A new plugin for collaborative work in Archi

[Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie]

Hi All,

Thanks to the (financial) support of a (still small but growing) french usergroup, Phil and I currently work on a new plugin that allows collaborative work on Archi. This opensource plugin is based on the Grafico format but hides all the Git complexity.

The first sprint just ended today and you can now test it by yourself. For this, just download the latest verion or Archi and add the plugin jar file into the "plugins" sub-folder of your Archi setup. Once done you can start Archi and enjoy the new features:

The first step is to make the new tab visible, either through the "Window > Model Repository" or "Window > Reset Window Layout" menu option. The new plugin tab appears below the Models Tree.

Quick start:

• Check out the new Preferences tab in Archi's Preferences dialog for global settings
• You need to have a new empty git repository already setup on a git server. You can easily use GitHub or BitBucket (which provides private repositories) to host your models.
• To add the model from the repository locally, select the first toolbar button in the plugin tab (the green cross). This will clone the repository and create a new blank model
• Work as usual on your model and save it whenever you want
• When you're ready to commit your changes, then right click on the model name in the plugin tab and choose "Commit Changes" (this can be done offline).
• When you are ready to publish/share your work, then right click on the model name in the plugin tab and choose "Publish". In case of conflicts (same concept changed and published by someone else) you'll see a windows helping you to fix them.

If you want you can follow the work through the projects and issues.

Regards,

JB

[Phil Beauvoir]

Let me just say that this is an exciting new development in Archi.

Bear in mind that the plugin as you see it today is the result of JB's previous work with his Grafico plugin and a 10 day sprint that I worked on with JB. So it's still early days, and there's a lot more to do.

But an avalanche starts with a small snowball.

I believe that, given time, we can, with the help of the open source community, develop a powerful distributed solution for the sharing and versioning of ArchiMate models.

This is a beginning. We are excited at what is to come.

Phil

[Hervé]

Hi JB, Phil,

That's great news !  Very much complementary of my database plugin 

Hervé

[Phil Beauvoir]

Hi JB, Phil,

That's great news !  Very much complementary of my database plugin 

Hervé

Indeed! And the work that you have done is also important for the Archi community. 

[Marbi]

Hi.
Thanks a lot for the cool feature 
Is there any easy way to save an existing project using this new mechanism?
Regards,
Marek

[Phil Beauvoir]

What do you mean by "save an existing project"?

Do you mean take an existing model and add it to an online repository? If yes, then we are working on that now to upload the model and push it to a GitBlit repository.

[Marbi]

That's exactly what I meant.
Thanks for the info.

[Phil Beauvoir]

See issue https://github.com/archi-contribs/archi-modelrepository-plugin/issues/15

[Marbi]

Hi Phil,
I have a  request. Could the plugin display a message about a status  of the just performed  operation until it's closed  manually? At the moment confirmation messages flash to fast and disappear. Not always you can keep up with reading. What about status line and/or scrollable log window ?
Regards,
Marek

[Phil Beauvoir]

Hi Marek,

please open an issue here https://github.com/archi-contribs/archi-modelrepository-plugin/issues

This way we can track, discuss and be transparent about bugs and feature requests :-)

Phil

[TT]

This plugin sounds really nice, thanks.

At our company we have a GIT server which uses keys for autentifikation. Can we use this together with this plugin?
If we can't use that GIT server, what are the requirements or do you have a guide for settting GIT up for this eg. for Redhat?

Thank.

[Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie]

Hi,

Well, short anwser is no, you can't use it.

This plugin uses Git over HTTP(S) with user/password, so either you enable this communication chanel on your Git server (which is the prefered way), or you setup an alternative Git server. In such case, any product can do the job so pick the one you know best. FYI we are using GitBlit which is a simple, multi platform and self contained solution (just download the GO edition, unzip it and run it).

Regards,

JB

[TT]

Hi JB,

thanks for the response. HTTPS login is not an option, it must be SSH authentication.
I have created an feature request and if it's possibly to add, then I can maybe find a Sponsor.
https://github.com/archi-contribs/archi-modelrepository-plugin/issues/42

T.

[Mark Janssen]

Super useful plugin and already very polished. This removes most of the need for a heavier solution for my organisation. The central repository was the only part missing from a great drawing tool.

I have been playing around with it a bit with our repository which contains around 2500 artifacts (2500 grafico xml files) and I noticed that committing takes quite some time. I suspect most of the time is being consumed in the export to grafico format, because a plain safe is much faster.

I will see if I can improve the export performance a bit (it's open source after all  )

[Phil Beauvoir]

It could be the export to xml files, or the Git status() call that consumes the time.