Setting Up GameMaker: Studio For Source Control Management

Once you have your repository created and your SCM solution installed, you need to tell GameMaker: Studio to activate Source Control Management for your projects.

When you have prepared your computer with the necessary SCM applications, you have to tell GameMaker: Studio to add your projects into the SCM repository. This can be done for new projects as well as projects that have been started previously but never versioned. The steps to follow in either case are outlined below.

Preferences

By default the GameMaker: Studio Preferences will be set to use the latest version of SVN that is bundled along with the program, but should you wish to use a different version or another type of SCM solution, you will need to open the Source Control Preferences Tab to point to the installed solution that you wish to use.

If you select a "Custom" solution, then you will also need to set the two file paths to point to the correct binary executable for the solution (for example C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\bin\git.exe) and then the location of the configuration file for the solution. If you do not have a config file, you will need to create one, which is explained in more detail from the Source Control Preferences Tab page of this manual. Note that if you are using Mercurial, the final option in the preferences "No Folder Commits", should be checked (but only for Mercurial).

Adding Source Control To A New Project

When you create a new project, you can tell GameMaker: Studio to add it directly into Source Control so that all further work done on this project can be versioned. To do this, you must first create the project and make sure that you have selected "Use source control" from the new project form, like this (note that if you have disabled source control in the Preferences, you will not see this):

You would then click on the "Create" button as normal, but before you can actually start working on your new project you are presented with another form where you can enter your username and password (whoever administers the system will have given you this, otherwise just leave it blank), as well as point GameMaker: Studio to the location where you created your repository:

Once you have done that, just click "OK", and now you are ready to work on your project with source control keeping track of all the changes that you make. Note that this dialogue also has a "Checkout" button, which enables you to pull down an existing repository (based on the settings the user has typed into the form) to use as a base, rather than a blank new project.

Adding Source Control To An Existing Project

If you have been working on a project without having it configured for source control, it's still not too late and you can actually version it too and have it protected the same as any new file. To do this, you have to go to the Global Game Settings and select the Source Control tab, then fill in the relevant details. It should look something like this:

The Username and Password fields should be filled in with the name and password proportioned to you by whoever administers the system (if you have none, or don't know them, then just leave it blank) and the URL should point GameMaker: Studio to the location where you created your repository. Finally, click on the "import Project to repository" button to version your current project and add it to the source control repository. Note, that this only needs to be done once for any project and you should never need to do this again. Make sure to tick the "Use Source Control" checkbox at the bottom before closing the window and saving the settings.

Summary

Whether you choose to start a new project or add a previously started one into your source control repository, it is essential that you understand what is happening and how this system should work from now on. Basically, you now have two copies of your project - a local one stored on your own computer and a versioned one stored in the repository. All changes you make to your project from this point onwards will be made to your local copy, not the copy stored in your repository.

When you have worked on your project and are happy with the changes you have made, this project is then committed to the repository along with a short comment about what you have done, and it is given a version number. What this means is that you can go ahead and make changes to your project safe in the knowledge that at any time you can "turn the clock back" and recover a previous version from your repository... you can even go back several versions if it is necessary! This also means that several people can work on the same project knowing that should someone make an error, it can be easily fixed and doesn't need to negatively affect the other people in the team.

For a more detailed explanation of how to add and commit files to your repository, please continue to the next section "Using Source Control".

Back: Source Control Index