RogueWolves

Rogue Wolves is the personal site of .

I'm currently a research scientist with Oculus Info Inc. in Toronto, Ontario Canada.

My research interests include: adaptive user interfaces, machine learning, Bayesian reasoning and distributed artificial intelligence.

ZigVersion a Subversion Client for OS X

May 11, 2006

I was recently contacted by Erik Scrafford from ZigZig Software about my previous post Subversion on OS X. He informed me of another Subversion client that his company makes called ZigVersion. I decided to download it and give it a try.

First impressions:

  • Very clean intuitive interface. (SvnX is a bit more cumbersome with it's multiple windows and harder to find features.)
  • It just works. No fighting with it to connect to my repository.
  • It shows me file statuses in the browser window. Right there no clicking to find it. It updates automatically with no refresh necessary.
  • It does lack the ability to manually show differences or changes made to files or aid in merging file changes. I figured out I can try a checkin to find out what I changed as my next bullet points out. (With SvnX I have a FileMerge option which launches Apples fantastic FileMerge tool)
  • On checkin it shows a window that displays all files changed and when you click on them it shows the differences from the last version! Nice job! Making it easy for developers to see what they have changed quickly is a great way to help eliminate stupid bad checkins and increase productivity.
  • No Drag and Drop capabilities. I'd like to be able to drag and drop files/directories to the Finder to do checkouts and be able to drag and drop from the Finder to do checkins. Would also be awesome to be able to drag and drop in the repository to move things around.
  • I could not see how to add new projects/folders to my repository? Do I have to do a checkout/checkin of everything just to add a folder?
  • Is it possible to checkout a previous version or revert a file to version x?

ZigVersion is still in beta but it looks promising as a streamlined Subversion client that is simple to use and just works. There is, however, one other problem I see with ZigVersion: the name. Maybe it's a small thing but ZigVersion will always show up LAST in any software listing. Those damn Z's get you every time.

Good Luck to ZigVersion I'll definitely keep my eye on this. Thanks for the heads up Erik.