Version Control with Web Development

Question

Right now, I am using Dreamweaver to edit my files locally then ftp them to the live server.

I want to start using version control (I am thinking subversion) but I have no experience with version control at all.

So is this something I would need to setup locally or have setup on my web server?

If on my web server, is this something I should contact my hosting provider about setting up?

Thanks

Answer 1

Locally. You're only going to have one version on the hosting site, and that's the production version. You'll do your changes locally.

edit: Here's a decent link to give you some background, and a basic tutorial. http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~comp314/svn.html. Once you're comfortable, the definitive reference for svn is at http://svnbook.red-bean.com/.

Answer 2

If you are going to use SVN, you will need to host it. You can host it on your server or computer it doesn't matter, but if you want to have a copy if something goes wrong with your computer I suggest to install SVN on server.

Answer 3

Version control is generally a process/tool you use during development, so you wouldn't have to do anything with your production web server. You will use either an SVN client or Dreamweaver to interact with the version control system as you make changes, but your method of publishing your site wouldn't change.

Using version control is much nicer if integrated with your editing tool. Recent versions of Dreamweaver feature (since CS4) include Subversion integration. This article talks about the SVN integration:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/using_subversion_pt1.html.

There are 2 parts to setting up Subversion: the client part to allow you to access the repository, and the server part that serves the repository itself. Depending on how you choose to set things up, one installer might cover both client and server. While DW has some built-in integration, its not supposed to replace a full-fledged client.

The software is available here: http://subversion.apache.org/packages.html. If you use Windows, TortoiseSVN is a client that integrates SVN with Windows Explorer.

For the server part, you can either set up your own repository or use a public (possibly free) repository.

There is of course a lot of good information on the web about Subversion, but the definitive handbook is http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.5/index.html.

Good luck!!!