At CollabNet we have been discussing the differences and similarities between the Open Source community, and the Enterprise community. We want to be sensitive to that fine line between information awareness and marketing, without falling to one side or the other. Some people at CollabNet are hesitant to point to anything that costs money to the Open Source community for fear of offending, yet much of the content could indeed be very useful in shortening that learning curve.

As someone who is also helping to maintain the CollabNet site, and as Community Manager, I needed to learn what I needed to know as quickly as possible. I am not only learning to use Subversion, but I’m also learning to use the collaborative tools provided by TeamForge.You can see the tools of CEE if you look at any project on openCollabNet. We will be upgrading the site to TeamForge in the future.

Yes, we eat our own dog food, so to speak, and I’m glad. I have been impressed with the functionality and the ease of use of this platform compared to others I have used. To shorten my learning curve I have found some great training through articles, white papers, webinars, and web courses.

It is my hope that the resources I list below help to shorten your learning curve, no matter whether you want to stick with only the free materials or the ones that we charge for.

For those of you who are Subversion experts, you can stop reading here, though I value your opinion and experience and would appreciate any comments or suggestions you’d like to make. Also, some of you may not be aware of the variety collaboration tools that TeamForge provides.

Newsletters

Many bypass this option when registering for CollabNet, but the newsletter can point to useful information about learning Subversion, as well as other content you might not want to miss. You can subscribe by clicking on your user name at the top of the CollabNet site. Once in your profile, scroll down and click the Newsletter box. Or you can read the archived newsletters.

Webinars

Webinars are a great way of seeing software in action, and hearing information about the tools. Be sure to be logged into the site so you don't need to fill in any forms.

• What's New in Subversion 1.6
• Subversion Best Practices
• CollabNet TeamForge The Power of Centralization

Discussion Forums

Discussion forums are an excellent place to ask questions that fellow developers and users can answer. Be sure to return the favor by answering the questions when you can provide solutions based on your own experience. You'll need to be logged in to participate.

• Subversion for Admins
• Subversion End Users & Developers

Release Notes, Data Sheets, and Articles

We also have some good notes, data sheets, and articles. Be sure you are logged in so you needn't fill out contact information.

• Subversion 1.6
• Browsing a Subversion or CVS Repository
• CollabNet Subversion Datasheet
• CollabNet Training for Subversion

Training Courses

CollabNet offers a complete, role-based training curriculum across the entire CollabNet product line. Courses are delivered in a number of formats to best meet your education needs.

Subversion 1.5 - Individual Modules:

• Subversion 1.5 for Developers - Section 01 - Introduction to Version Control (10 min) - $28
• Subversion 1.5 for Developers - Section 02 - Introducing Subversion (19 min) - $28
• Subversion 1.5 for Developers - Section 03 - Global Revisioning and Working Copies (21 min) - $38
• Subversion 1.5 for Developers - Section 04 - Standard Work Cycle (33 min) - $38
• See More . . .

Instructor Led Courses

• Subversion 1.6 for Developers - Standard
• Subversion 1.6 for Developers - Enterprise
• Subversion 1.6 for the 1.x Developer
• Subversion 1.6 for Administrators
• See More . . .

FAQs

FAQs are probably one of the best free resources you can read for learning about Subversion.

• Subversion Client FAQ
• Subversion Server FAQ
• Subversion Migration FAQ

As I discover more resources for learning Subversion and TeamForge, I will write new blogs, and add to the newsletter as I discover.

Enjoy your Subversion learning path!

I added a post on my personal blog yesterday about support for Subversion being available for the just released Eclipse 3.5/Galileo release. Today I am going to show just how easy it is to install support for Subversion in Eclipse 3.5.

While I think that installing plugins in Eclipse is generally a pretty easy process, my views on this are colored by the fact that I have been doing it since before Eclipse 1.0 came out. That said, the Eclipse Mylyn team has made the process super-easy in the Eclipse 3.5 release.

I started by downloading one of the Eclipse packages from the download site. I chose the Eclipse IDE for Java Developers, just make sure you get one of the options that includes Mylyn.

After unzipping the bundle and starting Eclipse, look for the Mylyn Task List view and click on the New Task button as shown here:



This brings up the following Mylyn wizard. Note the new option to install more connectors:

After clicking the "Install More Connectors" button you are presented with a list of connectors that Mylyn can install. In the list of connectors that has been certified by Tasktop, you will see the CollabNet Desktop for SVN. The CollabNet Mylyn connectors, including Subclipse and our graphical merge client, have been certified by the team at Tasktop.  That means that these plugins play well with others and can be properly integrated into a number of Eclipse-based IDE's. Subclipse is the only Subversion plugin to have been certified by Tasktop.



I checked the box for the CollabNet Desktop for SVN and click Finish.

Three clicks, and I have started the process for installing Subversion support into Eclipse, it does not get much easier than that!

At this point, the rest is handled by the install magic from the Mylyn team. They run through the Eclipse install mechanism to verify and install your selections. I was doing this just after the launch of Eclipse 3.5 and I am sure the mirrors were getting hammered. Whatever the process does initially to validate the dependencies to verify the install took a few minutes, but eventually the following dialogs came up and it is just a matter of clicking through the wizard to complete the install. For completeness, here are those dialogs:

Confirm your selections and click Next:

I expanded the selection, so that you can see all of the components that will be installed.  You get the CollabNet Desktop, which allows you to connect to any CollabNet hosted site.  Subclipse, and its required components.  The Subversion revision graph feature that I have blogged about previously, and the CollabNet Merge client, which makes merging easy and powerful from the Eclipse environment.

Accept the licenses. All of these products are free and open-source, licensed under the EPL.

And finally, just click Yes to restart Eclipse.  That is it, not only do you have a working Subversion client in Eclipse, you have one with all of the bells and whistles as well as one that has been certified by Tasktop.

One Caveat!

The above install was done on Windows Vista 32-bit.  If you are running on another operating system, you must have the Subversion 1.6.x native libraries, including the JavaHL library available.  CollabNet provides an installer for OSX that includes this library, as well as a Linux client RPM that should work on any Linux distro.  Windows 64-bit users can install the SlikSVN package.  All of this information and more is available in this FAQ about JavaHL.

In my first post Subversion Is Not Just For Developers (Part 1), I shared the stories of folks who emailed CollabNet about how they were using the platform for projects other than software development. In this blog, I want to clear up some confusion about the mention of discussion forums and other tools, and introduce TeamForge .

Subversion is software that enables you to keep track of many versions of a document or entire project, and to allow for team collaboration. This is useful not just to software developers, but for people in many walks of life. You can, for instance, have many iterations of a single document, or for the parts of a complex project such as all that's involved in coordinating an orchestra concert, or scripts to a play.

In Part 1 of this blog, I also mentioned some folks who used discussion forums and wikis. Subversion itself does not provide those tools, but TeamForge does. When you add TeamForge to Subversion, you get a wonderful suite of tools that allow communication for collaboration, notes, documentation, as well a visual interface that makes all of that easy to use.

Below is a diagram that illustrates how Subversion , TeamForge, and the tools fit together:

In the diagram above, you see what you get when you are using TeamForge. You start with your Workspace, which allows you to get to Community & Projects that includes all the tools you see listed down the right hand side of the image. Underlying this is Subversion (shown in the middle), a repository that allows for code, or artifacts kept in another database. and whatever components make up your project. In addition, the tools also provide a task tracker, real-time reports and project status, a wiki, and a documents areas which can store 300+ file types.

The TeamForge platform makes it easier for non-developers to use this software for any kind of project, to communicate with others who contribute to the project, and ways of tracking the project components.

More Information:

• OCN Community
• Subversion
• TeamForge

Well, AnkhSVN 2.0 officially began last November when the original team of AnkhSVN developers and CollabNet got together to jointly develop the next iteration.  The purpose of CollabNet's involvement was to provide some commercial backing to help solidify development resources and to help invigorate the community around AnkhSVN.  In fact, the Microsoft open source folks are involved with the project as well providing free MSVS licenses for the developers, a tech support contact, roadmap discussions with customers, and co-marketing activities that you'll see in the near future, like webinars.  (Sam Ramji, Sr. Director of Platform Strategy at MS, talked about this at EclipseCon.)  The fruits of the venture are finally available with AnkhSVN 2.0.

AnkhSVN 2.0 is a near rewrite of the original AnkhSVN.  If you look at the AnkhSVN 2.0 Roadmap you'll see that the whole delivery mechanism of AnkhSVN was changed from a Visual Studio Add-In to a full Source Control Provider Integation Package.  (This means no more home-grown SCM layer maintained by AnkhSVN.  AnkhSVN now hooks into the VisualStudio.NET SCC APIs to provide much better integration and performance.)  AnkhSVN also adds Subversion 1.5 support by using SharpSvn as the underlying Subversion client API.  While those two architectural changes don't do much for adding new features, other than Subversion 1.5 support, what does AnkhSVN 2.0 bring to the table?  Well, below is a short list of what is new in AnkhSVN:

• Pending changes window; subversion status and commands available in one place
• Full support for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008; AnkhSVN is now a SCC package instead of just an addin
• Better log viewer
• Merge support
• Property editor
• AnkhSVN now supports most project types previously unsupported via the SCC api
• All solution explorer actions (rename, copy&paste, drag&drop) keep subversion history now
• Enhanced build process and setup
• Automatic check for updates
• And last but certainly not least end user documentation

The list above is not complete, nor does it fully explain the benefits of AnkhSVN 2.0.  Expect to see huge performance increases above AnkhSVN 1.x, better badging/glyphs, more tools and a more complete Subversion client interface.  For more information on AnkhSVN and its 2.0 release, please use the following resources:

• AnkhSVN Homepage
• AnkhSVN 2.0 Roadmap
• AnkhSVN 2.0 Screenshots
• AnkhSVN 2.0 Online Documentation
• AnkhSVN 2.0 Download

AnkhSVN 2.0 is a major improvement in the AnkhSVN line.  Expect to see more new features in the near future and as always, AnkhSVN is an open source project so feel free to contact us to report bugs, suggest new features or to provide any other feedback.

As you read this, AnkhSVN is under active development for a 2.0 release scheduled shortly after Subversion 1.5. Things have changed a lot over the last few months in the AnkhSVN world and time has come to begin showing you how AnkhSVN 2.0 will be a better Subversion client for Visual Studio.NET. While we aren't ready for a beta yet (for example, merge support isn't completely finished yet), we are ready to give you access to AnkhSVN 2.0 previews via our daily builds.

The AnkhSVN 2.0 builds are very stable already and provide a great integration between Subversion and Visual Studio 2005/2008. To get an idea of what you can expect from AnkhSVN 2.0, view our roadmap. The roadmap shows the major new features in AnkhSVN 2.0 but other things are included as well: improved usability, general bug fixes, performance enhancements and more.

Please help us with testing our daily builds; we rely on the help of the user community to ensure quality. To report defects, or make suggestions for future enhancements, catch us online in #ankhsvn on irc.freenode.net or visit the community support forum on openCollabNet.

The Subversion project has issued a beta1 release on the path to the final GA. The next release will likely be rc1 but, as always, that depends on the feedback we get from testers.

CollabNet has created binaries for Linux, Windows and Solaris (with OS X coming soon) from this beta1.  A noteworthy change as we get closer to RC1 is that we are now providing our CollabNet Subversion packaging for all three platforms. Solaris and Windows are new with this beta release. In addition, for all three of these platforms the server installation can automatically install and configure ViewVC as part of the server installation.

You can download these binaries from openCollabNet. There are also updated versions of the CollabNet Merge Client, Subclipse and TortoiseSVN available on this site.

We have a forum where you can post questions, comments or problems that you encounter using this version. If after some discussion a report is indeed deemed a defect, we forward the bug to the Subversion community using their normal processes. Feedback on the GUI merge clients will go to CollabNet Engineering.

For those that missed the announcement of the Alpha2 release, here are a few things to be aware of:

• Subversion 1.5 client has an updated working copy format. Once an SVN 1.5 client updates a working copy it will be converted to the new format. This means that older SVN clients will no longer be able to read these working copies. So either be careful, or be sure to update all your clients to the same version. There is a Python script that you can use to downgrade your working copy to the 1.4 format.
• Subversion 1.5 server can be used to serve an existing repository, but you will not be able to use the new merge tracking features with this repository until it is upgraded. You have a few options here:
1. Dump existing repository, then create a new repository using the 1.5 binaries and load the dump file.
2. Create a new repository using 1.5 binaries and use svnsync 1.5 binary to transfer the contents to the new repository.
3. Run a new command svnadmin upgrade to upgrade an existing repository. This runs fast as it just updates the internal repository format. There are some downsides to this approach though:
• SVN 1.5 repositories maintain a new index called the node-origins index  This is needed to speed up certain merge operations. The index will be lazy-populated on upgraded repositories, but can be updated on demand by running a new tool named svn-populate-node-origins-index(.exe). If you have a large repository you will likely want to populate the index. New repositories, or ones that are dumped/loaded or svnsync'ed will not need this.
• For fsfs repositories, the node-origins index will be slightly faster and take up less disk space if the repository is reloaded or synced. For existing repositories, the index has to be maintained in a separate set of files that takes up extra disk space and I/O.
• For new 1.5 fsfs repositories, there is a new sharding mechanism for storing revisions on disk. Instead of storing all revisions in one single directory, they are now spread across multiple directories which will be better on certain filesystems.  There is a Python script you can run to shard an exising fsfs repository though.
4. If you were using an earlier version of the 1.5 binaries, note that the on-disk format of the repository has been changed in the most recent builds. You should dump your repository with your current binaries, then install the new binaries, create a new repository and load the repository.

Please take the opportunity to give these beta versions on the path to GA a try. Your feedback will lead to a better final release and likely also help us deliver Subversion 1.5 as soon as possible.

The Subversion project has issued an alpha2 release on the path to the final GA. The next release might be alpha3, it might be beta1, that depends on the feedback we get from testers. One thing is certain, and that is the sooner we can find any remaining bugs, the sooner the GA release will be available.  Likewise, hearing that you have used this version with some success will also help us make decisions.

CollabNet has created binaries for Linux and Windows (with OS X coming soon) from this alpha2. You can download them from openCollabNet. There are also updated versions of the CollabNet Merge Client, Subclipse and TortoiseSVN available on this site.

We have a forum where you can post questions, comments or problems that you encounter using this version. If after some discussion a report is indeed deemed a defect, we forward the bug to the Subversion community using their normal processes. Feedback on the GUI merge clients will go to CollabNet Engineering.

A few things to be aware of:

• Subversion 1.5 client has an updated working copy format.  Once an SVN 1.5 client updates a working copy it will be converted to the new format. This means that older SVN clients will no longer be able to read these working copies. So either be careful, or be sure to update all your clients to the same version. There is a Python script that you can use to downgrade your working copy to the 1.4 format.
• Subversion 1.5 server can be used to serve an existing repository, but you will not be able to use the new merge tracking features with this repository until it is upgraded. You have a few options here:
1. Dump existing repository, then create a new repository using the 1.5 binaries and load the dump file.
2. Create a new repository using 1.5 binaries and use svnsync 1.5 binary to transfer the contents to the new repository.
3. Run a new command svnadmin upgrade to upgrade an existing repository. This runs fast as it just updates the internal repository format. There are some downsides to this approach though:
• SVN 1.5 repositories maintain a new index called the node-origins index  This is needed to speed up certain merge operations. The index will be lazy-populated on upgraded repositories, but can be updated on demand by running a new tool named svn-populate-node-origins-index(.exe). If you have a large repository you will likely want to populate the index. New repositories, or ones that are dumped/loaded or svnsync'ed will not need this.
• For fsfs repositories, the node-origins index will be slightly faster and take up less disk space if the repository is reloaded or synced. For existing repositories, the index has to be maintained in a separate set of files that takes up extra disk space and I/O.
• For new 1.5 fsfs repositories, there is a new sharding mechanism for storing revisions on disk. Instead of storing all revisions in one single directory, they are now spread across multiple directories which will be better on certain filesystems.  There is a Python script you can run to shard an exising fsfs repository though.
4. If you were using an earlier version of the 1.5 binaries, note that the on-disk format of the repository has been changed in the most recent builds. You should dump your repository with your current binaries, then install the new binaries, create a new repository and load the repository.

Please take the opportunity to give these alpha versions on the path to GA a try. Your feedback will lead to a better final release and likely also help us deliver Subversion 1.5 as soon as possible.

Hopefully you have already read my post from last week, Subversion merge made easy.  In that post, I linked to information on the new CollabNet Merge client that we are building for Subversion 1.5.  There has been a lot of good feedback from users who have downloaded and tried that client.

This week, we are introducing a preview of an extension to the merge client that allows you to perform merges based on change sets.  With this extension to the merge client, users of CollabNet Enterprise Edition's Project Tracker can perform merges by specifying Project Tracker artifacts as the input to the merge process instead of having to specify a list of revisions.  This is a really easy way to perform certain types of merges and can lead to some interesting new workflows and business processes.

If you have already installed the merge client, you can just visit the same installation site and grab the change set extension.  I have also written an overview of the client that has some more details and screenshots.  Click here for the overview of the change set extension.

While you will need Subversion 1.5 on your server to get the full benefits of merge tracking, the bulk of the features of this change set extension can be used today with your version of CollabNet Enterprise Edition.  So give it a try and let us know what you think.

It has been a busy few months for the Subversion engineering team at CollabNet and the Subversion community in general. As we detailed in many posts this summer, the entire team is hard at work on Subversion 1.5, specifically the merge tracking feature. 

Back in the spring we started the Merge Tracking Early Adopter Program on openCollabNet. We wanted to make it as easy as possible to get people to try early versions of the merge tracking code and provide feedback to CollabNet and the Subversion community. The program has been pretty successful and provided some valuable feedback that was incorporated into the merge tracking deliverables for Subversion 1.5. Last week we refreshed the Subversion 1.5 Beta binaries on the merge tracking site to a more recent version in order to spawn a new round of testing. If you have not already downloaded them, please download them and give them a try. It is not too late to help the community deliver the 1.5 release.

The title of this post is "Subversion merge made easy" and that brings me to an announcement of sorts. While all of the work on Subversion 1.5 has been going on, another team at CollabNet has been working on a new GUI merge client for Subversion. Today we are releasing a beta version of this client as part of the Merge Tracking Early Adopter Program. A lot of work went into this client and there are many features. Rather than listing them here, let me instead link to the documentation on the merge tracking site.  The documents explain how to install the client and give an in depth overview of its features. I encourage you to download the client and give it a try. Use the forum of the merge tracking project to provide feedback, ask questions, report problems etc. If you try the client, you will automatically also test the Subversion 1.5 merge tracking feature, which can only help to accelerate its release.

Finally, since we are talking about merge and making it easier, I just want to also mention an upcoming webinar that is being presented by two of my colleagues at CollabNet -- Bob Jenkins and Auke Jilderda. They have both contributed a lot of ideas and feedback to the merge tracking feature as well as assisted in putting together the merge tracking early adopter program on openCollabNet. Their webinar is sure to be stocked with valuable insights on branching and merging in Subversion.

As you probably know, Subversion 1.4.4 was recently released.  I wanted to let you know that the CollabNet Subversion team is hard at work putting together our packages for 1.4.4.  We will release them in a staged order: Linux first, Solaris second and Windows third.  Most of the time and effort in our release process is spent in QA and validation and the reason we do the Linux and Solaris packages first is that we can get those versions in the hands of our QA team the quickest.  Eventually, I plan on making the order Linux, Windows, Solaris, as there are more Windows than Solaris users who are seeking the packages.

The Linux package is in the final stage of our validation process and I expect it to be available on openCollabNet later this week.  The Solaris package should be available next week and Windows the following week.

It’s worth pointing out that the most significant fix in 1.4.4 is a potential (though very unlikely) repository corruption with BDB repositories.  Since CollabNet recommends FSFS and CollabNet Subversion comes pre-configured with that back-end, this BDB fix does not affect CollabNet Subversion users.