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InfoQ Homepage News AnkhSVN 2.0 Source Code Control Package (SCC) for Visual Studio

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AnkhSVN 2.0 Source Code Control Package (SCC) for Visual Studio

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Aug 29, 2008 2 min read

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AnkhSVN started as a Visual Studio add-in, which allowed to work on a Subversion (SVN) version-controlled project from within Visual Studio. Release 2.0 is a complete rewrite of the core engine, which is delivered as a free Source Code Control Package (SCC) for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008.

The current implementation is based on SharpSvn, a .Net 2.0 implementation of the SVN client API. Because SharpSvn supports the whole SVN 1.5 client API and the SCC provides deep integration with Visual Studio, AnkhSVN 2.0 offers a very rich feature set:

Pending Changes window

  • One window to handle the normal workflow.
  • Real-time overview of all project changes.
  • Easy access to most Subversion commands.

Merge Tracking

  • Easy-to-use wizard simplifies merging.
  • Wizard is merge-tracking aware.
  • Intuitive integrated conflict resolution
  • Supports all merge scenarios supported by Subversion 1.5
  • Works with Subversion 1.5 servers, and pre-1.5 servers.

Optimized workflow

  • Don't leave your IDE for most common operations.
  • Immediately view the source control status of all files in your project/solution.
  • View working copy information such as last committed author, last committed date and the repository URL.
  • Import new solutions automatically.
  • Get support for all Subversion transfer protocols.

Pluggable diff/merge

  • Plug in your diff/merge tool of choice.
  • Use command line templates for the most common merge tools.

Repository Explorer

  • Easily browse any Subversion repository
  • View extended information about remote files and directories in the Visual Studio Properties window

The current release offers many benefits over the 1.0.2 version. Perfomance has been increased significantly, the whole integration with VS including glyphs, badging and tools has been improved and the implementation of the SVN client interface is much more complete.  The AnkhSVN web site provides a complete list of extensions and improvements:

  • 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

    • Read the official AnkhSVN 2.0 Final Release announcement, which contains the details of AnkhSVN’s history and provides links to roadmap, documentation, and downloads.

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    Community comments

    • Compared to Visual SVN

      by Francois Ward,

      Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.

      I haven't tried AnkhSVN in a while, and definately not this latest version... Any insight as to how it stacks up when compared to Visual SVN now?

      Back to top
    • Re: Compared to Visual SVN

      by David Cuccia,

      Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.

      I can't speak to the feature list, but after a few weeks of switching from Visual SVN, I've found it to be very stable and speedy. Wasn't happy with earlier Ankh versions re: VS2008 compatibility and integration, but now I'm pretty impressed. No good reason to convince my team to pay for Visual SVN.

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    • Re: Compared to Visual SVN

      by Kevin McFarlane,

      Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.

      Not used Visual SVN. I've only used the 2.x version of AnkhSVN and found it to be fine. However, I am aware that earlier versions had issues.

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    • Re: Compared to Visual SVN

      by David Leon,

      Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.

      I tried it just a few days ago. I found there were pretty sizable performance degredations under VS2008 SP1. Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is already unacceptibly slow on an Intel E8200 Wolfdale (2.66GHz 6MB of cache). By that I mean that it takes 30 or more seconds to load and view ASPX web pages in split-view mode. I found that AnkhSVN 2.0 turned half-minutes and into minutes. They really need to work on the speed. Relflection is a bad thing, when used all the time.

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    • Re: Compared to Visual SVN

      by Sander Rijken,

      Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.

      I have not experienced the slowdown myself, but could you submit this problem as a bug and/or let the AnkhSVN community know at the forum so it can be investigated and resolved?

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    • switch from TortoiseSVN to AnkhSVN or Visual SVN , etc. (VSudio tool)

      by Horacio Judeikin,

      Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.

      I use TortoiseSVN and I'm very happy.
      Is there any real 'killer' reason to move to AnkhSVN or Visual SVN?
      TortoiseSVN provides me all the SVN integration I may need (including documents outside visual studio), all in a centralized/single application, perfectly integrated into the OS file explorer. No VS performance degradation (it's not integrated), etc.
      I'm missing something? What's the point?

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    • Re: switch from TortoiseSVN to AnkhSVN or Visual SVN , etc. (VSudio tool)

      by Francois Ward,

      Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.

      Integration with Visual Studio, of course. I mean, integration is the whole reason we use an IDE, no? (Integrated Development Environment). Visual Studio also knows better which files you may need to checkin, less management, etc.



      I don't know about Ankh, but what I liked in Visual SVN, was that it integrated Tortoise with Visual Studio, so you really got everything Tortoise had to offer, and all of the Visual Studio integration you may wish for... It was pretty much perfect.



      I'll have to try the new AnkhSVN to see if I need to update my point of view, though.

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    • Re: switch from TortoiseSVN to AnkhSVN or Visual SVN , etc. (VSudio tool)

      by Eric Smith,

      Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.

      The 'killer' reason for IDE integration for me is handling refactoring, such as when renaming a class also causes a file to be renamed. This was the only reason that I used the old version of AnkhSVN, since Tortoise was superior for most other things. I'm not sure how the new version compares.

      With IDE integration, it can also be nice to have files automatically get added to SVN when added to a project (or deleted when removed), but that's less of a big deal.

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