Hasta La Ideas

Collaborating on files with a group presents a unique set of challenges. Where do you store the files? Who has the latest version? What changed?

Let’s say you’re composing a song about Jessica Fletcher from Murder, She Wrote. You get your band together, you lay down the tracks, and there they are on one computer. You can go back and punch in a solo, cut vocals, or whatever else you need to do. No sweat. But what if one of your bandmates lives 800 miles away?

One option would be to keep sending a file back and forth for each change. The problem is that it’s difficult to keep track of changes, and eventually you each end up with a folder full of files and no way to tell who has the latest version.

A better solution is Subversion, a version control system designed to be a single repository for current and previous versions of files.

In my example, the file happens to be a GarageBand file, but Subversion can just as easily handle any other type of file. Developers have been using it for years to keep track of source code and documentation.

Here’s how it works:

• Create a Subversion repository. You can create a free repository at Beanstalk
• Get a Subversion client like Versions. There’s a 21 day free trial period.
• Create a bookmark to your repository in your client. You can find Versions-specific instructions here
• Check out a “working copy”
• Add folders and files to your “working copy,” or make changes to existing ones
• Commit

When you commit a change, Subversion updates the current version of the file with the changes that you made, but also saves the previous version so that you can revert back to it if you need to. If you try to commit a change to a file that someone else has recently changed, Subversion will let you know. If it’s a text file, you can see what the differences are, and choose to merge the changes together.

By keeping all your files updated and in one place, Subversion is a great tool for eliminating collaboration clutter.

These are the basics, but If you want to indulge your inner egghead and understand more about how Subversion works, I recommend O’Reilly’s book.