---
layout: default
title: Release notes for 1.8
description: TortoiseSVN release notes, version 1.8
keywords: release notes
lang: en
includeBaguetteBox: true
---


<div class="post" id="news">
    <h2>What's New in TortoiseSVN 1.8</h2>

    {% include adsense_inpage.html %}

    <ul>
        <li><a href="#blamecolors">Coloring for TortoiseBlame</a></li>
        <li><a href="#commitparts">Commit only parts of a file</a></li>
        <li><a href="#tmerge">TortoiseMerge</a></li>
        <li><a href="#repobrowser">Repository Browser</a></li>
        <li><a href="#extlibs">Third party libraries</a></li>
        <li><a href="#progdlg">Progress dialog</a></li>
        <li><a href="#subwcrev">SubWCRev</a></li>
        <li><a href="#customprops">Custom properties</a></li>
        <li><a href="#clienthook">Client hook scripts configurable via properties</a></li>
        <li><a href="#compatibility">Compatibility concerns</a></li>
        <li><a href="#logdialog">Enhancements to facilitate easier code reviews in Log Dialog</a></li>
    </ul>

    <p>TortoiseSVN 1.8 is a superset of all previous TortoiseSVN releases,
    and is considered the current stable and "best" release. Anything in
    earlier versions is also in 1.8, but 1.8 contains features and
    bugfixes not present in any earlier release.</p>

    <p>This page describes only major changes. For a complete list
    of changes, you can check our
    <a href="https://osdn.net/projects/tortoisesvn/scm/svn/">commit logs</a>
    and the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/tortoisesvn/tickets/milestone/1.8.0">list of issues</a> for 1.8</p>

    <p>Don't forget to check out all the changes in the Subversion
    library that also is now at version 1.8: all those changes
    are of course in TortoiseSVN as well. See the full list
    of changes in the <a href="http://subversion.apache.org/docs/release-notes/1.8.html">Subversion 1.8 release notes</a>.</p>
</div> <!-- news -->

<div class="post" id="blamecolors">
    <h2>Coloring for TortoiseBlame</h2>

    <p>Instead of just coloring the changes by age/revision,
    TortoiseBlame can now color the lines by author so it's easier
    to spot who changed which lines.</p>
    <a href="/assets/img/blamecolors.png" title="coloring in TortoiseBlame">
        <img src="/assets/img/blamecolors-small.png" alt="coloring in TortoiseBlame" width="240" height="180">
    </a>

</div> <!-- blamecolors -->

<div class="post" id="commitparts">
    <h2>Commit only parts of a file</h2>
    <p>When working on a task, it often happens that you find
    an issue with the surrounding code. Fixing that issue
    leads then to multiple tasks done in the same file,
    and therefore also to have multiple fixes/tasks done
    in one single commit.</p>
    <p>To commit only the parts of the file that relate
    to one specific issue:</p>
    <ol>
        <li>in the commit dialog, right-click on file, choose "restore after commit"</li>
        <li>edit the file in e.g. TortoiseMerge: undo the changes that you don't want to commit yet</li>
        <li>save the file</li>
        <li>commit the file</li>
    </ol>
    <p>After the commit is done, the original file is restored, containing
    all the changes you didn't commit yet.
    </p>
</div> <!-- commitparts -->

<div class="post" id="tmerge">
    <h2>TortoiseMerge</h2>
    <p>TortoiseMerge, the visual diff/merge tool that comes
    with TortoiseSVN has also a lot of improvements.</p>
    <a href="/assets/img/TMerge_TwoPaneRibbon.png" title="TortoiseMerge Ribbon">
        <img src="/assets/img/TMerge_TwoPaneRibbon-small.png" alt="TortoiseMerge Ribbon" width="364" height="187">
    </a>
    <dl>
        <dt>Ribbon UI</dt>
        <dd>TortoiseMerge uses now a Ribbon instead of a plain
        toolbar for its commands.</dd>
        <dt>Searching</dt>
        <dd>new shortcuts to search <kbd>Ctrl+F3</kbd>, better indication of search matches, only search the active view.</dd>
        <dt>go to line</dt>
        <dd>a new command to go to a specific line number.</dd>
        <dt>inline diffs</dt>
        <dd>inline diffs can be toggled on/off with a single button instead of going through the settings dialog</dd>
        <dt>handling of UTF-32 files</dt>
        <dd>TortoiseMerge can now handle files in UTF-32 encoding as well, and recognizes more EOL formats.</dd>
    </dl>
</div> <!-- tmerge -->

<div class="post" id="repobrowser">
    <h2>Repository Browser</h2>
    <p>An often requested feature for the Repository Browser
    was to list all the repositories that are offered via the
    <a href="https://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.7/svn.serverconfig.httpd.html#svn.serverconfig.httpd.extra">SVNListParentPath</a>
    directive. This is now possible: point the repository browser
    to the root url and it lists all the repositories.
    </p>
    <a href="/assets/img/svnparentpath.png" title="SVNListParentPath">
        <img src="/assets/img/svnparentpath-small.png" alt="SVNListParentPath" width="238" height="147">
    </a>
    <p>At the bottom of the Repository Browser dialog a summary
    is shown, indicating the number of files and folders and the
    currently shown folder.</p>
    <p>There are also two new buttons to go back and forward,
    like in web browsers.</p>
</div> <!-- repobrowser -->

<div class="post" id="extlibs">
    <h2>Third party libraries</h2>
    <p>When there are third party libraries stored in the
    working copy directly, i.e., not via the <code>svn:externals</code>
    property, then updating those is not quite easy.</p>
    <p>Just copying over the new version will work of course, but
    if the new version has files removed, those files will still
    be in your working copy.</p>
    <p>In version 1.8 TortoiseSVN offers an easier way to do this:
    just right-drag the folder with the new version of the library
    to the version stored in your working copy, then select
    <em>SVN vendor branch here</em> from the context menu.</p>
    <p>TortoiseSVN then scans both directories, copies all
    new files, removes files that are not present anymore in the new
    version.</p>
    <p>After TortoiseSVN updated the folder, all you have to
    do is commit the new version.</p>
</div> <!-- extlibs -->

<div class="post" id="progdlg">
    <h2>Progress dialog</h2>
    <p>The dialog that shows the progress of various operations
    now has a better indication of sections/grouping, for example
    when updating a working copy that has multiple externals set.</p>
    <p>Each section/group is indicated by the first line shown in bold.</p>
    <p>And as for updating externals: only those externals that pull
    down modifications are shown in the dialog. If an external hasn't
    changed then the dialog does not show any information for it.
    This reduces the no-information lines a lot, especially if you
    have a lot of externals set.</p>
</div> <!-- progdlg -->

<div class="post" id="subwcrev">
    <h2>SubWCRev</h2>
    <p>SubWCRev also got a lot of improvements, the major ones are:</p>
    <ul>
        <li>Files in UTF-16 encoding can be used as well, either as
        sources/templates or as target files as well.</li>
        <li>A new option to specify an offset for the working copy revision.
        This is required in case your repository is at revisions > 65535 and
        you want to use the revision for the version resource: the Windows
        version resource numbers are only 16-bit, and in this situation
        you can specify a negative offset so the version resource number
        is below that 16-bit limit.</li>
        <li>SubWCRev can detect unversioned files and/or folders. This
        is useful in case you want an error returned in your build in case
        you have such unversioned items in your working copy, indicating that you
        may have missed to add and commit those items.</li>
    </ul>
</div> <!-- subwcrev -->

<div class="post" id="customprops">
    <h2>Custom properties</h2>
    <p>If you're using custom properties, you can now configure TortoiseSVN
    to provide better dialogs to edit and modify them.</p>
    <p>The properties <em>tsvn:userfileproperties</em> and <em> tsvn:userdirproperties</em>
    got extended so you can specify what kind of property you have.</p>
    <p>Have a look at our
    <a href="https://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseSVN_en/tsvn-dug-propertypage.html#tsvn-dug-propertypage-tsvn-props">docs</a>
    on how this works.</p>
</div> <!-- customprops -->

<div class="post" id="clienthook">
    <h2>Client hook scripts configurable via properties</h2>
    <p>In earlier versions you could only configure client-side
    hook scripts via the settings dialog. This worked ok if you
    only had a few workstations/users to configure. But if you
    wanted a big team of committers to all run the hook scripts
    you needed, this required a lot of work to set up.</p>
    <p>In TortoiseSVN 1.8 you can now configure the hook scripts
    to run via project properties.</p>
    <p>To avoid running potentially insecure scripts without the user
    knowing it, TortoiseSVN will ask to run those scripts first.</p>
    <p>Have a look at our
    <a href="https://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseSVN_en/tsvn-dug-propertypage.html#tsvn-dug-propertypage-tsvn-props">docs</a>
    on how this works.</p>
</div> <!-- clienthook -->

<!--
* Option to export only modified files (right-drag, selection in commit dialog)
* Clear auth data individually
* Branch/Tag with make-parents (issue 405)
* utf-32 files in TMerge
-->
<div class="post" id="compatibility">
    <h2>Compatibility concerns</h2>

    <h3>Local Client Compatibility</h3>
    <p>Subversion working copies are sometimes accessed using
    several different clients, e.g. TortoiseSVN, AnkhSVN,
    and the SVN command line client. Because the working copy format
    has changed with this release, 1.8 clients cannot access an earlier
    working copy without first upgrading it. Pre-1.8 clients cannot access
    1.8 working copies at all and there is no downgrade option.
    </p>
    <p>Migrating to 1.8 working copies must be considered a one-way
    operation. If you need to use multiple clients on the same working
    copy then be sure that you can update all the clients before upgrading
    the working copy.
    </p>

    <h3>Client Server Compatibility</h3>
    <p>Older clients and servers interoperate transparently with 1.8
    servers and clients. That is to say, you can use a 1.8 client with
    an older server, and you can use a 1.8 server with older clients.
    However, some of the new 1.8 features may
    not be available unless both client and server are the latest
    version. There are also cases where a new feature will work
    but will run less efficiently if the client is new and the
    server old.</p>

    <div id="new-feature-compatibility-table">
    <h4>New Feature Compatibility Table</h4>
    <table class="table-bordered table-hover">
      <thead>
      <tr>
        <th>New Feature</th>
        <th>Minimum Client<sup>1</sup></th>
        <th>Minimum Server</th>
        <th>Minimum Repository</th>
        <th>Notes</th>
      </tr>
      </thead>
      <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td><a href="http://subversion.apache.org/docs/release-notes/1.8.html#moves">working copy records moves</a></td>
        <td>1.8</td>
        <td>any</td>
        <td>any</td>
        <td></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><a href="http://subversion.apache.org/docs/release-notes/1.8.html#auto-merge">automatic merging</a></td>
        <td>1.8</td>
        <td>1.5</td>
        <td>1.5</td>
        <td></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><a href="http://subversion.apache.org/docs/release-notes/1.8.html#neon-deleted">neon support removed</a></td>
        <td>1.8</td>
        <td>any</td>
        <td>any</td>
        <td><a href="http://subversion.apache.org/docs/release-notes/1.8.html#neon-deleted">Server-side configuration changes</a>
          might be required for optimal performance with 1.8 clients which
          access the repository via HTTP.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><a href="http://subversion.apache.org/docs/release-notes/1.8.html#iprops">Inheritable properties</a></td>
        <td>1.8</td>
        <td>any</td>
        <td>any</td>
        <td>A 1.8 server isn't required but will deliver superior performance
          when asked for inherited properties.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><a href="http://subversion.apache.org/docs/release-notes/1.8.html#repos-dictated-config">Repos dictated config props</a></td>
        <td>1.8</td>
        <td>any</td>
        <td>any</td>
        <td></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><a href="http://subversion.apache.org/docs/release-notes/1.8.html#in-repo-authz">Authz file in repository</a></td>
        <td>any</td>
        <td>1.8</td>
        <td>any</td>
        <td></td>
      </tr>
      </tbody>
      <tfoot>
      <tr>
        <td colspan="5"><sup>1</sup>Reminder: when using the <code>file://</code>
          repository access method, the Subversion program is both the client
          <em>and</em> the server.</td>
      </tr>
      </tfoot>
    </table>
    </div> <!-- new-feature-compatibility-table -->

</div> <!-- compatibility -->
<div class="post" id="logdialog">
    <h2>Log Dialog</h2>

    <h3>Log Dialog enhancements to help with code reviews</h3>
    <p>
        A new context menu &ldquo;Create code collaborator review&rdquo; has been added to
        provide interoperability with the SmartBear Code Collaborator review tool.
    </p>
    <p>
        Two new context menus and commands have been added to the log dialog when
        multiple files are selected in the bottom &ldquo;files changed&rdquo; listbox.
    </p>
    <ol>
        <li>Show multiple changes...</li>
        <li>Open multiple local...</li>
    </ol>
    <p>
        The details of how these commands work, which include special support for
        loading working copy files into Visual Studio can be found in the subversion
        help file under the topic 'Invoking the Revision Log Dialog'.
    </p>

</div> <!-- logdialog -->