWin can 'see' those workfiles as 'under version control' when you navigate within QWin to locate those same files.

Because QVCS-Pro IDE integration works this way, it's possible (with some IDE's) to use the flexibility of the IDE to aggregate files into a single IDE project that in QWin spans several different projects.

Note: IDE integration is available during the evaluation period (the first 60 days of use), and then is available only to users who purchase the 'QVCS-Pro' license. Users who buy just the vanilla QVCS license won't be able to use the IDE integration feature, even though QVCSScc.dll is present on their system.

Step-by-Step IDE Configuration

Follow these steps to get QVCS-Pro to work with an IDE that supports Microsoft's SCC API:

Start QWin, and after defining at least one QVCS user, define a project that identifies where you want QVCS to store the archives associated with the files that you maintain within the IDE. The goal should be to make it so you can version control the files from within QWin.
In QWin, select the kind of IDE behavior you need from QVCS from the Admin→IDE Integration menu. Some IDE's require QVCS to be the 'default' version control tool (e.g. Microsoft's VC++); others will work so long as QVCS is installed as a version control supplier.
Within your IDE, you may need to set up QVCS as the version control tool. This varies from tool to tool.

How do you get QVCS-Pro to integrate with Visual Basic?

If you have the professional version of VB 6.0, you can get QVCS to work with it by following these steps after installing QVCS and setting up QWin to be 'aware' of the VB project (i.e. setting the project location, etc.).

Find the vbaddin.ini file in your windows system directory. If the file doesn't exist, create it.
Add the following line to that file in the [Add-Ins32] section:
vbscc=1
Start VB and go to the Add-Ins menu and with the Add-in manager, enable Source Code Control to be loaded, and to load on startup. Click OK.