Table of Contents
This document describes day to day usage of the TortoiseSVN client. It is not an introduction to version control systems, and not an introduction to Subversion (SVN). It is more like a place you may turn to when you know approximately what you want to do, but don't quite remember how to do it.
If you need an introduction to version control with Subversion, then we recommend you read the fantastic book: Subversion: The Definitive Guide .
This document is also a work in progress, just as TortoiseSVN and Subversion are. If you find any mistakes, please report them to the mailing list so we can update the documentation. Some of the screenshots in the Daily Use Guide (DUG) might not reflect the current state of the software. Please forgive us. We're working on TortoiseSVN in our free time.
You should have installed TortoiseSVN already.
You should be familiar with version control systems.
You should know the basics of Subversion.
You should have set up a server and/or have access to a Subversion repository.
One of the most visible features of TortoiseSVN are the icon overlays which appear on files in your working copy. These show you at a glance which of your files have been modified. Refer to the section called “Icon Overlays” to find out what the different overlays represent.
All TortoiseSVN commands are invoked from the context menu of the windows explorer. Most are directly visible, when you right click on a file or folder. The commands that are available depend on whether the file or folder or its parent folder is under version control or not. You can also see the TortoiseSVN menu as part of the Explorer file menu.
In some cases you may see several TortoiseSVN entries. This is not a bug!
This example is for an unversioned shortcut within a versioned folder, and in the Explorer file menu there are three entries for TortoiseSVN. One is for the folder, one for the shortcut itself, and the third for the object the shortcut is pointing to. To help you distinguish between them, the icons have an indicator in the lower right corner to show whether the menu entry is for a file, a folder, a shortcut or for multiple selected items.
Other commands are available as drag handlers, when you right drag files or folders to a new location inside working copies or when you right drag a non-versioned file or folder into a directory which is under version control.
Some common operations have well-know Windows shortcuts, but do not appear on buttons or in menus. If you can't work out how to do something obvious, like refreshing a view, check here.
Help, of course.
Refresh the current view. This is perhaps the single most useful one-key command. For example ... In Explorer this will refresh the icon overlays on your working copy. In the commit dialog it will re-scan the working copy to see what may need to be committed. In the Revision Log dialog it will contact the repository again to check for more recent changes.
Select all. This can be used if you get an error message and want to copy and paste into an email. Use Ctrl-A to select the error message and then ...
... Copy the selected text.
If the repository that you are trying to access is password protected, an authentication Dialog will show up.
Enter your username and password. The checkbox will make TortoiseSVN
store the credentials in Subversion's default directory:
$APPDATA\Subversion\auth in three subdirectories:
svn.simple contains credentials
for basic authentication (username/password).
svn.ssl.server contains
SSL server certificates.
svn.username contains credentials
for username-only authentication (no password needed).
There is one file for each server that you access, formatted as plain text, so you can use a text editor to check which server it applies to. If you want to make Subversion and TortoiseSVN (and any other Subversion client) forget your credentials for a particular server, you have to delete the corresponding file.
If you want to clear the authentication cache for all servers, you can do so from the General page of TortoiseSVN's settings dialog. That button will clear all cached auth data from the Subversion auth directories, as well as any auth data stored in the registry by earlier versions of TortoiseSVN. Refer to the section called “General Settings”.
For more information on how to set up your server for authentication and access control, refer to Chapter 3, Setting Up A Server
If you have to authenticate against a Windows NT domain,
enter your username including the domain name, like:
MYDOMAIN/johnd.