TortoiseSVN 1.6 is a superset of all previous TortoiseSVN releases,
and is considered the current stable and "best" release. Anything in earlier versions
is also in 1.6, but 1.6 contains features and
bugfixes not present in any earlier release.
Compatibility Concerns
Older clients and servers interoperate transparently with 1.6
servers and clients. However, some of the new 1.6 features may not be available
unless both client and server are the latest version. There are also
cases where a new feature will work but will run less efficiently if the client is
new and the server old.
Using servers older than 1.6 is possible, but some kinds of conflicts will not be detected.
Working Copy and Repository Filesystem Format Changes
The working copy format has been upgraded. This means that 1.5 and
older Subversion clients will not be able to work with
working copies produced by Subversion/TortoiseSVN 1.6. Working copies are upgraded automatically.
Working Copy Upgrades
WARNING: if a Subversion 1.6 client encounters a
pre-1.6 working copy, it will automatically upgrade the
working copy format as soon as it touches it, making it unreadable by
older Subversion clients. If you are using several versions of
Subversion on your machine, be careful about which version you use in
which working copy, to avoid accidentally upgrading a working copy.
If you accidentally upgrade a 1.5 working copy to 1.6, and wish to
downgrade back to 1.5, use the change-svn-wc-format.py script. See this FAQ entry for details, and run the script with the
--help option for usage instructions.
New Features / Enhancements
file:/// access to BDB repositories
TortoiseSVN 1.6 no longer supports access to BDB repositories via the
file:/// url. This doesn't affect accessing BDB repositories over svn:// or http:// though.
If you have a BDB repository that you still access via the file:/// url, you
have to convert the repository to the FSFS format with the
svnadmin tool
which is available in the SVN command line client.
Please follow the
instructions
in the Subversion book to convert the repository.
Improved handling of tree conflicts
Subversion 1.6 can detect tree conflicts during update/merge/switch
operations. Those items are then marked as conflicted to indicate
the problem.
Note that Subversion is still treating renames as a "copy+delete"
operation, so file renames causing tree conflicts can only be detected
in terms of file additions and deletions. Because of this, false positives
during tree conflict detection are possible.
TortoiseSVN 1.6 shows those tree conflicts during the operation when
they happen, and also with a conflict overlay and in the Check-for-modifications dialog.
A new conflict resolve dialog helps with resolving such conflicts, indicating
the type of tree conflict and hints on how you can resolve those conflicts.
Log Cache
The log cache introduced in TortoiseSVN 1.5 has been improved to run
more smoothly. An extensive set of options is available to control the
cache management. See the settings dialog for details.
Also, repositories sharing the same URL or UUID are now fully supported.
Revision Graph
The revision graph has changed dramatically and has been rewritten almost
completely.
The new revision graph has many more options to tweak the output. For example,
it is now possible to hide/show individual subtrees.
IBugtraq provider plugin enhancements
A new interface IBugtraqProvider2 can be used by plugins get more control
over commits and provide more information for the user.
This new interface allows a plugin to reject a commit, execute a task after
a successful commit (to e.g., add an entry to the issue in the issue tracker).
It also allows plugins to show an options/settings dialog. And a plugin can add
revision properties with each commit.
Developers interested in writing a plugin for an issue tracker can get the
code for example plugins in C++ and C# from our
contrib folder
(use 'guest' as username, leave the password empty).
Misc changes
There are many more changes in 1.6 worth mentioning:
Ignoring multiple files by extension
Filtering by bug ID in the log dialog
Negating the filter in the log dialog
Better handling of "runas" in the status cache
Items are grouped by external in dialogs if no changelists are present
Overlays in status lists for checkout depths and external/nested items
Of course, those are not all the enhancements/changes that were done for this 1.6
release. You can get a more detailed list of changes from the
changelog
or by showing the svn log on our repository.
(use 'guest' as username, leave the password empty).
Known issues in 1.6
File externals
Subversion 1.6 now supports single file externals as well as folder externals.
However, there are some significant issues you should be aware of before using them.
A file external is created by adding a value to the svn:externals property of
a folder. However, once such a file external has been added it cannot be removed
from the working copy, even if you delete the svn:externals property. The only
way to remove the file from your working copy is to make a fresh checkout.
See Subversion issue #3351
It is currently not possible to add a binary file as an external.
See See Subversion issue #3368
