When working on programming projects as a group--particularly when the group is spread out across multiple locations--there needs to be a way to check code out of a repository, work on it, and then check it back into that repository. There are two main free technologies being used for this kind of activity--SVN (Subversion) and CVS (concurrent versions system).

CVS can be managed from the command line, but for non-techies this can be daunting. There are a number of software solutions that make it easier to check code out from CVS. Lets look at SmartCVS. There is a basic version of the software that is free to download and use.

We are going to check out Drupal HEAD (currently the unreleased version of Drupal 6) as the example check out. This also gives the option to go bug hunting--if that is something you want to engage in.

1. After you have downloaded SmartCVS, fire it up.
2. From the "Project" menu, choose "Check Out".
3. Click on "Manage" in this window.
4. Click on "Add".
5. You are going to be doing an anonymous checkout, so the username is "anonymous" as is the password.
6. Leave "pserver" selected and the server will be cvs.drupal.org and the repository will be /cvs/drupal
7. After setting up your repository settings, click "Next" on the "Check Out Project" window.
8. Click next and choose a directory to dump the check out into. I use the htdocs directory in MAMP.
9. Click "Next".
10. Leave the setting on the next page as "Default"
11. Click "Next".
12. Give the project a name.
13. Click "Next".
14. Click Finish, and the files will begin to check out of the repository and load onto your local environment.

That's it.