This book is written for computer-literate folk who want to use Subversion to manage their data, but prefer to use a GUI client rather than a command line client. TortoiseSVN is a windows shell extension and it is assumed that the user is familiar with the windows explorer and how to use it.

This Preface explains what TortoiseSVN is, a little about the TortoiseSVN project and the community of people who work on it, and the licensing conditions for using it and distributing it.

The Chapter 1, Getting Started explains how to install TortoiseSVN on your PC, and how to start using it straight away.

In Chapter 2, Basic Version-Control Concepts we give a short introduction to the Subversion revision control system which underlies TortoiseSVN. This is borrowed from the documentation for the Subversion project and explains the different approaches to version control, and how Subversion works.

The chapter on Chapter 3, The Repository explains how to set up a local repository, which is useful for testing Subversion and TortoiseSVN using a single PC. It also explains a bit about repository administration which is also relevant to repositories located on a server. There is also a section here on how to setup a server if you need one.

The Chapter 4, Daily Use Guide is the most important section as it explains all the main features of TortoiseSVN and how to use them. It takes the form of a tutorial, starting with checking out a working copy, modifying it, committing your changes, etc. It then progresses to more advanced topics.

Chapter 5, The SubWCRev Program is a separate program included with TortoiseSVN which can extract the information from your working copy and write it into a file. This is useful for including build information in your projects.

The Appendix B, How Do I... section answers some common questions about performing tasks which are not explicitly covered elsewhere.

The section on Appendix D, Automating TortoiseSVN shows how the TortoiseSVN GUI dialogs can be called from the command line. This is useful for scripting where you still need user interaction.

The Appendix E, Command Line Interface Cross Reference give a correlation between TortoiseSVN commands and their equivalents in the Subversion command line client svn.exe.