Unfortunately this won’t be the case.

We knew that supporting 1.7 would take more work than previous versions. We described it as “disruptive” but we didn’t anticipate just how disruptive it would be.

The Problem: Incompatible APIs, Performance Regression and SQLite

Subversion 1.7 includes a complete re-write of the code that manages working copies. While the Subversion developers have attempted to hide the differences between the old and new implementations they were unfortunately unable to do so with 100% compatibility.

For example, 1.7’s re-implementation of the working copy status API used by Cornerstone is now 10x slower than the same API in Subversion 1.6. It provides the same output, but what previously completed in 200 ms now take over 2 seconds. We don’t think this kind of performance degredation is acceptable and spent some time migrating Cornerstone to use newer and faster APIs.

But the most disruptive change results from Subversion’s use of SQLite.

Cornerstone makes heavy use of threading – almost all interactions with Subversion take place on background threads to prevent the user interface from blocking – and SQLite places strict constraints on how it’s data structures can (or, more accurately can’t) be shared between threads. As a result, certain data structures that could be shared between threads prior to 1.7 (and had worked absolutely fine in 1.3, 1.4, 1.5 and 1.6) now raise errors as soon as they’re accessed from different threads.

The Solution: Building a Platform for Future Development

We came to the conclusion that we would have to re-think certain core aspects of how Cornerstone interacts with Subversion. The constraints introduced by SQLite make it substantially more complicated to use Subversion’s APIs from multiple threads. We ended up having to re-design the way in which key data structures are allocated and managed by Cornerstone.

This has taken a lot of work. We’ve been working on this at full-tilt for the last four months, dedicating all available resources to re-building key areas of the application to serve as a solid foundation for future development.

We’ve also totally re-written Cornerstone’s security stack to enable this new design, and have done so in a way that enables key improvements such as support for certificate-based authentication and temporary (i.e. non-persistent) credentials.

Finally, we’ve also re-thought how Cornerstone should store its credentials and have replaced key areas of the Subversion authentication stack with alternatives that use the Mac OS X keychain.

These are big and worthwhile improvements. And rather than take shortcuts or rush these changes, we’ll be taking the time to get them right.

We now plan to release Cornerstone 2.7 before the end of February 2012.

Thanks for your patience.

The most significant improvements in 1.7 are:

• Improved Working Copy Metadata Storage

  All versions of Subversion prior to 1.7 have stored housekeeping information about a working copy’s contents in hidden .svn folders distributed throughout the working copy. While not normally visible, these pesky folders have nonetheless been the cause of issues for users. In particular, moving or removing .svn folders (or the folders that contain them) with Finder or Terminal could result in Subversion (and Cornerstone by extension) no longer being able to access that working copy.

  While tools such as Finder and Terminal should still not be used to move and rename working copy items (you should always use Cornerstone or another Subversion app to do so), Subversion should be able to better handle such situations.

  So where did the data in the .svn folders go? It’s still there, but it’s now stored in a single hidden .svn folder at the top of your working copy.

  But what about performance?

  The Subversion developers claim that the new storage format should significantly improve performance. However, our own experience doesn’t support this. If anything, our testing shows 1.7 to be slower than 1.6, with real-world working copies being between 30% and 100% slower than 1.6.

  The bottom line? While the new metadata format in 1.7 should simplify working copy management – and make it more robust – it won’t necessarily be any faster.

• Improved HTTP Performance

  To be honest, Subversion’s HTTP network performance has always been, ahem, less than stellar, particularly on high-latency networks. If you use a hosted Subversion repository on the other side of the planet, then you’ll be accustomed to 3+ second roundtrip times for even the simplest actions, such as listing the contents of a repository folder or comparing a working copy against the repository. And heavyweight actions such as commits and updates can take much longer.

  This poor performance stems from Subversion’s support for the WebDav DeltaV specification. DeltaV’s failure to gain any significant traction meant that the promised inter-operability benefits were never realized, leaving only the overhead of a chatty, complex and inefficient protocol.

  1.7 implements a new, simplified HTTP protocol, which promises to reduce the time it takes to perform most common actions. The catch? You’ll need to upgrade your server to 1.7 so that it can speak this new protocol.

If you are interested in finding out more about Subversion 1.7 then we recommend that you take a look at the Subversion 1.7 release notes.

When Will Cornerstone Support 1.7?

We will roll out full support for 1.7 with the release of Cornerstone 2.7, which we plan to release before the end of 2011.

We have been working with 1.7 for quite some time. While 1.7 is not a particularly significant release in terms of end-user features, it is a disruptive release for Cornerstone. Re-writing – re-architecting even – certain aspects of the application to incorporate Subversion 1.7 is going to take some time, but we believe it will be worth the wait.

What About Cornerstone 1.5?

Active development of Cornerstone 1.x ceased with the release of 1.5 in September 2009, over two years ago.

Much water has flowed under the bridge since then, with over 4,000 changes committed to Cornerstone during the development of 2.0 and the subsequent releases of 2.1, 2.2, 2.5 and 2.6. Cornerstone 2 has diverged so far from 1.5 that it’s impossible for us to target both versions simultaneously with the integration of 1.7.

Therefore we will not be adding 1.7 support to Cornerstone 1, instead concentrating our efforts on getting 1.7 support into the hands of Cornerstone 2 users as soon as possible.

If you are still using Cornerstone 1.x and want to enjoy the benefits of Subversion 1.7 support then you will need to upgrade to Cornerstone 2.

New Features

1. External Merge Tools Can be Used to Resolve Conflicts in Text Files

   Apple FileMerge, Araxis Merge, Deltopia DeltaWalker, SourceGear DiffMerge and Perforce P4Merge can be used to edit and resolve conflicts in text files. Cornerstone will default to using Apple FileMerge, but the user can choose their preferred tool from the Cornerstone preferences in much the same way as was already possible for external compare tools.

   When resolving conflicts using an external tool, My Changes (i.e. .mine) is treated as the original file (normally displayed on the left) and Latest in Repository (i.e. HEAD) is treated as the modified file (displayed on the right).

   The Last Update file (i.e. BASE) is treated as the common ancestor (displayed between or below the other files) and the results of the merge are saved to the working version.

2. Full Screen Mode is Supported on 10.7 Lion

   Cornerstone’s main window now supports full screen mode when running on 10.7 Lion.

   A new Enter Full Screen item was added to View menu (key equivalent Cmd+Ctrl+F). The command, which is disabled on 10.6 Snow Leopard, toggles to Exit Full Screen when the main window is in full screen mode.

3. Full Support Added for File Externals

   Cornerstone has always supported working copies with svn:external folders, and Cornerstone 1.5 improved this support with the addition of the externals editor.

   Cornerstone 2.6 builds on this foundation by adding support for file externals, specifically:

   • The correct status is displayed for file externals in the working copy browser and inspector.
   • A number of issues were fixed that prevented external files from being compared correctly.
   • The externals editor now allows files to be selected from the open panel displayed for the Check out from field (but only from the same repository as the that from which the declaring folder originated).

Performance Improvements

1. Committing Folders Containing a Large Number of Added Files is Now Significantly Faster

   In previous versions of Cornerstone, committing a large number of added files (e.g. 1,000) resulted in a long pause before the commit view was displayed.

   This has been rectified in Cornerstone 2.6.

2. Working Copy Refresh Performance was Improved

   The performance of working copy status checks performed whenever Cornerstone performs or detects a change in a working copy was improved by about 20%.

   This may not be noticeable on newer Macs but should be significant on Macs with slower processors.

Usability Improvements

1. Unversioned items can now be committed when selected

   Previously, the commit command was disabled when an unversioned item was selected. This is no longer the case.

2. Name field was added to the Repository Status section of the Inspector

   A new Name field was added to the Repository Status section of the Inspector displayed for working copy items. This displays the name of the selected item in the repository, which may differ from the name of the item on the local file system.

3. Added Copy URL menu alternate to source list’s working copy menu

   Holding down the Option key when the source list’s working copy context menu is displayed causes the Copy Path menu item to be replaced by Copy URL.

   This command can be used to copy the complete URL for the working copy to the clipboard for pasting to another application.

Compatibility

Cornerstone is compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and 10.7 Lion. Note that 2.6 is not compatible with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

Cornerstone 2.6 is fully backwards-compatible with 1.5 and 2.5. All configuration and settings are transparently migrated to version 2.6 when the new version is run for the first time.

The Cornerstone 2 configuration databases are forward-compatible with 1.5, i.e. you can run versions 1.5, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.5 and 2.6 against the same configuration databases in your Application Support/Cornerstone folder.

Resolved Issues

• It should be possible to open conflicted files in FileMerge to perform a 3-way merge for conflict resolution. (#948)
• Cornerstone crashes due to a Subversion assert when a server name containing upper case characters is entered in the “Add Repository” window. (#983)
• Cornerstone’s main window should support full screen mode on 10.7 Lion. (#1183)
• Information inspector pane incorrectly displays a gutter for the vertical scroller when running on 10.7 Lion. (#1189)
• Cornerstone is very slow to display the commit view when the selected change set contains a large number of unversioned files. (#1191)
• The Commit command is disabled when an unversioned file is selected, even if the “Before committing…” preference is set to automatically add unversioned files to the working copy. (#1194)
• Cornerstone’s externals functionality should be improved to provide full support for individual file externals. (#1195)
• Renaming or moving an external folder results in an error. The rename and move commands should be disabled for external folders. (#1197)
• An error is displayed when right-clicking a repository item displayed in the working copy browser that doesn’t exist locally when “Show Repository Status” is enabled. (#1200)
• The original name of a working copy item in the repository should be visible in the Inspector. (#1209)
• Layout of the Lock window is irreversibly broken when the window is reduced to a small size. (#1211)
• Attempting to overwrite a folder under version control (e.g. by dragging a folder onto Cornerstone from Finder) results in an overwrite prompt being repeatedly displayed. (#1212)
• Pasting file:/// into the Add Repository sheet results in the path popup field displaying “Macintosh HD – (null)” (#1213)

See Release Notes for 2.5 for more information on the new features and improvements introduced with 2.5.

Resolved Issues

• Issue tracking numbers are not formatted as URLs in history view for working copy files checked out using a URL that differs from the repository used to define the number rules. (#640)
• It should be possible to define user properties that include “svn” in the prefix e.g. tsvn:autoprops. (#1192)
• Open panel exhibits visual artifacts in the lower corners on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. (#1198)
• Revision numbers are parsed incorrectly on Macs configured to use commas as decimal point separators (e.g. in Germany) (#1201)
• Revision numbers are not formatted using the thousand separator as specified by the user’s “Language and Text” system preferences (#1206)

See Release Notes for 2.5 for more information on the new features and improvements introduced with 2.5.

Resolved Issues

Please note that the following restrictions apply:

• Full Licenses Only

  The discount only applies to full licenses. The pricing remains the same for upgrade licenses.

• Volume Discounts

  We are not offering volume discounts on full Cornerstone 2 licenses while this offer is valid. Volume discounts remain in effect for upgrade licenses.

• Other Discounts and Offers

  We are also not offering student or non-profit discounts on Cornerstone 2 licenses while this offer is valid. However, student and non-profit discounts are still available for upgrade licenses.

  Other offers valid during August 2011 are also limited to upgrade licenses.

It is our policy to support the current and previous versions of OS X in any given release. For example, Cornerstone versions 1.0-1.1 supported 10.4 Tiger & 10.5 Leopard, while 2.0-2.2 supported 10.5 Leopard & 10.6 Snow Leopard.

1.5 and 2.5 were exceptions to this rule. Both were released on the cusp of a new Mac OS X version and provided simultaneous support for three versions of OS X: 10.4-10.6 with 1.5 and 10.5-10.7 with 2.5.

We believe that this policy represents a good compromise between supporting older operating system versions and simultaneously allowing us to migrate to newer tools and keep Cornerstone up-to-date. Unfortunately, it can’t be achieved without leaving something behind.

So, now that 10.7 Lion is here we will be making the next step by dropping support for 10.5 Leopard in the next 2.x update. As a consequence, we will also be dropping support for Macs with PowerPC processors.

We believe that very few Cornerstone users will be impacted by this change. Currently less than 3% of visitors to zennaware.com are running 10.5 Leopard and we think this number will decrease very rapidly as 10.7 Lion is adopted (already almost 30% of visitors are running 10.7 Lion).

However, we do understand that some users will continue to need a version of Cornerstone that runs on 10.5 Leopard. For this reason we will be making 2.5.x available for download from the Cornerstone support page, in the same way as we do with 1.5.

We will continue to support Leopard with 2.5.x maintenance updates up until the release of the next 2.x update.

Future versions of Cornerstone will be Intel-only and will be better for it — removing the PowerPC code means smaller downloads and potentially faster launch times — but we can’t help feeling a little nostalgic.

Leaving the PowerPC behind marks the end of an era.

So long PPC. So long Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

We’re really exited to announce that Zennaware is sponsoring this year’s uDevGames contest.

There is a great selection of prizes available and the lucky winner will win a 5-user license for Cornerstone 2!

Other fantastic prizes include BBEdit and Yojimbo from Bare Bones, Reason from Propellerhead and OmniFocus and OmniGraffle from Omni Group.

What is uDevGames? In their own words:

The uDevGames contest is iDevGames’ unique grass-roots game creation contest, established in 2001 to encourage Macintosh game development, and to recognize the best and most innovative developers in the community.

We think it’s a great idea and are proud to be a part of it in our own small way.

Check out the uDevGames site for more information.

New Features

1. Fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

   In addition to 10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard, Cornerstone 2.5 now adds full support for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.

   Cornerstone’s user interface was also tweaked for Lion. Certain user interface elements are rendered differently under Lion for consistency with the operating system’s UI conventions. (#1169)

2. Inspector’s Properties tab now shows property modifications

   The Inspector’s Properties tab now displays small pop-up buttons for properties which have been modified, i.e. that have a value that differs from the BASE revision.

   Clicking the pop-up button reveals a menu that currently contains a single item: Revert to Last Update. Selecting Revert to Last Update functions as you would expect: it replaces the value in the property’s field with that from the BASE revision.

   Clicking the Save Changes button at the bottom of the Inspector saves the reverted value back to Subversion.

   Note that these improvements also fully support multiple selection, enabling you to see and revert property modifications for multiple files at once. (#1087)

3. Significantly improved support for commit scripts

   Cornerstone has been able to run user-defined scripts after a commit since version 1.1. Cornerstone 2.5 builds on this by adding support for running scripts before a commit as well.

   In total, Cornerstone now supports running scripts at 3 different points during the commit process:

   1. Prepare Scripts

      Prepare scripts are run during the commit preparation phase that starts when the user selects Commit from the menu or toolbar and ends with the display of the commit view to the user.

      Prepare scripts can be used to make modifications to the working copy before a commit is initiated. For example, a shell script might use the ditto command to archive a package-format document to a Zip file that is under version control, thus circumventing issues with .svn folders in packages.

      Cornerstone will pick up modifications made to the working copy by a prepare script and update the candidate list displayed in the commit view accordingly.

      Prepare scripts can be run in two different ways: once for the entire working copy, or once for each candidate item.

      A single application-wide prepare script may be specified in Cornerstone’s Working Copies preference pane.

   2. Pre-Commit Scripts

      Pre-commit scripts are run immediately after the user clicks Commit Changes in the commit view.

      As with prepare scripts, pre-commit scripts can either be run once for the entire working copy or once for each checked item in the commit view.

      Pre-commit scripts are configured in the commit view and are stored per working copy.

   3. Post-Commit Scripts

      Post-commit scripts (as previously supported since Cornerstone 1.1) are run after the Subversion commit operation completes successfully. Post-commit scripts are not run if no files are committed or the commit operation fails.

      Cornerstone’s post-commit script support was improved in Cornerstone 2.5 to enable the same two modes supported by prepare and pre-commit scripts: scripts can be run once per working copy or once per committed item.

      The default mode remains once per working copy for backward compatibility with previous versions.

   All of the above script types support the following formats:

   • AppleScript
   • Perl
   • Python
   • Unix Shell Script
   • Automator Action

   Why would you want to run a script at commit time? Real-world examples include:

   • Zipping up unpacked package-format documents (prepare script).

   • Validating a working copy’s contents, e.g. ensuring that temporary debugging code such as NSLog is removed (prepare script).

   • Re-generating image thumbnails for storage as custom properties for files selected in the commit view (pre-commit script).

   • Setting or modifying Subversion properties on working copy files and folders (prepare or pre-commit script).

   • Copying the log message for the commit to the clipboard (post-commit script).

   • Appending the log message for the commit to a README file (post-commit script).

   • Informing team members about the commit via email (post-commit script).

   The Cornerstone help book (Help > Cornerstone Help) contains a new section on commit actions that includes a number of example scripts to help get you started.

   (#686)

Performance Improvements

1. Performance when switching from between views in the externals window was improved

   Cornerstone 2.2 and earlier exhibited a slight delay when switching from the Definition List view to Property Text view in the externals window. This was most noticeable for svn:externals properties that contain a large number of external definitions.

   Cornerstone 2.5 contains performance improvements such that switching is now immediate when the window’s contents have not been modified.

Usability Improvements

1. Streamlined source list

   Cornerstone’s source list (or sidebar) was streamlined to reduce visual clutter and to improve the visual coherence of the list’s working copy, repository and activity panes.

   The separator between the working copy and repository panes was also removed. The size of the repository pane can now be changed by dragging the header directly.

2. Working copy option icons were improved

   The icons displayed in the option toggle buttons at the bottom of the working copy browser were improved.

   The new icons are more informative (particularly the icons for Show Repository Status and Show Contents of Externals) and exhibit consistent size and weight. The icons also utilize more negative space resulting in ‘lighter’ icons providing less potential for distraction.

3. Import now supports importing multiple files

   Prior to 2.5, Cornerstone could only import a single file or folder in a single import operation. This restriction was removed in Cornerstone 2.5 which can now import multiple files and folders in a single import. This applies both when using the Import command and when dragging items from Finder.

   Subversion is still limited to single-file imports, but Cornerstone works around this limitation by performing multiple import operations in sequence. While the user will only be prompted for a log message once, it is important to realize that a unique revision will nonetheless be created for each item imported.

   Some import options (e.g. importing with a different name, checking out after import) are not supported when importing multiple items.

   (#305, #1074)

4. Source list can how be hidden

   Cornerstone’s source list can now be hidden (and re-displayed) using the new Hide Source List and Show Source List commands in the View menu (key equivalent Cmd+Option+S).

   Cornerstone’s status bar also contains a new button that toggles visibility of the source list.

   Hiding the source list is a useful way to increase the screen area available to views such as the compare view without having to resize the application’s window. (#508)

5. Padlock icon displayed in window title bar for secure connections

   Cornerstone now displays a padlock icon in the main window’s title bar for repositories and working copies that connect using https or tunnel the svn protocol through SSH (i.e. svn+ssh).

   The padlock is not displayed for connections using SASL because Cornerstone is unable to determine a) that SASL is being used, and b) whether the mechanism negotiated by the client and server provides data confidentiality through encryption.

   The padlock is also not displayed for svn connections using custom tunnels.

6. Preference added to optionally clear log message after committing

   The Clear log message after commit preference was added to the Working Copies pane of the preferences window.

   Enabling this option prevents Cornerstone from retaining the previously-entered log message and suggesting it as the default when the commit view is displayed for the next commit.

   This behavior is disabled by default for compatibility with previous versions of Cornerstone. (#1160)

7. Preference added to control whether empty log messages are allowed

   Cornerstone 2.5 allows you to control whether empty log messages are permitted when committing.

   The new preference — Allow commits with empty log messages — results in a prompt when disabled if the commit view’s log message field is empty when Commit Changes is clicked.

   This option is disabled by default meaning that Cornerstone does not allow commits with empty log messages. This represents a change in behavior from previous versions of Cornerstone.

8. Activity pane now provides more detailed information on commit progress

   In previous versions of Cornerstone the user had to switch to the transcript view to see information on the progress of a commit operation. There was also no indication of how much of the commit operation was already complete.

   Cornerstone 2.5 includes the following improvements to provide more feedback on a commit operation’s progress:

   1. A textual description of each step of the commit process is diplayed in the Activity pane.

   2. Pie chart-style progress information is displayed in the Activity pane for multi-file commit operations.

   (#1164)

9. Button added to activity pane for switching to transcript

   The Activity pane now contains a button that shows the transcript for the current activity. When clicked, the relevant working copy/repository is selected in the source list and the item’s transcript is displayed. (#1041)

10. Columns in the repository and working copy browser views can now be hidden

    Right-clicking the header area of the browser’s outline view now displays a context menu containing a list of the view’s columns. The menu can be used to toggle the columns’ visibility.

    Like column ordering, visibility is saved between application sessions and restored when Cornerstone is restarted. (#642)

11. Match Text… command added to Filter menu

    The View > Filter menu now has a new command: Match Text… that sets focus to the view’s text filter field. This command is supported by the following views and windows:

    • Working copy browser
    • Repository browser
    • Log view
    • Externals editor

    The key equivalent for View > Filter > Match Text… is Cmd+Option+F.

    (#1166)

12. Chase Output option removed from Transcript menu

    Previous versions of Cornerstone provided the Chase Output option to enable the user to control whether the transcript view automatically scrolled to display newly-added entries.

    Both the menu item and the corresponding button at the bottom of the transcript view were removed in version 2.5.

    Cornerstone now automatically determines whether to scroll based on whether the last entry was previously visible. This behavior is more intuitive and is consistent with other applications such as Xcode and Terminal.

13. Text can be copied from revision fields in read-only externals editors

    Externals editors opened directly from the repository browser are read-only. In previous versions of Cornerstone, the editor’s revision fields were disabled. As a result, revision text could not be copied out of these fields.

    The externals editor was improved in Cornerstone 2.5 to allow text to be copied from revision fields even when the editor is read-only.

Compatibility

1. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, 10.6 Snow Leopard and 10.7 Lion

   Cornerstone 2.5 is compatible with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, 10.6 Snow Leopard and 10.7 Lion.

   Both Intel and PowerPC processors are supported on Leopard. Only Intel processors are supported on Snow Leopard and Lion.

Compatibility

Backwards Compatibility

Cornerstone 2.5 is fully backwards-compatible with 1.5 and 2.2. All configuration and settings are transparently migrated to version 2 when the new version is run for the first time.

Forwards Compatibility

The Cornerstone 2 configuration databases are forward-compatible with 1.5, i.e. you can run versions 1.5, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2 and 2.5 against the same configuration databases in your Application Support/Cornerstone folder.

Issues Resolved in Cornerstone 2.5

Improved compatibility with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.