Timeline workflow

Apart from terminology Timeline implements a slightly different approach to the general workflow

Usually the Subversion workflow would look like this:

• You would have all the files related to some project on your machine.
• You would import these files into your Subversion repository using "svn import" (or an equivalent GUI command).
• Then you would check them out into a different location to create a working copy using "svn checkout".
• Once you have you working copy, you would make your changes there and commit them as needed.

There are 2 main problems with this approach:

• The initial files that you imported into the repository are left unused. If you are using the same computer to both import your files and subsequently check them out, then you will duplicate all your files. This duplication is a waste of disk space and it may be quite significant if you have a big project.
• When importing your files you will have to import all of them in one go, and this may be time consuming the case of a big project.

In Timeline we took a simplified approach

With Timeline you will need to choose the folder that contains all the files and folders related to a project. Once you have chosen the top folder for your project, Timeline Project Assistant would create an empty root folder inside your repository to match your project folder. It would then check out the empty folder into your project thus converting it into a working copy.

Now you have an empty "project" inside your repository and a corresponding "project folder" on your machine, and all you need to do is to individually commit the files that you are modifying into the repository. When committing your files for the first time you will also need to "add" them to the working copy. Timeline takes care of this performing both "add" and "commit" operations under the hood.