A Practical Tutorial on Getting Started with Drupal CVS

November 2, 2005 - 3:56pm

Some time ago, I attempted to figure out how to use Drupal's CVS. Going through their guide, I found this "guide". As scanned through the guide and gave up. I think I'm not the only one who gave up early on. The documentation was riddled with some of the most magnificently obtuse writing I've ever seen. Take for example:

Transparent copies include plain ASCII without markup, Texinfo input format, LaTeX input format, SGML or XML using a publicly available DTD, and standard−conforming simple HTML designed for human modification.

In short, that's why I'm writing this. CVS is a piece of cake. (warning... not destroying your installs is a whole nuther' ballgame... do not "experiment" on live sites.) Pay attention, this is easier than you think:

Getting the Latest Source Code for Drupal

1. First, download TortoiseCVS. Restart you're computer.

2. When Windows has loaded, create a new folder on your desktop named "DrupalCVS".

3. Right click the folder, and select a green arrow that reads "CVS CHECKOUT"

4. A scary form will appear... don't panic, just fill in these settings as though you knew what they were:

  • Server:cvs.drupal.org
  • User:anonymous
  • Repository:/cvs/drupal
  • Module: Drupal

5. Okay, if anyone needs to take a break, let me know. Filling out forms is hard stuff.... Now, a window pops up asking you for a password. Tell it that you're password is "anonymous". Clicky the button.

At this point you'll see files zooming by. That is your CVS updating. It does this automatically -- that's actually the whole point of CVS. Anyways, I'm off. I think you'll now be motivated enough to figure out the rest.