WHY iVersionIt WAS CREATED

Version Control ReImagined

 

Although we had an idea of what the perfect versioning app would need to do, Ken Whitaker decided to write a fifth book called Version Control for Creative Professionals that attempted to simplify how non-programmers could use Git (a very popular shareware versioning tool):

 

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After writing and illustrating over 50 pages Ken simply stopped. Attempting to simplify the complexity of Git was plain difficult.  Great for software engineers, not so great for creative professionals. Rather than design outward with a host of features hoping customers would like it, the opposite approach was taken.

 

Spresso iVersionIt was designed based on how a customer, a non-sophisticated one at that, would want version control to work. The app's design goals are simple:

 

• No command line complexity, one main screen is all with big buttons.
• Auto-numbered version backups with your description makes it easy to identify what is in each version backup.
• A simple way to recover if you restore the wrong version backup.
• Since most of us work on more than one project at a time, make it easy to switch between projects being versioned.
• The app should be easy to self-manage and available on either Windows or macOS.

 

So, that's dandy. What's the catch? There’s only one. It is the customer's responsibility to make sure that all of a project's assets (files, directories, ...) reside under one project folder. That’s it. (By the way, Git and SVN require the same thing.)

 

 

How Long Has iVersionIt Been Around?

Being a programmer, the app was originally designed in late 2012 while on an extended trip back in Asheville, North Carolina. The initial working edition was completed in Seattle, Washington.

 

So why hasn’t it been released? Ken has been doing testing, testing, and even more testing while using it on his own Upwork and personal projects. (A versioning app that safeguards your digital stuff must be completely reliable.)

Does the App Really Work?

 

In a recent role as editor of Better Software magazine, Ken used the pre-release Spresso iVersionIt since 2014 to keep track of changes for each article and all of its supporting files (at least four milestones for each article).

 

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