Quick Guide to Getting Up & Running with SVN

...Setting up Source Code Control easy way for your Personal Computer

Developers at MicroISV seldom uses Source code control, there is no reason why you don't use it even if you are the single coder of your programs in your home office. Here is quick steps to setting up SVN on your PC.

You will need to download a few software first,

1. Download VisualSVN (www.visualsvn.com) Server and Management Console

2. Download TortoiseSVN (While you can work with VisualSVN, I find working with Tortoise Easier).

Install VisualSVN on your desktop, the only screen to worry about during installation is this:-

I recommend creating the Repository on a different partition with of course plenty of disk space, if you have two hard drives even better, use the other hard drive.

When done,

1. R click on your "Computer" icon and click "Manage",
2. open the "Services and Applications" tree,
3. Click on Visual SVN, and Users,
4. Right click on Users and chose Create User,
   
5. give an username and password that you will use for your logins.

You are done creating an user, now lets create a Repository for your project

1. Open VisualSVN from Computer Management again, as in the previous steps.
2. Right click on Repository and Chose Create Repository, give a name to your Project.


Create as many repositories as many projects your have.

Your work at VisualSVN is done. Now, lets use TortoiseSVN, install it now, if not done so, already.

We will first create a Working folder, here you will work on your projects and I will recommend creating it on a different partition, hard drive then your repository.

1. Create a folder I:\projectwork
2. Now go to your project folder where you have been working earlier, say K:\VB Proj\ProjXYZ,
3. Right click on this folder name (ProjXYZ), and chose Tortoise SVN -> Import, a Window like below will appear:
4. Click on OK for Import to start.

Your project is in Repository now,

Goto your Working folder you have created (I:\projectwork), and right click on an empty area, select SVN Checkout...

The initial Checkout will download all the files. You can work on your project now, once done, right click on the folder name again and chose "Commit...", give a remark to the work done by you and click Ok. The changed files will be uploaded to the Repo again.

You can revert back to any revision, (to see Revision log, right click on folder name and Chose TortoiseSVN->Show Log), by right clicking on the folder name and choosing TortoiseSVN -> Update to Revision, and give a Revision number where you want to revert.

Happy coding for now.

A quick guide on What is Source Code control is already well written by Eric Sink here.