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All you programmers are spoiled with an organized development cycle.

Is there any version control designer-type solution for keeping track of multiple editors?

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  • Why is someone voting down all the answers?
    – Josh Hunt
    Jul 18, 2009 at 10:41
  • 8
    Probably someone attempting to vote competitively...n00bs tend to do it before they realize it is futile.
    – Aiden Bell
    Jul 18, 2009 at 10:53
  • yeah that's really annoying.
    – Charlls
    Jul 18, 2009 at 19:14

8 Answers 8

11

Subversion can be used for "designer" files/documents as well. It keeps track of versions, alterations and updates in files as you and your colleagues work on them.

You can organize your projects in a single repository as folder structure in multiple repositories. There are some free client tools out there, like TortoiseSVN for Windows or SVNX for Mac OS X.

Here is a tutorial to Subversion written from a designer's perspective: Subversion Workflow For Designers

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Subversion is not just for programmers!

Subversion (or any other version control system) works with any file format, but it can only merge and provide diffs text files (such as .html, .css and .js).

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  • 1
    Note that subversion is a particularly good choice for designers because of its excellent handling of binary files. Aug 27, 2009 at 6:27
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Thare are some nice tutorial about Git for designers.

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  • -1 because the question was specifically about Subversion
    – bortzmeyer
    Jul 18, 2009 at 17:32
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    This question is not about svn. Quoting OP: Is there any version control designer-type solution for keeping track of multiple editors... I think he's asking how to use svn or something similar (source control?) for designers. Jul 18, 2009 at 23:48
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You can use any existing version control such as Git, Subversion and others for managing revisions for design work.

This works best with:

  1. Text-based design such as XML-based files
  2. HTML and other design work

When working with binary files such as images, flash compilations and other, you can manage version but you won't be able to do diffs and merge changes.

Were not spoiled, we just see everything as a sequence of bits!

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  • 2
    If you use TortoiseSVN as a client, there is support for limited diffing of image files - in so much as it'll show you the two versions side by side. Likewise if you've got Word files in your Subversion repo, Tortoise will pass the two versions you're diffing to Word, which has the ability to show differences between two versions of the same document.
    – Sliff
    Jul 18, 2009 at 11:45
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If you are on a mac you might want to look into Versions. It is a subversion application that has won an apple design award and is the best looking piece if version control software I have seen or used.

It doesn't hide subversion from you if that is what you are after, but designers should enjoy using it, or find it at least bearable if they are anti-version control.

If also makes making a local or shared repository as simple as file > new repository.

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You didn't mention your operating system, but for Windows I know FileHamster is designed with designers in mind.

I've had no experience with it, just heard of it. Not sure if it is geared to be a mission critical robust revision control system, or more something like Time Machine on the Mac. YMMV.

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I will say, consider your audience carefully. Most of my experiences with trying to get a group of designers to use version control have ended badly. Their brains just don't work in the same way as a developer.

Consider the mindset of your designers, and be flexible with considering other models, such as maybe having a couple tech-savvy designers act as the gatekeepers for those that would wish to avoid version control. Obviously there's scaling problems with that approach, but there's also problems with forcing version control on people who haven't bought into it and will likely ignore it.

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For an easy to use personal version control system I suggest FileHamster and software I wrote called FolderTrack (www.foldertrack.com) It will work with multiple editors.

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