Project Search Path, Images and Subversion

[Ivonne Alemany]

Hi Tim - Currently, I have 7 paths with images and snippets in my Project Search Path view. They are all in C:\User\my name\...

Question: I connected to SVN and images are showing there as well, but my project path doesn't display SVN path. And to complicate matters, I was the first to connect to SVN and didn't create a folder for my project in SVN so it spilled all over the root. I'd like to clean up a bit, but I'm afraid to break something and mess up the project. The project's output is working well in PDF and HTML. Any thoughts on how to clean up without the risk of breaking paths and losing images? thanks! http://helpman.it-authoring.com/images/smilies/101.gif

[Tim Green]

I connected to SVN and images are showing there as well, but my project path doesn't display SVN path.

That is correct because your SVN path has nothing to do with your project in that sense. Your local working copy is like any other project. There are no references within it to SVN. All that is managed by SVN, with the contents of the special .svn folder inside your project folder (which you should never edit or change in any way). The only communication with the SVN server is to make a copy of your project there and update other user's work from there to your copy (if other users also have working copies based on the version on the server). Nothing you do in your project ever writes to the SVN server directly.

And to complicate matters, I was the first to connect to SVN and didn't create a folder for my project in SVN so it spilled all over the root.

Do you mean that your project doesn't have a proper repository on the SVN server itself, and everything is being saved in the /svn/ root? If that is the case you need to change it, because then all your projects will be saved in one big repository, and that will create serious problems later. You need a separate repository for each project.

1. To fix that you first need to make sure that everyone's work is synchronized, so that everyone has exactly the same copy. Then everyone needs to STOP changing things, because they are going to need to create new working copies.
2. Create a repository for the project on the server, and make sure that it has proper branch, tag and trunk folders.
3. Make a non-SVN copy of your project with Save As... in the File menu and set up everything in the project folder the way it needs to be, including all graphics folders etc.
4. Use the Version Control manager in the File menu to upload that new copy of the project to the /trunk folder of the new SVN repository. Make a small change and select the Synchronize button in the Project tab. Then all the graphics and other files will be added as well. (They don't get added on the first creation.)
5. Then get all your co-workers to download new working copies from the new repository. They must do this to a new, empty folder. That will then be their working copy from now on

Once you have confirmed that everything is working OK you can delete the old working copies. Later on you can delete all the old stuff from the server as well, but there is no hurry about that.