Importing Projects

Published in

Codenvy Blog

4 min readDec 2, 2014

This is the second post in the Getting Started series that we will be releasing over the coming weeks. This series covers;

An Overview of Codenvy’s Main Features; Part 1 and Part 2
Importing Projects
Using Pre-built Environments to Speed Development
Customizing Your Runner and Builder Environments with Docker
Inviting and Sharing
Cloning and Factories
Using the Codenvy CLI
Using Other IDEs with Codenvy

This post walks you through the steps required to import a project into Codenvy. If you’d like to read ahead, visit our Docs which include detailed explanations and examples for importing projects.

Accessing Codenvy

To begin log in to your account or create a new account. Please note that you will not be able to follow along with this post in anonymous mode.

Importing A Project

There are three ways to import a project to Codenvy, you can import from the User Dashboard, from inside your project workspace, and from the CLI.

Importing from the User Dashboard

The easiest way to import a project is through your User Dashboard. Once you are logged into your Codenvy account click the Import Project tile on the far left of the page. You will then be directed into a project workspace, with the Import Project wizard open. Once the Project wizard appears you will see three import options Git, GitHub, and Zip. Select the option that works with your project — for this demo we will select GitHub. Once you enter the project import URL, the project name will automatically be populated. You can keep this name or change it, once you’ve named your project, hit Import.

You will then be directed to the Project Configuration Wizard where you will configure your project environment. Select the language that corresponds with your project and then hit Next.

Depending on your project, you will then choose your runner type — Codenvy supports multiple run environments for many languages giving you the freedom to test across stacks as part of your debugging workflow.

Your Codenvy workspace will be configured and open, allowing you to run your project.

Importing from Your Project Workspace

To import a project from your workspace, enter your workspace and go to File > Import Project > Import from location.

The Import Project wizard will open and you will see three import options Git, GitHub, and Zip. Select the option that works with your project — for this demo we will select GitHub. Once you enter the project import URL, the project name will pre-populate. You can keep this name or change it, then hit Import.
Your project will then import to your workspace and you will see it in the Explorer tab and interact with it as you like.

Your Codenvy workspace will be configured and open, allowing you to run your project. To run and interact with the project check out our instructions here.

Importing from Command Line

Importing your project via Codenvy CLI is the fastest way to set up your environment. Before you can import from CLI you will need to set up the Codenvy CLI. Our CLI docs can help you get set up with the CLI quickly.

For those who have already set up the Codenvy CLI, the first step in importing a project is to create a new workspace and log into your Codenvy account. Your login credentials were provided in the validation email sent to you when you created the account. If you used oAuth to create an account, your password is randomly generated, and you may need to use the User Dashboard to set a password that can be used with the CLI.

SET YOUR USER PASSWORD: First navigate to your User Dashboard. Select Account on the top left main menu, you will see an option to re-set and save your password under Your Information.

$ mkdir cdec

$ cd cdec

$ codenvy login codenvy@codenvy.com my_password

This will create an active session between you and a remote Codenvy cloud.

Next we will import our project by using a shortcut we created that allows you to create a remote project where the source code is cloned from another git repository.

$ codenvy create-project https://github.com/benoitf/hello-world-jsp.git

We automatically detect that the remote URL is a git type and specify a git importer that provides instructions on how the source code should be cloned into the project. The — importer [git | zip] could optionally be provided to instructs Codenvy which importer to use for the packaging imported. You can also specify the name of the new project by using the — name my-project flag.

Your Codenvy workspace will be configured with the create-project command. To build or run the environment see our docs.

If you haven’t already tried the new Codenvy you can sign-up for free, or try one of our premium accounts.