Really Useful Info On MetaData

Here are all the different meta data types in Salesforce. Why is this useful, because if you are wanting to deploy just a few fields by Eclipse, instead of just selecting the Object in Eclipse if you change the package.xml to below it will just deploy the specific fields you select

     <types>
        <members>X__c.YYY__c</members> //X__c.YYY__c is object.field
        <name>CustomField</name>
    </types>

http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api_meta/index.htm

Here is the complete list of types in an Objec, some of which can be deployed using Eclipse, ant or changesets separately from the Object
http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api_meta/Content/customobject.htm
http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api_meta/Content/meta_workflow.htm
http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api_meta/Content/meta_layouts.htm


Unfortunately there are many things that cannot be deployed using Eclipse, ant or changesets which are listed below. Come on Salesforce some of these things are needed.

Account Teams

Activity Button Overrides

Activity Settings

Analytic Settings

Approval Processes

Auto-number on Customizable Standard Fields

Business Hours

Campaign Influences

Case Assignment Rules

Case Contact Roles

Case Escalation Rules

Case Feed Layouts

Case Team Roles

Chatter Approvals

Chatter Settings

Console Layouts

Contract Line Items

Contract Settings

Currency Exchange Rates

Data Category Visibility Settings

Delegated Administration

Divisions

Email Services

Email Settings

Email-to-Case

Entitlement Processes

Entitlement Settings

Entitlement Templates

Field History Tracking – Currency and Owner Fields

Fiscal Year

Forecasts

Holidays

HTML Document and Attachment Settings

Ideas Comment Validation Rules

Ideas Settings

Label Renames

Lead Assignment Rules

Lead Settings

Mail Merge Templates

Milestones

Mobile Administration

Mobile Users and Devices

Offline Briefcase Configurations

Opportunity Big Deal Alerts

Opportunity Competitors

Opportunity Sales Processes

Opportunity Settings

Opportunity Team and Account Team Roles

Opportunity Update Reminders

Organization Wide Email Addresses

Partner Management

Predefined Case Teams

Product Schedule Setup

Product Settings

Public and Resource Calendars

Quote Templates

Salesforce to Salesforce

Search Layouts on Standard Objects

Search Settings

Self-Service Portal Font and Colors

Self-Service Portal Settings

Self-Service Portal Users

Self-Service Public Solutions

Self-Service Web-to-Case

Sharing Organization Wide Defaults

Sites.com

Social Account/Contact Settings

Solution Categories

Solution Settings

Support Auto-Response Rules

Support Settings

Tab renames

Tag Settings

Territory Assignment Rules

User Interface Settings

Web Links on Person Account Page Layouts

Web-to-Lead

Web-to-Lead Auto-Response

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See http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api_meta/Content/meta_unsupported_types.htm for a complete list which may change