RAD Studio Version Insight Community Version

In case you are a Delphi developer who is using RAD Studio XE‘s Subversion integration, who already used other experts or components from a SVN repository and who helps himself and don’t need support then I have here some information you might be interested in.

The source of RAD Studio XE’s Subversion integration is available on SourceForge within the RAD Studio Version Insight project. You should already have heared about that, but new might be that this project moves forward. The Version Insight project has currently a trunk (the Community version) and the radstudioxe branch (Embarcadero’s XE version) and I do currently move the community version forward. I do not only fix bugs, I do also add new features and in order to get these fixes and features by now you should get familiar with the Community version.

At first I want to tell you the steps how to get the Community version installed:

• start Delphi
• File | Open From Version Control…
• enter as URL

  https://radstudioverins.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/radstudioverins/trunk

• OK
• wait till everything has been checked out
  (there is no need to open a project at the end)
• close Delphi
• make a backup of the following files and remove them
  $(BDS)\bin\svn.*
  $(BDS)\bin\svnide.*
  $(BDS)\bin\svnui.*
  $(BDS)\lib\win32\release\svn.dcp
  $(BDS)\lib\win32\release\svnui.dcp
• start Delphi
• answer the following question with No
  
  [Window Title]
  Error

  [Content]
  Can’t load package c:\program files (x86)\embarcadero\rad studio\8.0\bin\svnide150.bpl.
  The specified module could not be found.
  Do you want to attempt to load this package the next time a project is loaded?

  [Yes] [No]

• open DelphiSVN.groupproj
• Build All
• Install svnide.bpl

Now I have collected some questions you might have:

Q: Where should I report issues or feature requests?
A:
Issues that repeat only in the Community Version -> bug tracking system in the SourceForge project
Issues that also repeat in XE version -> QC
Feature requests -> QC

Q: What is yet different from the version shipped with XE RTM?
A:

• major performance fixes in the Update/Checkout dialog and the Log View
• multi-select support in the Commit View
• Refresh (F5) in the Commit View
• Status and notification colors in several views including a new config page in the Environment options
• some more minor fixes and enhancements (check the SVN log with the Log View)

Q: Will the changes in the trunk be part of XE updates (if there will any)?
A: That is completely up to Embarcadero, but I guess only changes in the XE branch will make it into XE updates (if there will be any).
Changes in the trunk might make it into future Delphi releases, but again that is up to Embarcadero.

Q: Will there be support for Git or Mercurial?
A: Support for both is planned and first tests have been done in the past months, but I don’t have a timeframe.
(Remember I do have a full time job, work on Version Insight in my free time and it’s not the only thing)

Q: Will there be support for older Delphi releases?
A: No. Version Insight uses latest Delphi languages features, latest Open Tools API and does also rely on Open Tools API fixes.
If you need Subversion support for older releases then look into DelphiSVN or the JCL Version Control expert.

Q: Will there be support for Subversion 1.7 when it is out?
A: Subversion 1.7 support might need no changes. If there are incompatibilities I will try to fix them.

That is all for now and I will let you know when there are news about Version Insight.