Free Text Editor with built-in SVN Support for Windows?

Question

The title says it all. I'm looking for a free text editor which has built-in SVN support for Windows, to avoid having to switch to Explorer to do Commits and such. Googling just produces the usual phony sites with lists of products that have nothing to really do with a free text editor supporting SVN. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Notepad++ has plugins for TortiseSVN aswell as an Explorer plugin allows access to it aswell. I personally use the second method.

Answer 2

emacs Really, someone had to suggest it. For simple text editing, it is still my goto editor even now that I've embraced an IDE.

• Home: http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
• Win32 FAQ: http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/ntemacs.html
• Precompiled binary: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/windows/
• Version control section of emacs manual: http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/emacs.html#Introduction-to-VC

If you've never used it, it will take a bit to get used to, but if go that far, you'll love it. I make no apologies for the crusty manual - it's an old program - but it does what it does well (some say learning to use emacs will make you a better programmer).

a few SVN keystrokes

• [ctrl-x v =]: diff to previously checked out version
• [ctrl-x v g]: annotate source (blame)
• [ctrl-x v v]: commit (enter changelog in the new buffer and type ctrl-c ctrl-c to commit)

vim Because once you suggest emacs, someone will suggest vi. or vim. or some other variant. I never got the hang of it, so can't suggest much help. Queue the religious argument.

• Home: http://www.vim.org/

Answer 3

I'll go ahead and speak for VIM, Chadwick;-)

For VIM, there's the VCSCommand plugin to handle SVN as well as a few other popular repositories. It's installed separately after installing VIM.

It uses commands such as:

• :VCSAdd to add files to repository
• :VCSCommit to commit them
• :VCSDiff for diff
• :VCSBlame for ...blame

Be prepared for a large learning curve on VIM; but once over the hump, you'll be amazed at the efficiency of editing code with it (especially if you're a touch typist). Personally, I think it's worth taking the productivity hit to learn it. Not everyone will agree, but to each their own!