Easy branching

Branching is key for true parallel development and Plastic SCM is superb doing branching, specially merging the branches back.

Creating a branch is just one click away from the branches view or the branch explorer, and merging is also an issue of a couple of simple clicks. Just focus on getting the job done, Plastic will ease the version control tasks.

With Plastic you can manage thousands of branches with no overhead... think about it... now real parallel development is finally possible.

Mutiple views on the GUI

Plastic 2.0 introduces a new and redesigned graphical user interface. The 2.0 GUI is clearly a step ahead on SCM graphical design. Say goodbye to all the arcane and boring GUIs with a tree on the left and extra info on the right... Enter the Plastic SCM multiple view system, which has been designed after carefully listening to our customers and trying to bring them a better experience.

Now you don't have to lose focus on common operations like listing changeset's contents, branches and so on...

Built-in three way merge tool

Plastic SCM comes with a full featured integrated 3-way merge tool. No need to acquire a separate third-party tool because the one included with Plastic is able to merge code files, handle binaries and merge directories.

Branch explorer

The Branch Explorer is one of the newest additions to 2.0. It shows project's evolution from a repository point of view: all branches and their relationships can be displayed. Later on you can zoom at item's level using the 3D version tree.

With the branch explorer you can understand when releases are created, visualize changesets and explore their contents, check what has been merged between two branches double clicking the merge arrows, filter information using different criteria, locate specific branches, highlight information and also run branch common operations like creating new ones, running merges, switching workspaces and so on.

Linux GUI

Plastic 2.0 releases a full featured Linux GUI. The GUI has the same look and feel at the different supported platforms, and it looks superb on Linux. Have you ever seen such a good looking application at your Linux desktop?

We're totally commited to Linux, so now not only the command line and the server are available, but also the entirely new GUI.

Task tracking integration

Plastic is integrated with task and issue tracking systems such us Jira, OnTime, DevTrack, Bugzilla, Mantis and Version One.

Whether you go for branching patterns like branch per task or you prefer to stay with changeset based development, Plastic will easily integrate with bug tracking systems to create full traceability from requirements to code.

Rich Eclipse integration

Are you an Eclipse developer? If so, you'll definitely love Plastic integration with Eclipse.

We've developed a new Plugin that implements the basic operations like check out, check in, find differences and checked out files and also advanced ones like full refactoring support, right workspace mapping between Plastic and Eclipse ones (whether it is one to one or one to many), the ability to explore Plastic branches and labels and configure Plastic workspaces within the Eclipse interface and many more.

Visual Studio 2008 support

Plastic is fully integrated with Visual Studio 2003, 2005 and 2008. From 2005 it fully supports refactor and move operations. Move your code inside Visual Studio and Plastic will also issue a move operation. Combine it with Plastic's merging capabilities and enforce refactoring at your team: don't be worried anymore about developers modifying files which have been renamed by another programmer... Plastic will take care of it!

ACL based security

No other SCM is so flexible in terms of security. Plastic implements ACLs based security. Every object managed by Plastic like revisions, items, branches, repositories and so on has an associated ACL and there are about 30 specific permissions available.

Now you can enforce development policies like who is able to commit to the main branch, apply a label or remove elements, defining the right ACLs with just a few clicks.

Statistics

Plastic 2.0 introduces a statistics module which gives you inmediate information about which files are more oftenly changed and who's making those modifications.

The statistics module presents information with a very attractive visual layout which helps exploring your repositories.

Query System

Plastic 2.0 implements a powerful SQL-like query language. Now it is very easy to perform queries to retrieve specific information, customize the views on the GUI or create extended statistics.

Distributed system

Plastic 2.0 enables multi-site and distributed development. Plastic server can replicate branches from one server to another in two different ways: through direct server connection or using package based replication when security constraints discourage direct connection.

Replicated branches can be merged back together even when they've been modified in parallel.

The distributed support enables a wide range of scenarios: from roaming developers running their own lightweight Plastic server on their laptops, to full multi-site deployments where Plastic servers are syncrhonized periodically to serve geographically separated development teams.