Which plugin do you use for SVN in Visual Studio?

Question

I'm considering using SVN for my .net projects, and I'd like to know what plugins are available for integrating the source control capabilities directly into the IDE.

I already know about :

1. Visual SVN, which seems great but is not free. Is anyone using it?

2. AnkhSVN, which is free but I've heard it's a bit buggy. Is anyone using it? are you experiencing problems? Edit: The 2.0 version is a complete rewrite and seems to solve the problem I've heard about (which were related to the 1.x versions)

3. Edit : TortoiseSVN + Mindscape's FileExplorer VS Extension, which is not a real IDE integration but somewhat eases the use of TortoiseSVN from Visual studio

Edit : I've found a few comparison posts between AnkhSVN and VisualSVN here, here and here.

Answer 1

I've used AnkhSVN for the past year and I've never had a problem with it. I switch between that and TFS and some of the times I think I prefer AnkhSVN to TFS.

Answer 2

I use VisualSVN and it works great, but you're correct, it's not free. No experience with Ankh here.

Answer 3

I tried AnkhSVN, but didn't like it. It tried to do too many things automatically and behind the scenes (e.g. adding files to SVN). I prefer if I see exactly what happens.

Now I mainly use TortoiseSVN (outside Visual Studio) or sometimes Mindscape VS FileExplorer in Visual Studio (which is available for free).

Note: VS FileExplorer plugin simply displays a file explorer in VS and allows you to invoke TortoiseSVN from there (and it also displays the TortoiseSVN overlay icons).

Update:

I reinstalled the current version of AnkhSVN 2.0.5250 and tried to reproduce the problems described above in a sample solution.

Result: AnkhSVN did exactly what I expected. I was not able to reproduce any of the problems. I think it might be time to give AnkhSVN another try at work!

Update 2:

I have now used AnkhSVN for some days, and I have to say it works very well. It's a big improvement compared to the previous version (1.x).

Answer 4

I use AnkhSVN and haven't had any issues worth complaining about. Sometimes (about 1 in 10 times?) I do get a strange nondescript error trying to commit, but restarting VS has always fixed the problem.

Edit: The error actually seems to be coming from the dataset designer, not AnkhSVN. Sometimes I get an error where it tries to "read or write to protected memory", which then just continues until I restart VS. Sorry for the confusion.

Answer 5

I also use AnkhSVN and it does work OK but I tend to drop to the file system to work with TortoiseSVN. For some reason I feel safer using Tortoise. I think that come's from concerns about Visual Studio than it is AnkhSsvn.

Answer 6

Early versions (1.X) of AnkhSVN were pretty unstable. Latest builds (v2.0.x) work as a native VisualStudio source control provider and it's very stable. I would recommend you to just download and try it yourself.

Answer 7

Another vote for visual SVN. To be honest, I think its just me being lazy. I could do everything visual svn does with just using tortoise, but it saves me from switching between programs. The color coded warning lights you get with visual svn are nice, but not that big a deal.

Answer 8

I use VisualSvn and it's fine. It wasn't expensive and it helps make sure you include all files you've added to the solution. It's not so good when using locking in svn (but then svn isn't great at locking files). If you want to edit a file that has needs-lock set, it will automatically update it when you lock it (sensible), but that could end up doing an update when you dont want it too.

I've got into trying Svn Monitor too and am happy with that, but it does seem to grind my computer to a halt.

I've tried old versions of ANKH but got in a mess and corrupted the svn repository (I suspect that was version 1.x) so I'd guess later versions are better.

Answer 9

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 10

I use VisualSVN, and love it. It may not be free but I found it extremely reliable, very well integrated, and very much worth the $49 per license. By setting up a few key-bindings comitting and updating become almost second-nature to my entire team (most of whom had no previous SVN/SCC experience).

Being able to quickly scan the solution explorer to see which files had changed was very useful for keeping tabs on things for writing status reports and the like (but that's probably specific to my overly beurocratic manager).

The "Checkout Solution from SVN" feature was great for quickly getting the summer student interns setup and giving them a gentle introduction to version control. Again, this is probably specific to our needs so may not be of interest to you.

So a thumbs-up for VisualSVN and the convenience it gives us.

Answer 11

My experience with working with AnkhSVN is better than tortoise but it still has a lot of flaws that you really don't get with native Visual Studio plugins like Source Safe, TFS, Dynamic soft. It has real problems with the .svn folders and synchronising so you end up spending a portion of your time removing the .svn folder and starting again.

That's my experience. One example is moving a folder from one project (in the same solution) to another project. It breaks on this from the working set being different. The solution is to go into the folder and remove the .svn files but it seems like a a lot of effort.

I'm use to it being a mirror of my filesystem though, and basic 2 developer branches of files.

Answer 12

I have used both AnkhSVN and VisualSVN each for about 6 months. I prefer VisualSVN for one reason alone: Compatibility.

At my work, we keep our Subversion server and TortoiseSVN software very up-to-date (some people just go with one version and stick with it for years, but that's not our style). With new versions sometimes comes new working copy formats and it seems that AnkhSVN is very slow to adapt these new formats. What happens at this point is AnkhSVN completely breaks:

• All the source files appear as "Added" even though they are all committed.
• We are no longer able to Commit. An error appears claiming it does not recognize the new format.

VisualSVN has been "on the ball" in this respect as we have never had any compatibility issues with their software. This factor alone easily swayed me toward VisualSVN.

Answer 13

The Agent SVN plug-in does a good job of integrating Subversion and Visual Studio, but it too is not free.