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Did you know that you don’t need a server and an IT department to use TortoiseSVN (Subversion) for version control? Simply create a local repository on your hard drive. Here’s how…

Step 1: Create your repository

• Browse to the location where you want to create your local Subversion repository and create a new folder for your repository, called “C:\svn_repository” (or similar).

• Now, right-click on this folder and select TortoiseSVN>> Create Repository Here…

• You will be presented with a dialog asking what type of repository you want to create. Choose the default settings, “Native filesystem (FSFS)”.

Step 2: Check out a working copy (sandbox)

• Browse to your projects folder, for example “C:\Projects“.

• Create a new project folder, for example “C:\Projects\My Project“.

• Right-click on this folder and select SVN Checkout…

• Enter “file:///C:/svn_repository” as the URL of the repository and “C:\Projects\My Project” as the checkout directory (see screenshot, below).

Tip: you can browse to your repository folder by entering “file:///C:” as the URL of the repository and then pressing the button, as shown below:

This will open a File Explorer dialog asking you to file your repository folder.

• Once you have specified the URL of repository and the checkout directory, press the “OK” button.

Congratulations, you now have a project under source code control!

Step 3: Adding files to your working copy

Let’s see how TortoiseSVN works..

• Add a new text file to to the “C:\Projects\My Project” folder.

• Right-click on it and choose TortoiseSVN>> Add..

• Right-click on it, again, and choose SVN Commit.

• Now modify the file and choose SVN Commit.

Fun, isn’t it?

Final Tips

• Tip #1: You’ll want to make backups of your repository folder (C:\svn_repository). You don’t need to worry about making backups of your project folders, since every version of your project files are stored in the repository.

• Tip #2: It is common to store multiple projects inside the same repository. We’ll talk more about the best way to organize your repository structure in a future article. Until then, have fun.