The Cornerstone Subversion (SVN) client for Mac just got better with shelving, checkpointing, and blazing fast performance. Get a free trial or buy for $79 per year. On x64 versions of Windows 7 and 8, the TortoiseSVN context menu and overlays won't show for 32-bit applications in their file-open/save dialogs until you install the 2017 C-runtime for x86. (select the vcredist.x86.exe file for download). Note: this only applies to 32-bit applications on x64 OS. The Windows explorer is not affected by this.
The version control system known as Subversion brings great power, and with great power comes great hassle and complexity and annoyance. At least, that’s been my experience — but no longer. Thanks to the imaginatively-named Versions, Mac users have a graphical Subversion client that does things ‘the Mac way’: Subversion just works.
- The Cornerstone Subversion (SVN) client for Mac just got better with shelving, checkpointing, and blazing fast performance. Get a free trial or buy for $79 per year. Cornerstone 4.2 is now available! Dark mode, full macOS 10.15 support, in-app license key management, and more.
- Download SVN client for Mac OS. Sources are closed.
- An easy-to-install macOS system update that improves your Mac's overall stability, compatibility and security, as well as better support for various multimedia formats iOS Free and easy-to-use firmware update files (IPSWs) designed for quickly installing the latest iOS version on your iPhone and/or iPod device.
What is Subversion?
In case you haven’t encountered version control systems before, they provide a way for multiple contributors to work together on a single project while:
- keeping track of all the revisions to a document or set of documents,
- coherently merging the changes made by different contributors working on the same document, and
- retaining the ability to ‘roll back’ changed documents to earlier versions.
Importantly, ‘documents’ can mean almost anything, from chunks of computer code to chapters in a book (and there’s no requirement for the underlying data to be textual in nature). A version control system often resides on a central server somewhere, with anywhere from one or two to hundreds or even thousands of contributors able to work on a project in parallel, with the version control system seamlessly handling the changes they make and keeping track of everything so any given change can be reversed back to an arbitrary point in time.
Subversion is one of the most widely used version control systems and will be recognized by many programmers, researchers, academic authors and others. This review isn’t intended to introduce or explain Subversion itself, but you can read more about the system’s fairly amazing capabilities with the free (and again imaginatively named) book Version Control with Subversion. In the remainder of this review, I’ll assume at least a rudimentary knowledge of what Subversion is and why you might want to use it.
Why Use a Graphical Subversion Client Like Versions at All?
If you really want to, you can accomplish everything that is possible in Subversion just by using the command line, typing arcane commands like
svn resolve --accept working example.txt.
But in my experience, working with Subversion by typing individual commands is an experience in finickiness and a great way both to discover how many mistakes I can make in a short period of time and to notice just how long it takes me to figure out how to do something simple. Of course, this says much more about me than about Subversion itself: it says that I’m just not personally that inclined to learn the ins and outs of a low-level command line interface for a system which I don’t actually use all that much (more on that in a moment), particularly where working from the command line doesn’t net me any appreciable advantage over the available alternatives.One of those alternatives is Versions: if you lack the inclination or motivation to learn the command line interface, a graphical interface like that provided by Versions is the only way to fly. Here’s an example of the iTunes-style Versions window, as of version 1.0.6, with the left-hand ‘sources’ pane showing bookmarks to the Subversion repositories for some of the WordPress plugins we use here at CounsellingResource.com:
This graphical front-end to Subversion works exactly like you would expect a Mac interface to work: move items by dragging and dropping, copy items by option-dragging and dropping, open by double-clicking, Quick Look by selecting and hitting space, see additional information by hitting command-I, etc. Just a single keystroke is all that’s needed for any of the following Subversion commands: update, commit, add, revert, diff (which gets handed off to an external editor), etc. Likewise, the timeline, file browser, and transcripts are all just a keystroke away. The blame function doesn’t merit a keyboard shortcut, but a single click on the toolbar shows, line-by-line, who made what change and when. Want to copy everything in trunk to a new tag? Option-drag and drop trunk to tag, name it, and you’re done. All this is at once completely underwhelming (after all, isn’t that how the Mac always works?) and totally amazing (if you have ever struggled with finicky command line alternatives for these same simple manoeuvres).
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a command line neophyte by any means, and in fact the plugins listed in the screenshot above were written by me, so I don’t shy away from getting my hands dirty with programming tasks. But why would I want to spend any more hours of my life memorizing arcane commands if software like Versions can be at my beck and call, waiting to do the job with a combination of keyboard shortcuts and simple mousing around?
In addition, it’s worth noting that while many text editors (e.g., BBEdit) and coding environments (e.g., Coda) do ‘support’ Subversion, their implementations are nothing at all like Versions’: yes, they might provide a menu for issuing basic Subversion commands, but in real world use, they offer nothing at all like the seamless graphical environment provided by Versions.
Versions in Real World Use
As you can probably tell, I’m no expert at Subversion. And in all honesty, I don’t even use it a great deal. (In fact, I’ve been ‘using’ Versions itself — very intermittently — for about 8 months now, and I only now feel like I’ve used it enough to offer a few vaguely informed comments about it.) But when I do need to interact with Subversion, Versions is an absolute joy to use. It doesn’t get in the way, and it just lets me get the job done vastly more efficiently than I would be able to manage via the command line interface. And visually, it’s beautiful. Call me shallow, but I rather like working with beautiful things.
If your needs for version control systems are at all like mine — perhaps you occasionally need to dip into a Subversion repository holding academic papers or research data, or perhaps you want to use it to manage your website source files or a bit of PHP code, but you don’t really live and breathe Subversion — then Versions might be just the ticket to get the basics done without hassle.
Beyond the basics, Versions also makes it easy to set up your own repository on a remote service (for free), and it’s straightforward to create your own local repository, a feature which not all Subversion clients offer. (By a ‘local repository’, I don’t just mean a local copy of a remote repository: I mean a full-fledged repository hosted on your local machine.)
If you’re a full-fledged Subversion ninja, perhaps your experience with Versions would differ from mine: not being an advanced user myself, I don’t really know whether Versions can tap into all the Subversion power you might need. What I can say, though, is that however advanced your needs might be, Versions certainly seems to me to be worth a look.
As for problems or hiccups, I’ve experienced only two — one with Versions itself and one with getting in touch with the developers for support. The hiccup with Versions itself occurred when I inadvertently renamed two files that were under Subversion control from outside Versions; this left me for awhile with some ‘ghost’ files that kept reappearing when I copied the contents of trunk into a new tag directory. Of course the original mistake was mine, but it was still frustrating to deal with those ‘ghost’ files and to try to hammer them out of existence. The other difficulty was just with getting a reply to some initial queries about the software: I cannot say whether it was a temporary glitch or whether it was indicative of a more general problem, but in my experience it sure was difficult to elicit a reply. (Once I did get a reply, however, it was very courteous and helpful.)
System Requirements and Pricing
Versions requires Mac OS X version 10.4.9 or higher. Diff support requires an external application like FileMerge, BBEdit, TextWrangler or others. It sells for €39, with an additional 19% VAT payable for EU residents. Educational discounts are also available.
Please see the Versions site for full details.
Please see our Review Disclosure Policy.
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All clinical material on this site is peer reviewed by one or more clinical psychologists or other qualified mental health professionals. This specific article was originally published by on and was last reviewed or updated by Dr Greg Mulhauser, Managing Editor on .
With an all-new design that looks great on macOS Big Sur, Xcode 12 has customizable font sizes for the navigator, streamlined code completion, and new document tabs. Xcode 12 builds Universal apps by default to support Mac with Apple Silicon, often without changing a single line of code.
Designed for macOS Big Sur.
Xcode 12 looks great on macOS Big Sur, with a navigator sidebar that goes to the top of the window and clear new toolbar buttons. The navigator defaults to a larger font that’s easier to read, while giving you multiple size choices. New document tabs make it easy to create a working set of files within your workspace.
Document tabs.
The new tab model lets you open a new tab with a double-click, or track the selected file as you click around the navigator. You can re-arrange the document tabs to create a working set of files for your current task, and configure how content is shown within each tab. The navigator tracks the open files within your tabs using strong selection.
Navigator font sizes.
Install Subversion On Mac
The navigator now tracks the system setting for “Sidebar icon size” used in Finder and Mail. You can also choose a unique font size just for Xcode within Preferences, including the traditional dense information presentation, and up to large fonts and icon targets.
Code completion streamlined.
A new completion UI presents only the information you need, taking up less screen space as you type. And completions are presented much faster, so you can keep coding at maximum speed.
Redesigned organizer.
An all-new design groups all critical information about each of your apps together in one place. Choose any app from any of your teams, then quickly navigate to inspect crash logs, energy reports, and performance metrics, such as battery consumption and launch time of your apps when used by customers.
SwiftUI
SwiftUI offers new features, improved performance, and the power to do even more, all while maintaining a stable API that makes it easy to bring your existing SwiftUI code forward into Xcode 12. A brand new life cycle management API for apps built with SwiftUI lets you write your entire app in SwiftUI and share even more code across all Apple platforms. And a new widget platform built on SwiftUI lets you build widgets that work great on iPad, iPhone, and Mac. Your SwiftUI views can now be shared with other developers, and appear as first-class controls in the Xcode library. And your existing SwiftUI code continues to work, while providing faster performance, better diagnostics, and access to new controls.
Universal app ready.
Xcode 12 is built as a Universal app that runs 100% natively on Intel-based CPUs and Apple Silicon for great performance and a snappy interface.* It also includes a unified macOS SDK that includes all the frameworks, compilers, debuggers, and other tools you need to build apps that run natively on Apple Silicon and the Intel x86_64 CPU.
Mac Svn
Updated automatically
When you open your project in Xcode 12, your app is automatically updated to produce release builds and archives as Universal apps. When you build your app, Xcode produces one binary “slice” for Apple Silicon and one for the Intel x86_64 CPU, then wraps them together as a single app bundle to share or submit to the Mac App Store. You can test this at any time by selecting “Any Mac” as the target in the toolbar.
Test multiple architectures.
On the new Mac with Apple Silicon, you can run and debug apps running on either the native architecture or on Intel virtualization by selecting “My Mac (Rosetta)” in the toolbar.
Multiplatform template
New multiplatform app templates set up new projects to easily share code among iOS, iPadOS, and macOS using SwiftUI and the new lifecycle APIs. The project structure encourages sharing code across all platforms, while creating special custom experiences for each platform where it makes sense for your app.
Improved auto-indentation
Swift code is auto-formatted as you type to make common Swift code patterns look much better, including special support for the “guard” command.
StoreKit testing
New tools in Xcode let you create StoreKit files that describe the various subscription and in-app purchase products your app can offer, and create test scenarios to make sure everything works great for your customers — all locally testable on your Mac.
Get started.
Download Xcode 12 and use these resources to build apps for all Apple platforms.