Android Setup Guide: Installing and Configuring Eclipse’s Subversion (SVN) Plug-in (part 2)

Adding the Subversion (SVN) Plug-in to Eclipse

You will most likely want to use a version control system for managing the source code in your project. This set of instructions will step you through adding the Subversion plug-in to your existing Eclipse installation.

1. Start up the Eclipse IDE if you haven’t already done so.
2. Go to the “Help” menu again and select “Install New Software…” from the drop down.
3. In the “Work With” drop down, select the “Indigo” source (or whatever is the name of your release).
4. The list below will populate. Scroll up and expand the “Collaboration” section.
5. Place a check in the selection box next to “Subversion SVN Team Provider (Incubation)”.
6. Click “Next” and then click “Next” again at the confirmation page.
7. Accept the license agreement. Now click “Finish”. Wait for a bit while the plug-in is downloaded and installed.
8. Restart Eclipse when you are prompted to do so.
9. Go to the “Window” menu and select “Open Perspective” from the drop down. Then click “Other…”
10. Pick “SVN Repository Exploring” from the list and click on “OK”.
11. Place a checkbox next to “SVN Kit 1.3.5” in the next window. Then click “Finish”.
12. Click “Next” and then click “Next” again at the confirmation page.
13. Accept the license agreement. Now click “Finish”. Wait for a bit while the plug-in is downloaded and installed.
14. Restart Eclipse when you are prompted to do so.
15. You should now have a Subversion view available in addition to the normal Java view. Look in the top-right hand corner of the Eclipse window. You will see the current view, along with a small >> button to select other views.

Connecting the Eclipse SVN Plug-in to Your Repository

This step assumes you already have Subversion hosting provided to you. If you do not, you can create a free account for open-source projects through a website such as Google Code (http://code.google.com/) or SourceForge (http://www.sourceforge.net/). You can also run one on your own server, or use services provided by a hosting company to set one up. Doing this is outside the scope of this document, however.

1. When you are in the Subversion view inside of Eclipse, you should have a windows/tab called “SVN Repository Browser” located at the bottom of the screen (unless you closed or moved it).
2. In that window, right click and select “New” from the drop down menu, then click “Repository Location…”
3. If you are using Google Code, in the URL field, enter the URL https://PROJECTNAME.googlecode.com/svn/ where PROJECTNAME is changed to the unique name of your Google Code project. If you aren’t using Google Code, your Subversion host will have provided you with the correct URL.
4. Fill in the “Username” field. If you are using Google Code, this is something like YOURNAME@gmail.com.
5. Fill in the “Password” field. If you are using Google Code, your password is not your Google account password, but a different one that can be found at https://code.google.com/hosting/settings.
6. Check the box next to “Save Authentication” and “Validate Repository on Finish”.
7. Click “Finish” to complete this step.
8. Your repository should show up in the left hand side of the screen. Expand it to see the contents.

Note: Only follow the next two instructions if you do NOT want to create a specific Eclipse project for the repository you just checked out. This is likely not the case, so move on to the next part of this guide.

1. Right click on the root node of the tree (the repo URL) and click on “Check-out” to download the contents of the repo to your local workspace.
2. Now when you right click on the root node, you can go to the “Team” sub-menu which will contain all of the SVN functions such as “Commit”, “Update” and more!