---
layout: default
title: Release notes for 1.5
description: TortoiseSVN release notes, version 1.5
keywords: release notes
lang: en
---


<div class="post" id="news">
    <h2>What's New in TortoiseSVN 1.5</h2>

    <ul>
        <li><a href="#merge-tracking">Merge Tracking</a></li>
        <li><a href="#sparse-checkouts">Sparse checkouts</a></li>
        <li><a href="#cyrus-sasl">Cyrus SASL support for <code>svnserve</code></a></li>
        <li><a href="#changelist-support">Changelist support</a></li>
        <li><a href="#log-cache">Log message caching</a></li>
        <li><a href="#repository-browser">Repository browser</a></li>
        <li><a href="#revision-graph">Revision graph</a></li>
        <li><a href="#client-side-hooks">Client side hook scripts</a></li>
        <li><a href="#TortoiseMerge">TortoiseMerge</a></li>
        <li><a href="#SubWCRev">SubWCRev</a></li>
        <li><a href="#Overlays">Overlay icons</a></li>
    </ul>

    <p>Details are described below.</p>

    <p>TortoiseSVN 1.5 is a superset of all previous TortoiseSVN releases,
    and is considered the current stable and "best" release. Anything in 1.0.x,
    1.1.x, 1.2.x, 1.3.x or 1.4.x is also in 1.5, but 1.5 contains features and
    bugfixes not present in any earlier release.</p>

</div> <!-- news -->

<div class="post" id="compatibility">
    <h2>Compatibility Concerns</h2>

    <p>Older clients and servers interoperate transparently with 1.5
    servers and clients. Of course, some of the new 1.5 features may not
    be available unless both client and server are the latest version.
    See the table below about which features require which versions:</p>

    <table class="table-bordered table-hover">
      <thead>
      <tr>
        <th>New Feature</th>
        <th>Minimum Client</th>
        <th>Minimum Server</th>
        <th>Minimum Repository</th>
        <th>Notes</th>
      </tr>
      </thead>
      <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td><a href="#merge-tracking">Merge tracking</a></td>
        <td>1.5</td>
        <td>1.5</td>
        <td>1.5</td>
        <td></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><a href="#cyrus-sasl">Cyrus SASL support for <code>svn://</code> repository access</a></td>
        <td>any<sup>*</sup>, 1.5</td>
        <td>any<sup>*</sup>, 1.5</td>
        <td>any</td>
        <td><sup>*</sup>Limited, only ANONYMOUS and CRAM-MD5 are supported</td>
      </tr>
      </tbody>
    </table>

    <p>All other features are independent of the server version and can be used without any
    restrictions.</p>
    <p>
    For a more detailed compatibility table, see the
    <a href="http://subversion.apache.org/svn_1.5_releasenotes.html#new-feature-compatibility-table">Subversion release notes</a>.
    </p>


    <p>Due to certain improvements made to the working copy
    library, the version number of the working copy format has been
    incremented. This means that Subversion clients earlier than 1.5 will
    <em>not</em> be able to work with working copies produced by Subversion
    1.5. Similarly, the repository format has changed as well, meaning
    that pre-1.5 Subversion tools that normally access a repository
    directly
    (e.g. <code>svnserve</code>, <code>mod_dav_svn</code>, <code>svnadmin</code>)
    won't be able to read a repository originally created by Subversion 1.5.
    </p>

    <p><strong>WARNING:</strong> if a Subversion 1.5 client encounters a pre-1.5
    working copy, it will <em>automatically</em> 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, you need to be careful about which version you use in
    which working copy, to avoid accidentally upgrading the working copy
    format. This "auto upgrade" feature, however, does <em>not</em> occur
    with the new repository format.
    </p>

    <p>
    Have a look at the Subversion FAQ about the
    <a href="http://subversion.apache.org/faq.html#working-copy-format-change">
    working copy format change</a>.
    </p>

</div> <!-- compatibility -->

<div class="post" id="merge-tracking">
    <h2>Merge Tracking</h2>

    <p>Merge Tracking in Subversion 1.5.0 is roughly equivalent in
    functionality to <a
    href="http://www.orcaware.com/svn/wiki/Svnmerge.py">svnmerge.py</a>,
    recording and using merge history to avoid common cases of the
    <a href="#repeated-merge">repeated merge</a> problem, and allowing for cherry-picking of changes.
    It exposes merge history via properties, and allows for repository
    dump/load (including the ability to re-create the merge history
    index).</p>

    <p>Note: Some merge tracking features can't be used for repositories served
    by pre-1.5.x servers.</p>

    <div class="h3" id="repeated-merge">
    <h3>Repeated Merge</h3>

    <p>When working on a branch, Subversion now tracks each revision which
    gets merged. This makes it easier to merge changes e.g., from trunk
    because it is possible to always merge the whole revision range without
    the risk of merging the same revision twice. Subversion will automatically
    omit the already merged revisions when doing the merge.</p>

    <img src="/assets/img/LogWithGrayedMerge.png" class="img-responsive" alt="Log dialog showing already merged entries grayed out">

    <p>When showing the log from the merge dialog to find the revisions to
    merge, TortoiseSVN shows the already merged revisions grayed out as
    a visual hint. If a grayed out revision is selected, Subversion does
    not merge that revision again because it was already merged.</p>

    </div> <!-- repeated-merge -->

    <div class="h3" id="manual-merge">
    <h3>Record Manual Merge</h3>

    <p>To block a revision from being merged, TortoiseSVN provides a button
    in the merge dialog named "record only". This will tell Subversion that
    the revision has already been merged, without doing the merge itself.</p>

    </div> <!-- manual-merge -->

    <div class="h3" id="merge-info">
    <h3>Merge Information</h3>

    <p>When inspecting revisions with the log dialog, the messages of revisions
    where a merge occurred aren't usually very useful. Most people write
    log messages in the form "merged revisions XXX to YYY from /branches/ZZZ"
    or something similar. But what's really interesting when examining the
    log of a folder/file would be the log messages of all the revisions
    that got merged.</p>

    <img src="/assets/img/LogWithoutMerge.png" class="img-responsive" alt="Log dialog showing entries
    without merge history">

    <p>TortoiseSVN can show you those log messages if you want. The log dialog
    has a checkbox which when activated will fetch all the log messages of
    merged revisions. The log entries of merged revisions are shown a little
    indented.</p>

    <img src="/assets/img/LogWithMerge.png" class="img-responsive" alt="Log dialog showing entries
    with merge history">
    </div> <!-- merge-info -->
</div> <!-- merge-tracking -->


<div class="post" id="sparse-checkouts">
    <h2>Sparse checkouts</h2>

    <p>Many users have very large trees of which they only want to checkout
    certain parts. In case of folders with many subfolders, some of the
    subfolders might not be needed.</p>
    <p>TortoiseSVN provides the user with a combo box to choose the depth
    of a checkout:</p>
    <ul>
    <li>Fully recursive</li>
    <li>Immediate children, including folders</li>
    <li>Only file children</li>
    <li>Only this item</li>
    </ul>
    <p>The depth of the checkout is remembered, so that a later <em>update</em>
    will respect that depth and not fetch everything again.</p>

</div> <!-- sparse-checkouts -->


<div class="post" id="cyrus-sasl">
    <h2>Cyrus SASL support for <code>svnserve</code></h2>

    <p>In Subversion 1.5, svnserve can use SASL (Simple Authentication and Security Layer)
    for authentication and data encryption.
    TortoiseSVN has SASL implemented too. The following SASL authentication
    methods are available with TortoiseSVN 1.5:</p>
    <ul>
    <li>ANONYMOUS</li>
    <li>CRAM-MD5</li>
    <li>PLAIN</li>
    <li>DIGEST-MD5</li>
    <li>LOGIN</li>
    <li>NTLM</li>
    </ul>
    <p>SASL also provides data encryption in some of these methods, so you can secure
    your data while it is being transmitted over the internet. Securing your connection
    using SASL should be easier than setting up an SSH infrastructure.</p>

</div> <!-- cyrus-sasl -->


<div class="post" id="changelist-support">
    <h2>Changelist support</h2>

    <p>Sometimes you are working on several different problems at once
    in your working copy, and it becomes difficult to track which files are
    involved in which change. TortoiseSVN now allows you to group files together
    into logical <em>changelists</em>. These appear in the Commit dialog and the
    Check for Modifications dialog. As well as giving a visual indication, you
    can also select groups for commit.
    </p>
    <img src="/assets/img/ChangeList.png" alt="Commit dialog showing changelists
    grouped together">

    <p>
    TortoiseSVN also provides a special changelist named <em>ignore-on-commit</em>.
    Files which belong to that changelist are <em>not</em> selected in the
    commit dialog. This helps if you have a file which you must keep versioned
    but which you don't want its modifications to get committed.
    </p>
</div> <!-- changelist-support -->


<div class="post" id="log-cache">
    <h2>Log Cache</h2>

    <p>Fetching the log information from the repository can take a long
    time, especially for repositories with thousands of revisions or if
    the repository is not on a fast connection.</p>

    <p>TortoiseSVN 1.5 can cache the log entries on the local drive. Only
    the entries which are not yet in the local cache are fetched from the
    repository.</p>

    <p>The log cache improves the performance not only of the log dialog
    but also of the revision graph.</p>

</div> <!-- log-cache -->


<div class="post" id="repository-browser">
    <h2>Repository browser</h2>

    <p>The repository browser has been completely rewritten and now more
    resembles the Windows explorer. It has two panes, with a tree
    view on the left and the file/folder list on the right.</p>

    <img src="/assets/img/RepositoryBrowser.png" class="img-responsive" alt="Repository Browser">

    <p>Part of the rewrite also includes a performance improvement when
    showing very big directories.</p>

    <p>
    It is also possible to drag files/folders from the repository browser
    directly to the explorer as a fast way to save/export those files/folders.
    </p>
</div> <!-- repository-browser -->


<div class="post" id="revision-graph">
    <h2>Revision Graph</h2>

    <p>The revision graph has changed dramatically since the previous release.
    Apart from using the log cache if available, it is also much faster when
    analyzing the log data.</p>

    <p>A small window on the top right of the graph shows an overview of the
    whole graph.</p>

    <p>The new revision graph has much more options to tweak the output.
    For example, the direction of the graph, how the nodes are arranged in
    the graph or which nodes/paths/urls should be filtered out completely.</p>
</div> <!-- revision-graph -->


<div class="post" id="client-side-hooks">
    <h2>Client-side hook scripts</h2>

    <p>
    TortoiseSVN allows the execution of client side scripts before and after
    certain operations. The available hooks are:</p>

    <dl>
        <dt>Start Commit Hook</dt>
            <dd>Called before the commit dialog is shown</dd>
        <dt>Pre-Commit Hook</dt>
            <dd>Called after the commit dialog is shown, but before the actual commit</dd>
        <dt>Post-Commit Hook</dt>
            <dd>Called after the commit is finished</dd>
        <dt>Start Update Hook</dt>
            <dd>Called before an update, before the repository is contacted</dd>
        <dt>Pre-Update Hook</dt>
            <dd>Called before the update, but after the revision to which the update is done is known</dd>
        <dt>Post-Update Hook</dt>
            <dd>Called after the update has finished</dd>
    </dl>

</div> <!-- client-side-hooks -->

<div class="post" id="TortoiseMerge">
    <h2>TortoiseMerge</h2>
    <dl>
        <dt>Line endings</dt>
            <dd>inconsistent line endings are handled properly, including MAC line endings</dd>
        <dt>Undo</dt>
            <dd>Changes made during conflict resolving can be reverted one by one</dd>
        <dt>Editing</dt>
            <dd>The target file can be edited directly in TortoiseMerge without the need to use a text editor</dd>
    </dl>
</div> <!-- TortoiseMerge -->

<div class="post" id="SubWCRev">
    <h2>SubWCRev</h2>

    <p>
    The SubWCRev tool now has a COM interface for easy access from scripting
    languages. This makes it possible to embed the revision information
    in e.g., Microsoft Word documents.
    </p>
</div> <!-- SubWCRev -->

<div class="post" id="Overlays">
    <h2>Overlay Icons</h2>

    <p>
    If you're using other Tortoise clients like TortoiseCVS you might know
    about the problem with the limited overlay slots in Windows. With both
    TortoiseSVN and TortoiseCVS installed, some of the overlays won't show
    up anymore. This is due to the fact that Windows only has about 12 slots
    available for overlays and with both applications installed, that limit
    is exhausted.
    </p>
    <p>
    To solve this issue, we've implemented a common overlay handler for
    all Tortoise clients to use. With this handler, all Tortoise clients will
    show the same overlay icons and use the same overlay slots. That way
    we won't hit the Windows limit so easily anymore.
    </p>
    <p>
    TortoiseSVN 1.5.x and the TortoiseCVS unstable releases already use
    this new overlay handler.
    </p>
    <p>
    Due to this new overlay handler which shares the overlays, TortoiseSVN
    gained two new overlays: for unversioned and ignored files there is now
    an overlay too.
    </p>
    <p>
    <img src="/assets/img/Overlays.png" alt="Icon Overlays">

    </p>
</div> <!-- Overlays -->