Option to deploy only individual/modified metadata on Save (without package.xml)

[Vinodh Amudala]

First my congratulations for developing this great tool for Salesforce Dev Community. Just posted a 5 star review. :)

My only issue with the tool or something that I'm not able to figure out and keep going back to my VS Code is because of the ease of deployment or retrieve metadata to/from my org. As a Lead Engineer, I keep going to numerous orgs either for my own development or troubleshoot an issue that one of our engineer face. 

For on Save auto-deploy, I could only figure out that there is option either to push/pull all the metadata in the project/org (our project is huge), or go with package.xml to subscribe an deploy. I can't just right click and deploy without adding the metadata to package.xml nor deploy only the modified files on save without pushing the entire project.

Could you please provide pointers or guidance will help.

Thank you,

Vinodh

[Scott]

Hi, Vinodh. Yes, I saw the review. Thank you very much for the kind words!

Regarding deployment and retrieval, yes, you're correct that, in general, deployment and retrieval requests should be framed by the metadata subscription when working against a non-source-tracked org or source tracking metadata when working against a source-tracked org.

It is possible to deploy/retrieve metadata outside of your subscription, but it requires you to open the build options dialog for the respective operation, disable Subscribed Only, and switch to a Custom selection for the Contents drop-down. That doesn't allow it to work for deploy-on-save, and when initiated via right-click it starts with Context for Contents and no selection (if you selected unsubscribed metadata), but it might be a step toward what you're wanting.

I could see an argument for having a context menu-based activation of these actions on unsubscribed metadata automatically setting up the dialog this way for you, and perhaps that would be all you need.

I'm curious as to the use case for having metadata that you want to move back-and-forth between the project and an org that's not part of the project's metadata subscription. I'm not at all arguing its validity; just interested to understand why there would be active outliers like this.

I'll also provide a link to the user guide where you can find much more information on these topics under Managing Metadata:

https://bitbucket.org/RoseSilverSoftware/illuminatedcloud/wiki/User_Guide/Home

Regards,
Scott Wells