Version control for writers

SVK is a much better solution for this sort of thing, because you don't have to manually add, delete, move, or rename files. Just move things around as you normally would, and use the import option when you commit. See
http://svk.bestpractical.com/view/HomePage

I've tried several SVN clients for Mac OS, and I don't like any of them. I think the interfaces are non-intuitive and clunky. I AM looking forward to this one though:

http://www.versionsapp.com/

What's wrong with just regularly saving a copy of the document?

For the 'casual' writer, working alone, Subversion seems a little over-engineered, particularly for people who don't know what a command line is.

Obviously, collaborative code writing would be different.

I didn't mention the TextMate subversion integration for three reasons:

1: I'd forgotten about it. :-) I knew it was there but never got into the habit of using it.

2: I wanted to describe a solution that was editor-agnostic, not least because:

3: This was written (in only about 2-3 hours) in response to a thread in the WriteRoom forums, and the link only posted - by me - there. It would be rude to basically imply "you need to switch to TextMate" - itself another pay-for editor.

I switched to TextMate during the article, as I said in the article, because it was the sort of thing that's easier done there. It also demonstrates the editor-agnosticism. :-) Certainly if you do use a heterogenous writing environment it's a valid thing to do, but then in that case you're probably not my target audience. :-)

Recommending GIT is cruel. Until quite recently it didn't work at all on a Mac (and only barely on Windows) and even now installing it is nothing to sneeze at.

Compare that to Subversion: installed by default (or easily installed using an install package) and once it's installed it takes only a few easily learned terminal commands to use it.

For non-techies, Subversion is the obvious choice.

BTW, I'm not a writer, but I use Subversion as a general backup tool (but then I do have my own server to play with). To make that work smoothly, I installed the Python svn bindings and wrote a small script that automatically checks in new files. Not for everybody, I guess, but if you're interested it's here:

http://tech.rommelhok.com/2008/03/19/automating-subversion-with-pysvn/

I would not recommend any mac users install SCPlugin, it will slow down your entire machine significantly. The project has not been updated for several years. Far better alternatives would be SVNx or ZigVersion, they do not offer the same finder integration as SCPlugin but do not suffer from the same system slowdown. Another alternative would be the Textmate subversion bundle which would be more of a replacement for SCPlugin but only works within textmate.

There are some GUI front ends for Subversion, and at least one that runs on the Mac: RapidSVN.

http://www.rapidsvn.org/

So if you are afraid of the command line, you can ignore it!

I'd also like to recommend Write Boards in Backpack by 37 Signals. You can share documents there and keep all revisions, and identify who made which change when.

Cute. Google docs does something similar, I believe.

For someone like a writer it seems like Git would make a lot more sense since you can commit offline. Even if the writer was hosting their repository locally git is much much easier to get up and going once you've installed it. Compare executing 'git init' with all the steps you need to setup a subversion repo and git is the clear winner.