TortoiseCVS is a

CVS CVS may refer to: Organizations * CVS Health, a US pharmacy chain ** CVS Pharmacy ** CVS Caremark, a prescription benefit management subsidiary * Council for Voluntary Service, England * Cable Video Store, former US pay-per-view service * CVS F ...

client for Microsoft Windows released under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end user In product development, an end user (sometimes end-user) is a person who ultimately uses or is intended to ulti ...

. Unlike most CVS tools, it includes itself in Windows'

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

by adding entries in the

contextual menu A context menu (also called contextual, shortcut, and pop up or pop-up menu) is a menu in a graphical user interface (GUI) that appears upon user interaction, such as a right-click mouse operation. A context menu offers a limited set of choice ...

of the file explorer, therefore it does not run in its own

window A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof, or vehicle that allows the exchange of light and may also allow the passage of sound and sometimes air. Modern windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent mate ...

. Moreover, it adds

icons An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most c ...

onto files and directories controlled by CVS, giving additional information to the user without having to run a full-scale stand-alone application. The name is a pun on the word shell (

computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...

turtle Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked ...

). The

tortoise Tortoises () are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin: ''tortoise''). Like other turtles, tortoises have a shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like ot ...

in the logo is called Charlie Vernon Smythe (CVS). The project was started by

Francis Irving Francis Irving is a British computer programmer, activist for freedom of information and former CEO of ScraperWiki. Francis Irving developed TortoiseCVS. He co-founded Public Whip with Julian Todd and became a developer of the affiliated ...

when he was employed by

Creature Labs Creature often refers to: * An animal, monster, or alien Creature or creatures may also refer to: Film and television * ''Creature'' (1985 film), a 1985 science fiction film by William Malone * ''Creature'' (miniseries), a 1998 TV movie abou ...

to provide a better interface to CVS for his colleagues. Some of the code was derived from WinCVS and

CVSNT CVSNT is a version control system compatible with and originally based on Concurrent Versions System (CVS), but whereas that was popular in the open-source world, CVSNT included features designed for developers working on commercial software inclu ...

. The first release was 4 August 2000.

Criticism

TortoiseCVS will always add argument "-c" to most CVS operations when communicating with a CVS server. This causes standard non-

servers to fail as these are not aware of this argument.

Ports and forks

TortoiseSVN TortoiseSVN is a Subversion client, implemented as a Microsoft Windows shell extension, that helps programmers manage different versions of the source code for their programs. It is free software released under the GNU General Public License. T ...

, a similar tool for use with

Subversion Subversion () refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, hierarchy, and social norms. Sub ...

, inspired by TortoiseCVS * TortoiseDarcs, a similar tool for use with

Darcs Darcs is a distributed version control system created by David Roundy. Key features include the ability to choose which changes to accept from other repositories, interaction with either other local (on-disk) repositories or remote repositories v ...

, derived from TortoiseCVS *

TortoiseBzr GNU Bazaar (formerly Bazaar-NG, command line tool bzr) is a distributed and client–server revision control system sponsored by Canonical. Bazaar can be used by a single developer working on multiple branches of local content, or by teams coll ...

, a similar tool for use with Bazaar, inspired by TortoiseCVS and TortoiseSVN *

TortoiseHg __NOTOC__ TortoiseHg is a GUI front-end for Mercurial that runs on Microsoft Windows (on which it integrates directly with File Explorer), Mac OS X, and Linux. It is written in PyQt (except the Windows shell extension), and the underlying client ...

, a similar tool for

Mercurial Mercurial is a distributed revision control tool for software developers. It is supported on Microsoft Windows and Unix-like systems, such as FreeBSD, macOS, and Linux. Mercurial's major design goals include high performance and scalabilit ...

* TortoiseGit, a port of TortoiseSVN to Git using msysgit * git-cheetah, a similar tool for use with

Git Git () is a distributed version control system: tracking changes in any set of files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development. Its goals include speed, data integ ...

* Dubbelbock TFS is a similar tool for use with

Team Foundation Server Azure DevOps Server (formerly Team Foundation Server (TFS) and Visual Studio Team System (VSTS)) is a Microsoft product that provides version control (either with Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) or Git), reporting, requirements managemen ...

References

External links

* Concurrent Versions System Free version control software Free software programmed in C++ Windows-only free software Version control GUI tools Software that uses wxWidgets {{windows-software-stub