I'm using Visual SVN with Visual Studio 2010 and want to work on a feature branch of my solution. I've read the documentation here and the book regarding branching. I'm new to Visual SVN and seem to be missing the idea of where I should keep my copies of the files I am using to actually develop and compile the different version of my project. I understand that to SVN, the repository basically holds "virtual" copies of the files. Will I need separate local copies so that one folder will contain only those files from the trunk copy and some separate folder will contain the full solution of the branch?
As I understand it, Visual Svn will let me make my local copies wherever I want, but I'm trying to figure out a logical way to do this. If I have two separate folders with these near-identical versions of my app, won't I have two indistinguishable entries in Visual Studio's start menu? They would list different paths if I mouse over it I suppose. Am I missing the point, or do I just feel awkward about the way to do this?
Yes, I think it is only subjective. It was the same for me the first times with SVN, but... Checkout in different folders for trunk and branches (naming each folder in a meaningful way) then create two different desktop shortcut to your different solutions in your different folders and go back to code...