Subversion & Mac OS X revisited - SCPlugin new release is cool!

I’ve been a long time user of Subversion and even though I am starting to switch over to Git I still use Subversion alot, recently (July 08) Tigris have come up with an update of SCPlugin which is a Mac Finder Plug-in for Subversion. (it works a bit like TortoiseSVN on Windows.)

SCPlugin has always looked like a good option, especially when you look at the other options available for Mac OS X, I tend to work with XCode, Subclise or Subversive in Eclipse or just get busy with the command line. The problem is (sorry was!) SCPlugin didn’t work so well…

The other (more popular?) options are SvnX (which, for some reason, makes me gag like I’m eating a towel.) and… er… Well, Versions which is in beta which (sorry) looks like SvnX with lipstick (very, very nice lipstick!), you will also have to pay for it, although the price has not yet been decided.

While I’m at it, I will just say that Versions is not worthwhile for me since the price point has yet to be published, and so it’s little more than a curio. I’m sure that issue will be addressed soon, however bearing in mind that there are several decent solutions which are open-source it would have to be something pretty outstanding. I must admit being a little disappointed in the feature set when I gave it a look. (Use any diff tool!!! … er… because we didn’t bother making a kick-ass diff tool … er …because the one in the XCode suite is awesome .. er… sorry!)

Huh, it turns out I think Versions is a product with no market… hopefully I’ll be wrong about that. I like Pico and Sofa (the outfits behind Versions) and the styling on the Versions website is very nice… (sorry, I’m going to trail off here… I just really wish they hadn’t put… Best Tool Available! on the homepage. That’s asking for trouble.)

Did I mention that SvnX is open-source, and so are all the other tools I’ve mentioned, except Versions

Let me get back to SCPlugin the cool thing about this subversion interface is it’s integration with the Mac Finder, if you’ve used TortoiseSVN (or TortoiseCVS) on windows you’ll know the deal, and if you’re reading this sort of article, frankly, I’d be surprised if you haven’t.

The old problem with SCPlugin was working with a password protected repository, you couldn’t checkout the working copy with SCPlugin, and that was just a bit lame, lame enough for me to not use it.

But that’s all changed now, with this latest release (from July 2008) authentication has been enabled and several other bugs have been squished, it looks good, works properly and has shaken off it’s lame, not working image (at least in my mind.) If you’ve downloaded it before and still have that Subversion entry on your Finder context menu, reminding you it used to be a bit shit, go on and give it another chance, it works now, and it’s sorry for all the pain it caused you. Here’s the link again… SCPlugin … it’s certainly worth the asking price of… nothing.

Add comment September 22nd, 2008