SVN

The SVN preferences panel is opened from menu OptionsPreferences+SVN and it is the place where the user preferences for the embedded SVN client tool are configured. More preferences that configure how the embedded SVN client tool works can be set in the global files called 'config' and 'servers', that is the files with parameters that act as defaults applied to all the SVN client tools that are used by the same user on his login account on the computer. These files can be opened for editing with the two edit actions available in the SVN client tool on the Global Runtime Configuration submenu of the Options menu.

Figure 5.8. The SVN preferences panel

The SVN preferences panel

  • Enable symbolic link support (available only on Mac OS X and Linux) - Subversion has the ability to put a symbolic link under version control, via the usual SVN add command. The Subversion repository has no internal concept of a symbolic link, it stores a "versioned symbolic link" as an ordinary file with a 'svn:special' property attached. The SVN client (on Unix) sees the property and translates the file into a symbolic link in the working copy.

    [Note]Note

    Win32 has no symbolic links, so a Win32 client won't do any such translation: the object appears as a normal file.

    If the symbolic link support is disabled then the versioned symbolic links, on Linux and OS X, are supported in the same way as on Windows - i.e. a text file instead of symbolic link is created.

    [Important]Important

    It is recommended to disable symbolic links support if you do not have versioned symbolic links in your repository, because the SVN operations will work faster. However, you should not disable this option when you do have versioned symbolic links in repository. In that case a workaround would be to refer to working copy by its "real" path, not path that includes a symbolic link.

  • Allow unversioned obstructions - This options controls how should be handled working copy resources being ignored/unversioned when performing an update operation and from the repository are incoming files with the same name, in the same location, that intersect with those being ignored/unversioned. If the option is enabled, then the incoming items will become BASE revision of the ones already present in the working copy, and those present will be made versioned resources and will be marked as modified. Exactly as if the user first made the update operation and after that he/she modified the files. If the option is disabled, the update operation will fail when encountering files in this situation, possibly leaving other files not updated. By default, this option is enabled.

  • Use unsafe copy operations - Sometimes when the working copy is accessed through Samba and SVN client cannot make a safe copy of the committed file due to a delay in getting write permission the result is that the committed file will be saved with zero length (the content is removed) and an error will be reported. In this case this option should be selected so that SVN client does not try to make the safe copy.

  • SSH - here you can specify the command line for an external SSH client which will be used when connecting to a SVN+SSH repository. Absolute paths are recommended for the SSH client executable and the file paths given as arguments(if any). Depending on the SSH client used and your SSH server configuration you may need to specify in the command line the username and/or privatekey/passphrase. Here you can also choose if the default SVN user will be used(the same as the SSH client user) or you should be prompted for a user whenever SVN authentication is required. For example on Windows the following command line uses the plink.exe tool as external SSH client for connecting to the SVN repository with SVN+SSH:

    C:\plink-install-folder\plink.exe -l username -pw password -ssh -batch host_name_or_IP_address_of_SVN_server
  • Results Console - here you can specify the maximum number of lines displayed in the Console View and if the Console view should come to the foreground when there is some output that is displayed in this view.

  • Annotations View - here you can set the color used for highlighting in the editor panel all the changes contributed to a resource by the revision selected in the Annotations view.

  • Revision Graph - here you can enable caching for the action of computing a revision graph. When a new revision graph is requested one of the caches from the previous actions may be used which will avoid running the whole query again on the SVN server which will finish the action much faster.

Working Copy

The SVN Working Copy panel is opened from menu OptionsPreferencesSVNWorking copy and it contains the options that are specific for SVN working copy.

Figure 5.9. The Working copy panel

The Working copy panel

  • Working copy administrative directory - allows you to customize the directory name where the svn entries are kept for each directory in the working copy.

  • When switching to an old format working copy you can instruct Syncro SVN Client to do one of the following:

    • Automatically upgrade - tells Syncro SVN Client that it must always upgrade every working copy that has an old format to the newest known format.

    • Never upgrade - tells Syncro SVN Client that it must never upgrade a working copy having an old format, leaving it as it is.

    • Always ask - you will be notified when such a working copy is used and you are allowed to choose what action to be taken - if to upgrade or not the format of the current working copy.

  • Automatically refresh the working copy - if this checkbox is selected the working copy is refreshed from cache. Only the new changes are refreshed from disk.

  • Show tooltip on Working Copy and Synchronize trees - For each file and folder a tooltip is displayed with details like SVN status, full path, current revision number, last changed date, etc. If the tooltips seem annoying by covering useful information they can be disabled with this option.

  • Enable working copy caching - if it is selected the content of the working copies is cached for refresh operations.

  • Application global ignores - allows setting file patterns that may include the wildcard * and ? for unversioned files and folders that must be ignored when displaying the working copy resources in the Working Copy view.