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Versions goes beta

by Christina Warren Jun 4th 2008 at 2:00PM



Almost a year ago, we wrote about Versions, a program designed to bring an intuitive and attractive interface to the Subversion version control system. Now, Made by Sofa has finally released the first beta.

Although Versions isn't the only game in town for accessing Subversion repositories through methods other than the command line, it is certainly the best looking, and at least in the few minutes I've spent with it, the most Mac-like. The application is beautiful and the interface is very easy to use and understand.


After entering in the location of your SVN repository (or local folder if you are working on something locally), you are presented with three different options: Timeline, Browse, and Transcript. The Timeline view shows all the changes that have been made to the repository trac, clicking on a file name brings up a window showing the file before and after, side-by-side, making it extremely easy to see what was changed (changed lines are highlighted).

The Browse view basically looks like an FTP window and makes it easy to browse all the files and directories in a repository. From there, you can compare differences, show history and checkout the file if you want to make changes. If you have change access, you can then implement those on the fly.

The transcript menu is pretty much just a log of all your actions during your Versions session.

I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with Versions from what I have seen thus far. The application is intuitive and easy to use and the interface is very, very clean. That said, I know that most of the Open Source projects I follow are switching to Git in rapid succession, so it is unclear how that change will affect clients like Versions.

The beta version says it is expiring in 26 days, so if you are a developer who is either sick of terminal or a little scared of Subversion, give it a shot! Versions requires OS X 10.4.9 or higher, though the developers recommend 10.5.2 or higher.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

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Almost a year ago, we wrote about Versions, a program designed to bring an intuitive and attractive interface to the Subversion version...
 

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pixelslut

Well it looks nice and all but the last thing i want is to have to open a an entire application other than my IDE to browse svn. One more application open...

I really wish people would work more on kernel level integration with the finder. Really I wish all these people developing clients would stop and contribute to SCPlugin instead :-)

What i need is light weight access when im modifying a file real quick. For the complex stuff I've Got Eclips+Subclipse open anyhow.

And whats with this "Git is killing Subversion" commenting. Thats the funniest thing I've ever heard.

June 06 2008 at 12:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Sam Colak

Salt,

any endorsed SVN client can be found by visiting the SVN site at subversion.tigris.org / You should find a list of officially supported and ENDORSED clients there.

I agree tortoise is a great client - personally i stick to the eclipse plugin.

Regards
Sam

PS. Koen - Get in touch !

June 05 2008 at 2:36 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Harvey

We use subversion here because it works on Mac/Win/Linux and the svn command line client is small enough to fit on our embedded products which allows source control access from the devices directly, which usually occurs in the final weeks of a project.

For a subversion gui, we use RapidSVN, http://rapidsvn.tigris.org/ , combined with websvn on our apache server. Rapid's not perfect by any stretch, but it does present a common interface to Mac/Win/Linux which means I only have to teach one GUI to any new developer and tell them to use that on any machine. Caveat: Rapid has some general issues(bugs) that you just have to learn and it doesn't come with a built-in diff making it a little bit hands-on at first.

I'm eager to try out Versions, but it'll only be useful for me since everyone else is using WinXP or Linux.

June 05 2008 at 10:20 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Sam Colak

Jaxx - doesnt help to talk up Checkout. If you want to promote Sofa, tell Sofa to do it instead of feeding the hype.

This App has been in the works for more than a year primarily due to the guy in Spain designing it - Sofa built the interface. Being honest any developer worth any-salt uses eclipse/xcode/vs and SUBVERSION or any of the officially endorsed SVN clients rather than a Gui to access an SVN respository. If your development process isnt down to using TextEdit that is :)

I tend to agree that they missed the boat on this one but being honest, its not their fault - i cant fault the interface but if your selling a great looking car but the engine runs crap, what more can you say.

Koen, Dirk, Hugo and Jasper - Well done. Glad to see it out.

June 05 2008 at 3:36 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Sam Colak's comment
Koen Bok

Thanks Sam!

June 05 2008 at 10:14 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
CaptSaltyJack

What the heck is an "endorsed" SVN client, pray tell? I don't see any SVN clients with a stamp on them saying "official SVN client." At work I use TortoiseSVN, which is, IMO, the best SVN client out there, period. It's a GUI accessing an SVN repo. Does that mean I'm not a worthy developer?

Please explain.

June 05 2008 at 10:46 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bobics

Better or worse than SmartSVN?

June 04 2008 at 11:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Anthony

I cant figure out how to make it work with a google code svn repository. Anyone had any success with that?

June 04 2008 at 9:55 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Anthony's comment
Jerome

Just copy the URL how described in the checkout instructions of the googlecode page to the "location" of Versions, e.g. http://macfuse.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/

If you're a member of a googlecode project you might fill in the "username" und "password" fields, too. Then of course you should use the https url.

June 05 2008 at 5:27 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Anthony

That's what I was trying, but I get the following error:

PROPFIND request failed on '/svn/trunk'
PROPFIND of '/svn/trunk': Server certificate verification failed: issuer is not trusted (https://soundtrack.googlecode.com)

June 05 2008 at 7:51 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
magu

Tried it, but somehow it gets stuck at the New Repository Bookmark screen. Doesn't seem to be wanting http:// based repositories, which is all I need, unfortunately.

June 04 2008 at 6:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to magu's comment
Dirk Stoop

hi magu,

what you're describing should work, please drop us an email at versions@versionsapp.com with more details about the repository you're trying to access and we'll try to figure out where it's going wrong.

thanks,
dirk

June 04 2008 at 10:55 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
JaXX

Made By Sofa is not only behind Disco.app but also the more amazing Checkout.app (an affordable POS-like app with highly natural click and drag basket composition + barcode scanner support, and now networkable with centralized stock handling). Plus, those guys are pretty nice to talk with (met at Apple Expo 05 or 06, I don't remember)

June 04 2008 at 5:54 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mark

Just tried it, looks very nice. Too bad they've missed the boat because many projects have switched or are thinking about switching to Git/Mercurial/Bazaar.

June 04 2008 at 4:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
FoundInTheFlood

aaaah ok thanks, so its a programmers thing ;)

June 04 2008 at 4:17 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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