Thread

After I overwrote another 2 hours work of CSS styling last week, I’ve started to think that I could do with some sort of version control.

I’m working on a site and my set up is as follows:

My work is split between using a windows PC at the office, combined with using a Macbook to develop the same site. ( Guess which I prefer?)

Anyway, this kind of rules out having 2 separate local environments, and added to this is the fact that the website is sitting on shared hosting, so I think it also rules out having Subversion installed(?) I’m not able to ssh.

Using straight FTP, I know I should remember to get the latest version of the file from the remote server everytime I work on it, but when I do forget, it costs me time, and occasionally I do forget 😊

Can anyone suggest a better workflow for this setup, that includes some form of version control? ‘IF ONLY’ I could have rolled back my changes…

Thanks

Well there are many places for subversion hosting. I currently use http://beanstalkapp.com/ for a computing project. However at some point you may want to investigate getting svn setup on your own host. I havev no idea what it entails.

(You may want to check out http://www.versionsapp.com for your macbook)

On shared hosting it’s probably not possible unless its something your hosting provides. Dreamhost gives you free SVN hosting with your regular hosting account. Beanstalk is also really good.

Do you have SSH access to the site now, or do you just use FTP?

Not sure if this is helpful, but this is how we do it at work.
http://null-logic.net/blog/2008/02/14/using-subversion-for-web-development

Thanks folks. I’ve setup an account with Beanstalk, it looks interesting. I’m still stuck a little on the whole subversion thing.

The way I understand it, the ‘repository’ is not the final ‘live’ area.  I understand that it was originally designed for things other than website development.

If then, I commit my files to the repository, how on earth do I see them on my website root? Do I have to ‘map’ my website root to use the repository files? I’m a little stuck when it comes to this part.

Is someone able to elaborate for me please? Thanks

The repository is just meant as a holding place for your files.  It’s a good way to do your development work and keep a copy of it somewhere besides your computer (really nice in the event a hard drive dies or something).  Plus, it becomes an amazing tool if you add more developers.  Then, everyone can be working on things and commit their changes.  If there’s a conflict, SVN will resolve it (if it can) and then everyone is on the same page with the code base.

When you’re ready to deploy it, you can do an SVN export and upload the files to your host.  I also think that Beanstalk offers some kind of direct to FTP host kind of service, but you’d have to poke around their site to find out more.

When you’re ready to deploy it, you can do an SVN export and upload the files to your host.  I also think that Beanstalk offers some kind of direct to FTP host kind of service, but you’d have to poke around their site to find out more.

They sure do, thanks AgentPhoenix. In the ‘releases’ tab on the paid account. We’ve signed up and it looks just the job. You can choose ‘dev’, ‘staging’ and ‘live’ servers.

Thanks bud!

Glad I could help.  Good luck!