Source Control with Visual Studio: switch from VisualSVN to Ankh?

Question

I am evaluating VisualSVN for me and a small team of developers. I set it up on the server (VisualSVN server) without problems and installed TortoiseSVN and VisualSVN in order to integrate it in Visual Studio 2008. So far, it works well and we use it for the development of our main application.

I've heard good things about the new version of AnkhSVN too, which is open source and free. Since we are at the beginning with Subversion, I want to make the right decision now.

Is it possible to switch from VisualSVN to AnkhSVN without too many hassles? Can I keep the VisualSVN Server installation or do I have to switch that too? Is TortoiseSVN obsolete if I start using AnkhSVN? And, is the current version reliable in Visual Studio 2008?

To be clear: it's not about the 50 US$ per developer. It's about making the right decision for the future. What do you recommend?

Many thanks in advance!

Answer 1

We did precisely that: switched from VisualSVN to AnkhSVN. The move went without any trouble at all. These plugins do not store specific information, and the .svn (or _svn) hidden folders are compatible with any svn client.

The 1.x series of the Ankh plugin was awful: lots of crashes and annoyances (for example, it was very hard to move or rename a not-still-commited file). The 2.x series corrects most of the problems, and while it still does not attains the level of VisualSVN, I found it very sufficient for our uses (and very free).

About the migration in itself, it couldn't be more simple: we just uninstalled VisualSVN, and installed Ankh. As long as your directory is under source control, it works.

The only common thing is that you still need TortoiseSVN to do many things, be them advanced tasks, or more basic ones: it's much simpler to create working directories and to checkout within explorer than with Visual Studio.

Answer 2

I think that for more advanced functionality you will still need TortoiseSVN (like Export, Relocate, whole directory operations, locks etc..). AnkhSVN v2 is very fine. I am using both without much hassle.

As for setting up a remote repository (I don't know VisualSVN, so I assume we're talking about repository server) you will need to use svnserve directly from Subversion package. You can set it up as a Windows service.

Answer 3

AnkhSVN works with any Subversion server and VisualSVN Server is one of the easiest to configure servers for Windows.

If you need to share projects and solutions between VisualSVN and AnkhSVN you should make sure you don't connect your projects to the AnkhSVN scc provider or the VisualSVN users will see warnings. (You can connect the solution file without seeing the SCC warnings).

You can use AnkhSVN side by side with any other Subversion client, but we designed AnkhSVN 2.0 to not require another client for normal operation. The only issue you might see by using AnkhSVN next to other subversion clients is that AnkhSVN 2.0 only adds files to subversion when really required (right before committing), to increase performance and allow case-renaming the file.

Answer 4

Ankh should work against any Subversion server, so it should work against VisualSVN as well. See here: http://www.visualsvn.com/server/ It says that the server is compatible with all clients. :-)

Answer 5

I am using VisualSVN and Ankh with no problems - Ankh works against any Subversion server. The only difference I found between VisualSVN and the 'raw' Subversion package was that VisualSVN uses http/https instead of the svn: protocol.

Answer 6

I think this contains information which is relevant: AnkhSVN versus VisualSVN

Answer 7

Call me crazy, but this solution seems pretty clean to me: http://blog.programmerslog.com/?p=4.

Garry Bodsworth has put forth Visual Studio settings that make use of TortoiseSVN. Basically, instead of adding the external tool customizations by hand, importing these settings does it all for you: Subversion toolbar, Subversion menu, and context menu commands.

I would think that this would be a more simple solution than installing either AnkhSVN or VisualSVN.

Answer 8

My experience with Ankh is terrible (too many runtime crashes), however this is for an older version of Ankh and they might have mitigated the problems already. That being said, stick first with a) what works, and then b) what you can afford.

Answer 9

Honestly, I didn't like much of any of the SVN add ons for Visual Studio. I ended up just customizing my own set of macros to do anything I need to do, and adding menu items and custom context menus, for commits, updates, show logs and the such. I used Tortoise and integrated with the command line tools. It was easy to do, involving integration with command line calls to TortoiseProc.exe. However, I'm sure that integrating with svn.exe or other command line based svn clients would be just as easy. Plus you get the added advantage of having it set up how you think and work rather than the packaged up stuff. I'll continue to use customized macros until I find some better subversion integration tools.