WebSVN

What is a Code Browser?

All the documents that are stored in your version control system can be available to be browsed through your web browser. The websvn project creates a browsable portal to the version control system. The bulk of the content found in a version control system is code for websites and software systems, but any document or file type can be put into the version control system. There are many features of the code browser, but primarily it's purpose is for collaboration and reporting. You can view any version of any file and compare various revisions. This site is invaluable when trying to see how certain files have changed over time. Developers and authors can do this locally with other tools, but the website elevates these abilities to any person with a browser. The biggest benefit to the code browser is that since everything is URI addressable, people can collaborate easily on exactly the same view of information.

Integration

Issue trackers, help desk applications and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems can all be integrated with the code browser so that when files are changed in the process of resolving an issue, the changes are automatically cross-referenced from the support application to the code browser.

Users

Viewing a 'project' (high-level directory)

If you are interested in the 'widget' project, then you can view that project's status through the websvn tool.

Feed your Habit, or, Subscribing to Syndication Messages

There are multiple 'Feed' buttons on pages within WebSVN that link to the RSS feed for that particular part of the project. You can select a feed that is at the highest level, all the way down to individual file level.

Sites like http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_RSS_Basics explain what is RSS, and how to use Thunderbird to subsribe to an RSS feed so that you can read syndication messages like email.

I have setup my Thunderbird to 'subscribe' to several online RSS feeds from websites

Subscribing in this way allows managers to keep abreast of changes, and developers to collaborate on translation work.

Comparing history

Diff means to illustrate the changes between two documents. In the context of a version control system, this comparision is done across time. You can also compare between separate (related) files.

Who did what? Blame Annotation

With "Blame Annotation" we can see who contributed what to a file, on a line by line basis. If you view a single file, and click on the 'blame' icon, you'll see the entire file contents annotated with attributions to who supplied that line of content.

View Log

You'll notice in the blame view, you see revision numbers next to each contributor's name to indicate in which revision that change occurred. The 'View Log' view provides this information in a chronological fashion.

Revisions are atomic

Frequently a change to a document will include changes to ancillary files like graphics, stylesheets or other related files. The collection of files and changes are centered around the nuclear concept of the document being a compound object. If all these changes are comitted to the system at the same time, then they are listed as an ensemble that surely makes it easier to understand that the whole is the sum of it's parts.

See Also

• The WebSVN Project is hosted at http://websvn.tigris.org

Roadmap

We could setup the LXR tool to provide a cross-referencing system. This tool allows you to browse through the source code with everything fully cross-referenced. This gives you the ability to "jump" to the declaration of any identifier (class, variable, etc) from any part of the source tree. It is very handy for seeing where and how code is used as quickly searching for where code is defined. http://lxr.linux.no/

Really Simple Syndication = a syntax for sharing data across the web.