I need a version control system. Not for coding but for paper writing, especially for collaborative writing. From time to time I need to work with peers and send revised drafts back and forth. Those drafts usually wind up as a bunch of files having similar filenames but with different dates appended. Some documents are similar while some are dramatically changed. However, I can't tell the change merely from their names. Sometimes I work on the same paper using different computers. Usually I keep the latest copy on my flash drive and email myself a latest version. It is very tedious and I still have the problem with naming files.
Archiving those files is another issue. I usually keep all versions of draft. But the filenames with dates do not make much sense--I can check the file dates embedded in file info easily. Obviously I need more informative file names. But is it realistic to name a file as "2nd_paragraph_deleted_methods_rewritten_blah.doc?" I doubt so.
I'm wondering if there is such a version control system can satisfy my needs. I want to keep track of all the changes I've made. I want to be able to see the revisions with ease. I hope it can support multiple users. It should be an online platform that I can access anywhere. If it has clients, I hope they can work both on Mac and Windows. I don't mind complex installing procedure as long as it is easy to use. If you know of anything close to it, please let me know. I really appreciate it.
maybe you can try docs.google.com . it's good for document updating and sharing. you can upload your docs to google docs and edit online using google editor, and invite others to view or edit them.
The only missing point is, I do not see any version-control related functions. seems only one latest version for the doc is kept.
fishee, thanks a lot for your suggestion. My team have been using Google Doc for a while. We work on some documents collaboratively on it. Google Doc can keep a record of revisions but not in separate documents. As you point out, it displays only the latest version. I think the main drawback (also, a big advantage) of Google Doc is that it's web-based. Given the unstable access I have in different locations, I can't fully work on a Web-based word processing application. Still, thank you so much for the input!
You may check out CVS or SVN. They are not just for programmers only.
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