Subversion is a free version control system used for coordinating source code between many contributors and housing periodic snapshots of a project's progress. It features an easy-to-use interface, wide platform support, and robust features. To make use of Subversion, you'll need to install a Subversion client on your computer. A list of clients can be found here encompassing several operating systems; however, our instructions will assume the use of the command-line client (available from source or as binaries from many distributors).

Checking out a project

Once you've installed a Subversion client, open a command line. To check out a Subversion repository, simply enter:

svn checkout https://simtk.org/svn/website

Or, if the repository is not accessible via anonymous browsing, but you are a project member with access to it:

svn checkout --username user https://simtk.org/svn/website

In the above example, user should be your simtk.org username. You will be prompted for a password before you can proceed.

Getting updates from a project

If you want to update a project that you've checked out with files that others have checked in recently, you don't have to check out your entire project all over again. You can simply update it with:

svn update

Seeing the status of your project files

If you've made changes to a project and you want to see a summary of files with your changes, you can get a list of changes with:

svn status

Submitting changes to a project

If you've added or removed any files from a project, first make sure that you've told Subversion to add or remove them from the repository using

svn add filename

svn remove filename

Once you're ready to submit changes to a project, make sure you're in the top directory of that project and check them in with:

svn commit -m message

Note that Subversion requires a message with each checkin; this is meant to be a summary of changes included with this checkin for tracking purposes.

Getting help

For more help on using Subversion, you can either refer to the online book or simply type into your command line:

svn help