kdesvn - App of the Month
Description, Author Interview.
kdesvn - a short overview
kdesvn is an application that a normal user never will see,
not every developer will like it. It gives developers control over their project and
makes it easy to work together with others.
If you have troubles remembering where all your documents are, which are the newest
and which you have never used, then you need kdesvn.
The program normally isn't installed by default, but it is in
most distro's packages. If you need a newer version for your system, you could
download it from the
official page.
The current version is 0.11.
I hope, you have installed svn. If not, you have to do this too. For this step,
you will find help on the svn page.
If you need help, you could use the included help, but the first time I needed it
was while I was writing this desciption because the program is very
easy to use, if you don't use all the included features.
Introduction
On first running, kdesvn welcomes you with the main window. Only the possible features are shown.
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First Step
Now you have to include an SVN repository. For this, you need only an address and enough space on your hard drive. Sometimes, you need an account too, but this will be shown in a later step.
To checkout, you click on the icon (a tooltip is shown) or choose it from the menu. Now you have to enter the required data. In the picture I have given my data for KDE. It works for me, because I'm registered, but the registering isn't part of this description and can be found on the SVN page. Some servers allow the using as anonymous, but for security reasons only read and not write.
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Preferences
But first a few introductions. If you want to change something, you can do it in Settings -> kdesvn Settings. You normally don't need to change the settings. I have only set Kate as my external viewer program.
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Change and Send
After a time, the data from the server is copied in the choosen directory and
could be changed there. But with this step, other users don't see the changes,
you have to send the changes back to the server.
If you want to show, which data has changed, use the check icon. If you use the renew (shown in the picture), all your changes will be
overwritten.
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But normally, you only check and then, kdesvn shows you, which files are different. I have chosen the standard colours. Green means, that changes exist. Gray isn't on the server and red is on the server, but not in your local copy.
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If you press the send button, all your changes will be written on the
server. It is the icon with the red arrow.
If you have changed more then one file, you have to choose them all. If you have
deleted something or you have generated new entries, then you have to delete or
include them explicitly. This is, like other things, for security reasons
;-)
The log entry is for the other developers, so that they can see what you have done.
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diff
For me as a translator this is enough, but other developers need more. A good thing for
programmers is the diff function. With it, you can find out, what really has
changed in a file.
In the picture you see this description. You can see, what's new and what hasn't
changed. This is very important in big files, but you can only
use it if the file isn't a binary.
(click to enlarge)
Conclusion
After my first use, I couldn't miss this program. First I had to take a look,
how to check in, change, add and so on, but after the first use, I use it every
time I have to translate something for KDE.
For the future, there are a lot of things planned, like wizards and more
integration, but at the moment, it is very useful and this is enough for me ;-).
Description, Author Interview.
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