Developers: How to setup a clone and push changes?

This topic will explain what you need to setup in order to contribute changes to the Media Browser project.

Only the senior developers sam, ebr and soultaker have permissions to commit directly to the main googlecode repository.

So in order for other people to contribute code to the project you will need to create a clone for yourself and work from there. Any changes you save to your clone can be pulled by the senior devs into the main repository.

Creating your own clone

note: videobrowser was Media Browser’s original name before it was renamed.

  • Go to the videobrowser clone checkout page
  • Sign in to your google account (if you don’t have one, create it)
  • Click the “create a clone” button
  • Give your clone a name. It’s advised to use a generic name like “[username]-personal-clone”. Optionally give it a description.
  • Click “create repository clone”

After a few seconds you'll have a personal clone with the current state of the main repository. You own this clone and can push changes to this.

tip: It’s a good idea to bookmark the website address of your personal clone for future access to it.

Creating a local copy of your clone on your computer

note: Make sure you have TorToiseHG installed

Additional information about this process can be found in the How do I compile a Media Browser build? topic.

  • In Windows Explorer, create a folder on your hard disk that will contain the local clone. For example “`D:\MediaBrowser\Sourcecode[username]-personal-clone`”
  • Right-click the [username]-personal-clone folder and choose “TortoiseHg > Clone…” from the context-menu.
  • In the Clone window, for “Source Path”, use the checkout address found on your personal google clone. For example “https://[username]-personal-clone.googlecode.com/hg/ [username]-personal-clone” then click on the Clone button to begin downloading. (The space before “[username]-personal-clone” at the end is intentional). The sourcecode will now be downloaded to your local machine and can take some time to complete.

Configuring TorToiseHG so you push back changes

First you'll need to get the commit password for you personal googlecode clone.

  • Go to your personal clone website address
  • Sign in to your google account
  • Choose “Source > Checkout”
  • Under “Command line access”, click the link in “To push your changes, authenticate with your Google Account and your generated googlecode.com password.”
  • The page you're linked to will show your email address used for the google account and the commit password for your personal clone. You'll need these for TorToiseHG.

Now…

  • In Windows Explorer, Right-click the [username]-personal-clone folder and choose “TortoiseHg > HG Repository Explorer” from the context-menu.
  • In the Repository Explorer, choose “Synchronize > Configure Paths…”
  • In the settings window, choose the “default” alias that’s available on the Synchronize page and choose edit.
  • Expand the URL Details and enter the username and commit password you retrieved.
  • Now click “Commit” in the settings window and add your nickname/handle or real name in the “username” field. The changes you commit and push to your personal clone will be identified with this name. This is important so we can see what changes were from you once they have been pulled into the main repository.
  • Click ok to close the settings window.

That’s it. Now you can push committed changes back to your personal clone and also pull changes from the main mediabrowser repository.

Committing and pushing changes

Changes you make to the code must first be committed before you can push them to your personal clone on googlecode.

  • Right click a folder in your [username]-personal-clone folder (or the [username]-personal-clone folder itself) and choose “HG Commit…” from the context menu.
  • In the new window add a useful description for the changes you've made and select the files you want to include in the commit.
  • Click the commit button
  • Now open the HG Repository Explorer. Your commit will show up at the top of the list with changes.
  • Select your personal clone address from the dropdown and click the “push outgoing changesets” button (the green up arrow with the horizontal line above it)
  • You'll get a confirmation message if you're sure. You probably are :)

The changesets have now been pushed to your personal clone on googlecode.

Now you can create or respond to a dev topic and detail your changes with a link to your personal clone and possibly the revision numbers.

Adding an additional repository to pull changes from

It’s a good idea to also add the main Media Browser repository to the list in TorToiseHG so you can pull changes that have been added to the main trunk.

You can also do the same for other clones so you can pull changes from other users into your trunk. Only do this if there’s a need for it.

Example: adding the main repository

  • In Windows Explorer, Right-click the [username]-personal-clone folder and choose “TortoiseHg > HG Repository Explorer” from the context-menu.
  • In the Repository Explorer, choose “Synchronize > Configure Paths…”
  • In the settings window, add another repository and give it an alias. To make it easy you can simply name it “mediabrowser”. See screenshot below.

The same applies for other clones you wish to add. You have to give them an appropriate alias and the correct source path of course.

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