SVN, Subversion, is a program for managing revisions (or versions) of software. In the way we will be using it, every time the zenphoto developers release a new version on their website, they tag that code in their svn repository. We can then check out that code. Then when they tag a new version, svn only downloads the changed parts of the files and merges them into the files in our local copy. This is great because we can also make our own modifications to the code (eg. Add themes, or more serious modifications) and the updates will be applied around our modifications. If we modified a file and then the same lines were later updated, svn tells us about the problem and asks us to fix it manually. So basically, you can continue to keep Zenphoto up to date without having to download the full version, unzip it, copy and paste files and folders around – it’s just one command!

First, check out the latest tagged version. This should be tagged as http://www.zenphoto.org/svn/tags/latest.version/ – you can see for yourself by visiting http://www.zenphoto.org/svn/tags/ eg.

$ svn co http://www.zenphoto.org/svn/tags/1.1.6/

If the latest version isn’t tagged, get onto the zenphoto developers via their forums. Every released version should be tagged!

Then, every time a new version is released, switch to the latest tag.

$ svn switch http://www.zenphoto.org/svn/tags/1.1.7/

Things that are as easy as this make me happy

To convert from an existing installation of zenphoto, rename your zenphoto directory to something else eg. photos.old, then make a new photos directory and check out the code into it. Then copy over your modifications, photos, etc.

The one problem I have with that guide is that it directs users to use the trunk version of Wordpress from SVN – this is in fact very dangerous and can cause all sorts of pain.

I would instead recommend users

$ svn co http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/tags/2.0.7

and then when a new version comes out,

$ svn switch http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/tags/newversion

Granted, this takes a little more time and thought than just using trunk, but it’s well worth it!

It’d be even better if the Wordpress SVN had a stable/release tag for users to use, and as such I have opened a trac ticket requesting this. (I’m not very familiar with trac, but it seemed easy enough.)