Home

SVNStartCommitHelper

http://sf.net/projects/svnstartcommith

Professional environments focus on high development standards in Source Code Management. E.g. by usage of server side commit hooks to check for minimum acceptance levels on code and documentation quality including commit message structure and content.

TortoiseSVN offers only a free form text field to edit inside the Commit Dialog. Developers might recall situations when struggling with commit message structure and fighting the server side commit hooks instead focusing on message content! Thus being annoyed instead of feeling an incentive to deliver high quality descriptions here.

In such situations a helpful structured form instead of a free form multi-line edit field is missing.

The SVNStartCommitHelper is a client side start commit hook script (as a first version written in Python / Tkinter) exactly offering a well-structured form to fill in. The edited content is transformed and forwarded to the SVN commit dialog then. You still have full control on the commit message then. While using the helper you focus on message quality now instead struggling with message structure.

Since it is Python script...

• the edit form can easily be adapted to your needs.
• the resulting text structure as forwarded to the TortoiseSVN commit dialog can easily be adapted.

So you will experience...

• Thus you get much higher acceptance rates on controlling and filtering server side SVN commit hooks.
• Easier creation of well-structured commit messages will be experienced on your side while matching higher QA and SCM standards.

Installation

The image shows a sample install of the start commit hook script 'svnstartcommithelper.py'.

Installation procedure

1. In the TortoiseSVN settings dialog
   • select 'Hook Scripts',
2. then 'Add...' the script using the settings shown.
   • set Hook Type to Start Commit Hook
     • Avoid mixing it up with Hook Type named Start Update Hook or others. All other Hook Types than Start Commit Hook will not work here!
   • set Working Copy Path to C:\
   • the Command Line To Execute holds two information in the edit field
     1. Executable C:\\Python32\\python
        • This is the path and Python3 executable
        • Remember: It's Python3 code!
        • If your path uses whitespaces take care to quote this
        • Adapt the values according to your valid locations
     2. Script C:\\svnstartcommithelper.py
        • This is the path and Python Script
        • If your path uses whitespaces take care to quote this, too
        • Adapt the values according to your valid locations
   • check Wait for the script to finish
   • check Hide the script while running

External links

• http://tortoisesvn.net/ - TortoiseSVN is an easy-to-use SCM / source control software for Microsoft Windows implemented as a Windows shell extension.
• http://code.google.com/p/tortoisesvn/source/browse/ - TortoiseSVN source code.
• http://flavio.castelli.name/2006/02/16/svn-commit-helper/ - Svn-commit is a command line utility for making rapid commit with subversion.
• http://python.org/ - Python Programming Language – Official Website.

Contributions

This section contains a list of people who've made non-trivial contribution to the SVNStartCommitHelper project. Such contributors who commit code to the project are encouraged to add their names here. Please keep the list sorted by first names.

@AUTHOR Oliver Merkel merkel.oliver@web.de

Feel free to send contributions, pull requests, suggestions or any other feedback to the project. You are welcome!

Project Admins:

• Oliver Merkel