Tag Archive for 'Subversion'

Upgrading WordPress via Subversion

Published
by
roger
on 2008-08-06 @ 16:28
in Open Source, Software and Tools
. 0 Comments

David over at Geeks are Sexy has a nice tutorial on keeping WordPress installations current by using Subversion to check out the latest code directly from the Automattic repository.

David’s instructions are much more detailed than the brief steps provided on the WordPress site, and also describe how to check out stable WordPress versions as opposed to the latest bleeding-edge code from trunk, and how to switch an established blog to Subversion to facilitate future updates.

(Essentially, you check out a working copy to your webserver via SSH and reconfigure the fresh install to use your existing database content—worked here quite nicely.)

Cornerstone: New Mac Subversion Client

Published
by
roger
on 2008-07-01 @ 13:42
in Mac, Software and Tools
. 0 Comments

cornerstone-app.pngZürich-based indy developer Zennaware has released Cornerstone, the latest attempt to make the Subversion experience more Mac-like. As Zennaware says,

We wanted to make an application which would make version control usable and, most-of-all, approachable to Mac users.

As John Gruber pointed out, they were brave enough to commercially release v1.0 without the requisite hype or beta Versions. And unlike many of the other Mac Subversion options, Cornerstone includes not only client functionality, but also the administrative tools, so you can perform various operations on the repository itself, not just your local working copy.

Oddly enough, many clients seem to only support a subset of even the client commands, so with many of the GUI frontends, you need to fall back to the command line to switch or relocate your working copy to a different repository, move files, etc.. Curious to see how complete Cornerstone is in this respect…

Now the question is, who will be first out of the blocks to support the new features in Subversion 1.5–sparse checkouts, anyone?

Versions Emerge(s) From the Vapors

Published
by
roger
on 2008-06-05 @ 01:29
in Mac, Software and Tools
. 1 Comment

Nearly a year after the initial hype, Mac Subversion client Versions has finally seen the light of day with the release of a beta that at first glance offers little that other clients don’t.

The opening line of the beta announcement sheepishly concedes the app’s impending vaporware contender status:

Versions one year anniversary – celebrating with an actual app!

While the interface is certainly slick, it remains to be seen whether a Mac-like look and feel and a bit of Beanstalk integration are enough to win over those who’ve made do with the various alternatives thus far.

Despite the variety of cross-platform and Mac-specific Subversion clients available, with the exception of the somewhat orphaned SCPlugin, each oddly seems to assume developers need yet another app running alongside their work just to interact with a version control system, instead of just blending into the woodwork like the venerable TortoiseSVN.

Sometimes beauty in UI design is less about lickability than invisibility…

SCPlugin—Subversion Client for Mac

Published
by
roger
on 2007-08-29 @ 18:36
in Mac, Open Source and Software
. 0 Comments

Say “Hello” to SCPlugin — At long last, there’s a Mac equivalent for TortoiseSVN: a free, open-source Subversion client for Mac OS X that integrates with the Finder to display the status of your version-controlled files in the Finder without the need for a separate application.

While dedicated Subversion clients can be useful at times, for most day-to-day work it’s much easier to check in or out via a context menu command without having to fire up a different program (though Versions is definitely one to watch).

Like in TortoiseSVN or Tortoise CVS, icon overlays badges show at a glance the Subversion status of each file in a window.

[via tuaw & lifehacker ]

Versions: New Mac OS X Subversion client

Published
by
roger
on 2007-06-18 @ 12:32
in Mac and Software
. 2 Comments

The interface artists at Sofa are working on a new Mac OS X Subversion client called Versions, which is due out for public beta release “any moment.”

While there are a few Subversion clients for Mac like svnX and cross-platform GUI front-ends such as RapidSVN and SmartSVN, even the names seem to suggest that none really manage to deliver the ease of use Mac users have come to expect.

No, it’s not all about eye candy—anyone that uses Subversion is typically smart enough to figure it out anyway—but even hard-core programmers benefit from good interaction design, efficiency and a solid user experience. And hey, if more programming tools had decent interfaces, maybe the applications they are used to create would be a bit more pleasant as well…

Or, as the people on the Sofa say:

To create good software, development teams should spend at least half their time thinking about what and how they want to communicate. Preferably even more. We want to create good software and collaborate with others to help make end-user experience a central focus in their development efforts.

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