Versions Review: Subversion for the Rest of Us

If you’ve ever done any work where you needed to share files with others, or track changes easily, you know how hard it is to find good software for it. Most people use something called Subversion, which is a simple way (if you have a good client) to share files and track changes at the same time. You can always just use the Shell command, but it’s not user-friendly and it takes more time to do some things. So SVN (Subversion) clients were created. The most exciting and user-friendly of these has just been released: Versions.

Versions makes SVN easy. All you have to do to setup a Repository (where the files are stored) Bookmark is select the [+] button and click Add Repository Bookmark… You will then be prompted for a name, URL, and username and password. Most open-source SVN Repositories don’t require a password, but for a personal repository, you will probably want one. Once you have entered all the relevant information, just click the Create button. The Repository will then show up in the Bookmarks sidebar. When you click on one of these bookmarks, the Repository will be loaded.

The main panel of Versions has 3 tabs: Timeline, Browse, and Transcript. The Timeline tab shows you the most recent revisions. For each revision it tells you the user who made the change, the revision number, the files that were changed, and a description of the change. The browse tab gives you a look at the files in the Repository. It shows the files exactly like in list mode in the Finder. Double-clicking on a file will allow you to edit it and clicking the Quick Look toolbar item will allow you to view it in Quick Look. If you click the Compare Diff toolbar icon, you can compare the most recent version of the file with a previous revision. Once you choose the previous revision, it will open the files in the file-comparison app that you choose in Versions’ preferences (I suggest using Changes). The transcript tab just shows you what Versions has been doing (e.g. opening a file from a Repository, etc.).

Versions not only makes it easy to view Repositories, but it also makes it easy to upload to them. To create a Checkout Version (a local copy) of a Repository, just select a bookmark, go to the Browse tab, and select what part of the project you want, and then click the Checkout toolbar item. Versions will prompt you with a dialogue of where to save it to, and then it will save it. It would be nice if you could just select a bookmark and click Checkout, and it would download the entire thing. When you want to upload changes from your working copy, all you have to do is select your working copy, select the files you want to commit, and click the Commit toolbar item. If you added new files from the last time you uploaded, you will need to mark them as needing to be uploaded. You can do this by selecting the file and clicking the Add toolbar item. If there is a file listed that you do not want to upload, just click the Delete toolbar item. It can be a bit tedious to have to select to add all your new files, but it’s worth it.

If you are a real SVN lover and power-user, you will really like the information shown about files when the Inspector toolbar icon is clicked. I will not even try to explain all the features here, for I do not know them all, but they are useful to some.

Versions has just come out of Beta and now retails for about $48.57 (€39). It is the prettiest, most intuitive, and easiest to use SVN client available for the Mac. It is even a partner of Beanstalk, the best source of private Repositories. If you do any shared work, namely code, I suggest that you download the free trial of Versions and see how it compares to what you have used in the past; I think you will be surprised at how helpful it is.

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