New Perforce Mylyn Connector for Eclipse Delivers Broader Source Code Management Capabilities

Alameda, Calif., and Vancouver, Canada, May 18, 2010—Today Perforce Software announced the availability of P4Mylyn, its new connector to the Mylyn task and application lifecycle management (ALM) framework for Eclipse. P4Mylyn’s task-focused interface filters a developer’s view to include only those Perforce-managed assets, along with their dependencies, that are associated with a given change request. Distilling developers’ focus to only those resources relevant to a particular task allows them to respond quickly to change in agile workflows.

P4Mylyn was developed in cooperation with Tasktop Technologies, creators of Eclipse Mylyn, to ensure compliance with guidelines for interoperability, UI design, and completeness. The P4Mylyn extension is distributed via Mylyn's Connector Discovery mechanism, making it effortless to download and install the integration from within the Eclipse IDE and ensuring interoperability with a wide variety of Tasktop Certified open source and commercial ALM solutions."

“Tasktop has seen a constant stream of requests for Perforce integration, indicating the popularity of Perforce with developers using Eclipse," said Mik Kersten, CEO of Tasktop Technologies and creator of the open source Eclipse Mylyn project. "Combining Mylyn’s task-focused interface with Perforce’s state of the art SCM tool will make it much easier for developers to track source changes. Thanks to Perforce's participation, the Mylyn SCM project will not only provide a leading feature set, but also help drive the parts of the Mylyn framework that define how Eclipse-based developers interact with their SCM tools."

“Our Mylyn Connector will help developers manage and focus on a set of tasks, as well as prioritize, schedule and share the context of a task with others,” explained Kevin Sawicki, P4Mylyn creator and lead contributor to Mylyn's SCM subproject API. “Contributors can quickly understand which Perforce-managed assets are associated with the task and coordinate their work more effectively, regardless of the team’s physical location or area of expertise.”

The Perforce Mylyn Connector automatically tracks code changes on a per-task basis, making it easy to commit to Perforce only the relevant changes when working on multiple tasks. It automatically generates commit comments that link back to the relevant story, defect or issue, providing complete traceability from any line of code back to the relevant task associated with the change.

Specific benefits of the P4Mylyn connector include: 

• Easy client integration and code-to-task traceability with other third party toolsthat have Mylyn connectors, such as Bugzilla, Jira, Mingle, Rally, and VersionOne.
• Hyperlinks to tasks from any repository. This allows developers to easily switch back and forth between tasks, file revisions, source code comments, and submitted or shelved groups of changes. For example, P4Mylyn gives developers the ability to switch from the Perforce to Bugzilla or Jira repositories.
• ‘Jobs’, Perforce’s built-in defect tracking system, becomes a first-class Mylyn task. This gives developers complete visibility into the tasks their team members are working on as well as automatically linking their own pending work to the Perforce job being fixed.
• Graphical differencing tools display only those changes specific to the associated change request.

Perforce leads Mylyn’s SCM Subproject API

Perforce also is using its source code management expertise to lead and drive innovation in the new SCM Mylyn subproject. In the end, developers using any of the various Mylyn SCM connectors will benefit from the API, making the SCM experience better integrated and more robust for everyone.

Availability & Pricing

The Perforce Plug-in for Eclipse and P4Mylyn are available now at no additional charge with Release 2009.2 of the Perforce Server. Interested developers are invited to download and evaluate Perforce free from the Perforce website. This offer includes free technical support during evaluation.

Perforce pricing is all-inclusive; there are no add-on components that require licensing. End-user licenses for the complete solution, including one year of support and maintenance, start at $900 per seat; volume discounts are available. For additional price and license information, visit perforce.com.

About Tasktop Technologies

Tasktop Technologies is the company behind the Eclipse Mylyn ALM integration framework and its revolutionary task-focused interface technology. The task-focused interface is proven to make developers more productive by showing only the relevant information for each task, dramatically reducing search time and facilitating multitasking. Tasktop Pro is the company’s enterprise-ready product based on Mylyn, with task-focused support for web browsing, time tracking, documents, email and calendars. Tasktop Technologies also provides connector development services and training to the growing number of companies adopting the task-focused paradigm and tools. For more information, please visit tasktop.com.

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About Perforce Software

Perforce Software is trusted by industry-leading companies like Salesforce.com, SAP and the New York Stock Exchange to manage their most valuable IP. Perforce products help teams work in concert on important digital assets including software code, documents, multimedia, spreadsheets, images and more. They are unique in their ability to handle large and distributed collections of content, enabling higher productivity, lower costs, improved security and compliance. With the addition of its document collaboration tool, Commons, Perforce is now making it easy for everyone to take advantage of its powerful versioning capabilities. The company is headquartered in Alameda, California, with international operations in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. For more information, visit www.perforce.com.

Media Contacts

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Perforce Media Contact

Sheri Aguirre
Perforce Software
+1 510.864.7400 x5403
[email protected]