The Subversive plugin (or Subclipse, see the www.eclipse.org Web site) provides Subversion (SVN) integration for the IDE. The SVN plugin gives you the ability to work with this version-control system from the IDE workbench.
The SVN Repository Exploring perspective in the IDE workbench lets you bring code from SVN into your IDE workspace. Other developers can then make updates the source in SVN while you're working on a file. The SVN Repository Exploring perspective lets you easily check your modified code back into SVN, and the IDE helps you synchronize with SVN to resolve any conflicts you might encounter.
Disconnecting a checked-out project
If you use SVN with a currently checked-out project, you can disconnect from that project if you wish. For example, if you have a project checked out by another Eclipse SVN plug-in and you want to work with it, you'll need to disconnect before you can continue.
To disconnect, select the project and click , and then select Do not delete the SVN meta information in the Disconnect dialog so that the SVN working copy won't be deleted. As a result, you can use this working copy later with SVN and avoid the re-checkout process. Now, you can connect the project to the repository using SVN. Select the project and click . Select the SVN provider from the Share Project wizard; later you'll be prompted to choose the SVN location.
Automatically connecting to SVN
If you have project checked out by another SVN client (i.e. the project contains .svn folders), you can import it directly into your workspace, which causes an automatic connection to SVN if the appropriate SVN location is found. To import a project into your workspace, select , expand General and select Existing projects into Workspace. Browse to the location of the project and select it.
If you edit a file outside of the IDE, the SVN plugin doesn't see the file changes. To refresh the file(s), you'll need to highlight the project node, and then press F5.