VisualSVN - disable auto checkout

Question

Recently switched jobs and with it switched source control from TFS to SVN, which is new to me.

In TFS there was an option to disable automatic checkout of files when you started typing in them. It's enabled by default and a lot of users like this behaviour, but I prefer to know for certain what's being changed before committing. A personal thing.

VisualSVN auto-checkouts by default. Is there an similar option to turn it off? I can't seem to find out in the settings.

Answer 1

Short answer: I don;t think you can do this without becoming very unpopular.

I think you should read up on the SVN redbook's description of how SVN works, especially the versioning models

In your environment, everyone wants to be able to modify any file locally and then send their changes to the server, merging changes with colleague's changes if necessary. This approach works well if 2 people are not changing the same files all the time, which is typical of most dev shops.

The old TFS/VSS model of checkout a file to work on it is pretty obsolete today - the more 'optimistic' approach where you assume you have exclusive access is much more productive. (as usual its easier to ask forgiveness if it goes wrong than ask permission every time)

Your main problem is that you cannot mix these models - if your colleagues are using the merge model, then you have to as well. You cannot lock a file and expect them to still be able to change any file anytime.

Now, there are tricks you can use to prevent yourself from modifying files you never meant to - I'm not sure of VisualSVN but TortoiseSVN (awesome tool) can run client hooks - ie you can write a program to run on every checkout, and that program can be as simple as setting every file's read-only flag. Whether this is god enough for you is another matter.

Personally, I would get used to the idea of change whatever you like whenever. If you accidentally edit a file, you can see the change indicator (AnkhSVN turns the file icon orange for changed files), and its easy to 'svn revert' changes you didn't want to make. Also SVN lets you see diffs really easily, especially on commit - double click the files in the commit dialog. The productivity gains from being able to work without the tools getting in your way (as I found with TFS continually pinging at me as I tried to edit a file) are huge. The SVN tools are really good to let you "ask forgiveness" so you don't need to run in the crappy old TFS way now you've upgraded to something better.

The other advantage is that this applies to files that are not in a Visual Studio project, if you've ever had a project file that was edited outside VS (eg a generated WCF client stub) then you will appreciate how SVN works - never again will you do a full commit and find that TFS has conveniently decided that your changed file wasn't changed and so didn't need to be committed!

Answer 2

"Automatic checkout" term in SVN and in TFS worlds has different meanings, as far as I see.

In Subversion, checkout relates to svn checkout operation which gets a working copy from a repository. In TFS it looks like the term somehow relates to automatic locking mechanism.

If you want a file to be locked automatically when you start modifying it in Visual Studio (with VisualSVN extension installed), see the KB article "Lock-Modify-Unlock Model with VisualSVN". I also suggest reading the SVNBook chapter "Locking".

Generally speaking, you can set svn:needs-lock property on files. The property instructs client which files must be locked before editing. After applying svn:need-lock to a file the file gets read-only attribute. Before editing the file must be explicitly locked by the user. After committing the lock is released by default.