Friendly criticism of SVN repository browsing

["David W. Wilson" <wi...@anseri.com>]

Before I say anything, kudos to the Subversion team. I am an SE with
extensive UNIX but limited Windows dev experience, recently hired as a build
manager in a Windows shop after an extended industry employment gap. My
first major task was to find and implement a companywide VCS superior to the
CVS+Tortoise system currently in use.  I was expecting this task to take at
least two weeks, but after only a few hours of research, Subversion stood
out head and shoulders.  I was able to absorb the doc, install and configure
an SVN server, and exercise the basic admin and user commands in the course
of two work days. Being familiar with CVS and Sablime, I am duly impressed
with SVN's intuitive versioning and work flow models, and Tortoise SVN is
icing on the cake.  Job well done.

 

Now to my nitpick, which concerns SVN repository browsing.

 

My first whine is that when I view an SVN object in the browser, I do not
see its SVN properties or source file attributes.

 

My second whine is that SVN lets the browser to decide how to browse SVN
repository objects. For example, I am running Windows XP Pro 5.1, with
ActivePerl installed. If I browse a .cgi file in the SVN repository, I see
the file contents, good. But if I browse a .pl file, IE sees that it is an
ActivePerl Perl script and prompts me to save it, and none of the menu picks
on the link allows me to view the file contents, which is the point of
browsing source. Similarly, if I browse a .xml file or a .htm file, I see
IE's interpretation of it, not the verbatim file contents. Also, if I browse
a .png file, I see the visual image, OK in most contexts, but a developer
generally wants to know more about his source. 

 

Optimally, when browsing an SVN repository object, I feel we should see the
following:

 

-          For all objects, SVN properties and source file attributes.

-          For directories, a hyperlinked directory listing (as we do now)

-          For text files, the file contents (not what the browser wants to
show us)

-          For image files, a visual representation.

 

and possibly

 

-          A link (icon?) to download the object (possibly useful, but it
seems better to checkout the object).

-          A link (icon?) to open an object (possibly useful, but
potentially dangerous in the source context).

 

In any case, the view of an SVN repository object should be as independent
as possible of the browser. 

Re: Friendly criticism of SVN repository browsing

[Toby Thain <to...@smartgames.ca>]

> Now to my nitpick, which concerns SVN repository browsing.
>
>

I suggest you try Trac or FishEye (etc) and then review your list of  
missing features.

--Toby

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Re: Friendly criticism of SVN repository browsing

[Max Bowsher <ma...@ukf.net>]

David W. Wilson wrote:
> Now to my nitpick, which concerns SVN repository browsing.

The simple answer is that the http interface presented by mod_dav_svn is
primarily intended for access by Subversion clients only, and the
extremely minimal extra features supplied for the sake of humans are
really just to allow people to confirm that an URL really is a
functioning Subversion repository.

For true browsing functionality, users are directed to one of the many
3rd party projects which present a richer human-oriented web interface:
<http://subversion.tigris.org/links.html#browsers>.

Max.

Re: Friendly criticism of SVN repository browsing

[Rainer Sokoll <R....@intershop.de>]

On Thu, Aug 16, 2007 at 01:13:37PM -0400, David W. Wilson wrote:

> My second whine is that SVN lets the browser to decide how to browse SVN
> repository objects. For example, I am running Windows XP Pro 5.1, with
> ActivePerl installed. If I browse a .cgi file in the SVN repository, I see
> the file contents, good. But if I browse a .pl file, IE sees that it is an
> ActivePerl Perl script and prompts me to save it, and none of the menu picks
> on the link allows me to view the file contents, which is the point of
> browsing source. Similarly, if I browse a .xml file or a .htm file, I see
> IE's interpretation of it, not the verbatim file contents.

Beside from what the others wrote: This is to blame to Microsoft, since
their crappy IE ignores (most of the time) MIME-Types and interpretes
the data by evaluating the file extension.
It has nothing to to with svn (as long as the svn:mime-type property is
set to the correct value).
You may file a bug report in Microsoft's bug tracker ;-)))

Rainer

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