Recently switched jobs and with it switched source control from TFS to SVN, which is new to me.
In TFS there was an option to disable automatic checkout of files when you started typing in them. It's enabled by default and a lot of users like this behaviour, but I prefer to know for certain what's being changed before committing. A personal thing.
VisualSVN auto-checkouts by default. Is there an similar option to turn it off? I can't seem to find out in the settings.
"Automatic checkout" term in SVN and in TFS worlds has different meanings, as far as I see.
In Subversion, checkout relates to svn checkout operation which gets a working copy from a repository. In TFS it looks like the term somehow relates to automatic locking mechanism.
If you want a file to be locked automatically when you start modifying it in Visual Studio (with VisualSVN extension installed), see the KB article "Lock-Modify-Unlock Model with VisualSVN". I also suggest reading the SVNBook chapter "Locking".
Generally speaking, you can set svn:needs-lock property on files. The property instructs client which files must be locked before editing. After applying svn:need-lock to a file the file gets read-only attribute. Before editing the file must be explicitly locked by the user. After committing the lock is released by default.
Short answer: I don;t think you can do this without becoming very unpopular.
I think you should read up on the SVN redbook's description of how SVN works, especially the versioning models
In your environment, everyone wants to be able to modify any file locally and then send their changes to the server, merging changes with colleague's changes if necessary. This approach works well if 2 people are not changing the same files all the time, which is typical of most dev shops.
The old TFS/VSS model of checkout a file to work on it is pretty obsolete today - the more 'optimistic' approach where you assume you have exclusive access is much more productive. (as usual its easier to ask forgiveness if it goes wrong than ask permission every time)
Your main problem is that you cannot mix these models - if your colleagues are using the merge model, then you have to as well. You cannot lock a file and expect them to still be able to change any file anytime.
Now, there are tricks you can use to prevent yourself from modifying files you never meant to - I'm not sure of VisualSVN but TortoiseSVN (awesome tool) can run client hooks - ie you can write a program to run on every checkout, and that program can be as simple as setting every file's read-only flag. Whether this is god enough for you is another matter.
Personally, I would get used to the idea of change whatever you like whenever. If you accidentally edit a file, you can see the change indicator (AnkhSVN turns the file icon orange for changed files), and its easy to 'svn revert' changes you didn't want to make. Also SVN lets you see diffs really easily, especially on commit - double click the files in the commit dialog. The productivity gains from being able to work without the tools getting in your way (as I found with TFS continually pinging at me as I tried to edit a file) are huge. The SVN tools are really good to let you "ask forgiveness" so you don't need to run in the crappy old TFS way now you've upgraded to something better.
The other advantage is that this applies to files that are not in a Visual Studio project, if you've ever had a project file that was edited outside VS (eg a generated WCF client stub) then you will appreciate how SVN works - never again will you do a full commit and find that TFS has conveniently decided that your changed file wasn't changed and so didn't need to be committed!
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I just started at a new company which uses VSS and has "Allow Multiple Checkouts" turned off. I can see that it is going to quickly become a problem getting things done here. Getting "Allow Multiple Checkouts" enabled is probably not an option.
Is there a way for me to edit the file anyway and then merge my changes (either using VSS or another tool) when the file becomes available?
Sure, just make the file writeable (hold the shift key down when clicking the get button to get the dialog...)
Then try not to break anything when you merge your changes.
No shop I have ever worked in allows multiple checkouts because the merging process is so dangerous.
Basically, nothing prevents you from editing the files. Usually these filese are marked read-only, but you can surely override that.
But better be very careful, because VSS would allow you to easily overwrite anyone else's changes.
There is an option in VSS Studio to make the files read-only unless you have them checked out. You might consider turning it off (though I wouldn't recommend that).
I believe, there's also an option in Visual Studio to allow editing read-only files. That is, if you try to edit an r/o file, Visual Studio will prompt you to make it writable. This is probably better, since you will not change the file accidentally.
Even better, migrate from VSS to SVN or another modern source control system.
VSS has lots of potential problems with stability, performance and so on.
At work I just started using Subversion with AnkhSVN instead of Visual Source Safe. I managed to integrate it well enough but it doesn't seem the same.
Using VSS the following would happen:
A user check out a file by right clicking and selecting "check out" or by editing it. If another user tried to modify the same file he would get an error. No 2 users could edit the same file at the same time. No fancy merging. No conflicts and no conflict resolutions.
I understand the the philosophy behind Subversion is different but is there any way that this behavior described above could be duplicated with Subversion?
There is an option in AnkhSVN called "Automatically lock files on change..." but even if I activate this option when I edit a file it never gets automatically locked.
Even if this option worked the other users wouldn't see the lock until they commited the file. They wouldn't get an error when they tried to edit it like they would in Visual Source Safe.
So basically: can Visual Source Safe's behavior be duplicated using Subversion and AnkhSVN?
The point of using subversion over source safe is that you don't have exclusive lock and many people can work on the same file.
You are loosing quite a lot of the benefits of SVN if you start using it with exclusive locks on files.
The idea is that you fix conflicts during merges of code.
See this SO question and answers for a bit of a discussion on the issues (Revision control locking: Is the jury still out?).
The Agent SVN is a MS-SCCI plugin (just like VSS) for Subversion so it integrates with Visual Studio just like VSS.
It also has a Lock on check out option and with that feature on it does feel a lot like VSS.
You need to set svn:needs-lock subversion properties on the files that you want to explicitly lock. It's really only recommended for files that cannot be easily merged, like (most) binary files and not on text/code files. Usually text/code files merge great automatically, and when they don't conflicts are usually easy to solve.
AnkhSVN will ask you to take lock the file (same as checkout in VSS) when you attempt to edit it when the svn:needs-lock property is set. If you enable the "Automatically lock files" feature, the lock dialog is suppressed, and you will take a lock on the file without a dialog showing up.
Svnbook explains the differences between a lock-modify-unlock and copy-modify-merge, and the svn:needs-lock behavior is also described
I'm using Visual Studio 2k8 with AnkhSVN.
When I start to modify file, it's automatically checkouted. How can I disable it? I don't want to accidentally modify my files.
Your files will not be modified in your Subversion repository until you check them back in. And even when they are checked back in, you can still roll them back to any previous point.
So, no need to worry about doing something accidentally...that's the whole point of version control!
What you call "check-out" just means the file has been marked as modified locally on your machine (without the SVN server knowing anything about it). This is different than say, ClearCase, where the file is actually checked out on the server. So as Michael suggests, you don't really have to worry about it, you can always revert it locally. And if you just use Undo in VisualStudio, the file will again be marked as not modified.
What some of the other answers have hinted at: You don't "checkout" files with SVN. It sounds like you're coming from a ClearCase/SourceSafe mentality. SVN works on a different versioning model. When you "checkout" a working copy, you're pulling down the latest version of the files from the repository. You are free to modify any of them. Once you are done with your edits, you push, "commit" them back to the server.
I could ramble on and on, but instead of botching it, I'll just point you to the de-facto-standard SVN Manual - here's the first chapter which explains the versioning model that SVN uses.
Open the AnkhSVN Conviguration dialog (Tools->AnkhSVN->Configuration…) and set DisableSolutionReload to True.
There is also an option to do the opposite—to prevent it from automatically adding new files to SVN—that you can disable (setting AutoAddNewFiles to False).
I'm using VisualSVN with my Visual Studio 2008 and I have to run some sort of commit monitor in the tray area to see if the local copy of project is out of date.
I have two problems with that:
I hate to have it in two places, I want to see that as an icon in my VS,
The commit monitor software keeps an eye on several projects, when I work on project 1 (which VS knows about), I'm not interested in other projects.
I couldn't find any addons for Visual Studio to do that and was wondering if anyone knows about anything good.
Generally, you have 2 options (besides running commitmonitor as you already do):
run update before you start to change something
ignore it all and merge with any updates when you want to commit.
SVN's really designed around the 'wait until you're ready and merge it all together' model, as there's no guarantee that even if you update your working copy immediately before starting to modify it, someone won't commit changes before you've had a chance to commit. So, let the system do the work for you.
The ultimate alternative if you are worried about conflicts is to use the svn:needs-lock property which means you will have to get a lock on any file you modify before modifying it, and you won't be able to get a lock on a file someone else is modifying.
You might like to ask the VisualSVN people if they'd add an option to check the repository when a project is loaded by VS (or run AnkhSVN and implement this feature yourself).
Work has started in AnkhSVN in this direction, we started to implement the 'Synchronize View' that's also used in Eclipse/Subclipse. The things still missing are: Scheduled checking of the repository, and maybe a notification inside VS to tell you that something has changed.
Right now you can manually refresh this view to see local and remote changes (and merges which can be potential conflicts). Patches are welcome to extend this feature :-)
I'm assuming VisualSVN is your "server" (even if running on the same machine).
AnkhSVN is a good Visual Studio Integrated SVN Client.
I am working on a large source base (approx 15K files) decomposed into about 25 projects. I want to keep the source in perforce (and am evaluating perforce to that end) but due to complications in the setup it isn't possible for me to keep the visual studio projects in source control, I know in theory the answer to this is to check the projects in, but that isn't feasible (we would end up with projects for several versions of VS checked in, and additionally several variants of each of these, instead they are generated automatically and this setup works very well).
Is there a way to get VS to checkout files for editing as it goes without adding the project to perforce, to avoid the user having to go to the perforce client and manually check out each file for editing as they go? Alternatively (and even better) is there a way to get VS to recognise that the files in a project are under source control, without having to add the project to source control also?
I know we could also take the tack of having every user check out for editing all files they might potentially want to edit ahead of time, then revert unmodified files before submitting their changes, is there a performance penalty in perforce in taking this approach?
In your case, I'd suggest not using the visual studio integration for Perforce.
You can either add Perforce commands to the Tools Menu, or try Nifty Perforce from Google:
http://code.google.com/p/niftyplugins/
One option is to use Perforce as if you were disconnected from the server and reconcile your changes later, rather than telling Perforce everything you do before you do it. (This is roughly equivalent to the workflow in CVS or Subversion.) You would synchronize your working copy, go off and develop, and then ask Perforce to figure out what you did while it wasn't watching.
Perforce has a nice document describing the process: Working Disconnected From The Perforce Server
One thing the document doesn't mention is the allwrite clientspec attribute, which marks all files in your working directory as writable instead of only the files you have checked out.
For the sake of completeness: There is a new tool for your wish called P4VS. I like it better that P4SCC which never worked for me as I wanted.