credit to rabbitvcs for the screenshot

The first I tried was Rapid SVN, rated high in the ‘add/remove’ programs dialog. I found this very unstable. Next I tried eSvn which I also found unstable and quirky. Then unto KDE svn which seemed quite stable and solid actually… but unfortunately I use GNOME and this application is (obviously) for KDE, so naturally(?), there were some bugs. In particular the title bars and some other variables were not passing values properly, they would show up as literal %t or what have you. This was a deal breaker for me. Smart SVN came recommended and I agree, it has potential but it seemed to be too much for my simple needs and hell, if I’m going to run a Java application, I might as well switch my IDE to Eclipse and use the plugin for that (which is actually a good interface to SVN).

However, I love my current IDE, Geany and I don’t use SVN strictly for code projects. Some of the Ninjaz and I collaborate in mapping using SVN.

For a while I used svn in the terminal, which is really as minimal as you can get and to a degree, I really enjoy it. It also makes for good practice when I need to do things concerning SVN on a server. However, this is 2009 and I (usually) feel more efficient with a GUI.

In windows, my favorite SVN client was Tortoise SVN, the de facto standard in SVN for windows. After tireless research I finally came across the application I was dreaming for, Nautilus SVN, which is attempting to clone Tortoise SVN for Linux. Written in Python, it integrates itself nicely into Nautilus’ right click (context) menu. When I first started using it, the application was pretty barebones but with the latest release, it has come a long way. Bringing in nice emblems and icons to signify status and accompany menu options, it’s really starting to feel like a solid application.

Nautilus SVN in action

At version 0.12 beta, it’s obviously got some minor bugs but nothing that stands out… too hard. There is currently an issue with the status checks responsible for the folder emblems that can cause nautilus to temporarily freeze while retrieving information from large repositories but the problem is being addressed, though they’ve hit a few snags along the way.

I talked with one of the developers, Bruce from the Netherlands on their IRC channel, #nautilussvn on irc.freenode.org and feel confident in direction of the project. Bruce is a really nice and informative guy which makes the project all the more interesting to me.

I wish the team the best in the future and I’ll definitely be sticking with this for a while, I suggest other GNOME users check it out as well.