# 1. Preface

## 1.1. Audience

This book is written for computer literate folk who want to use Mercurial to manage their data, but are uncomfortable using the command line client to do so. Since TortoiseHg is a Windows shell extension it’s assumed that the user is familiar with the Windows explorer and knows how to use it.

You can find the most up to date version of this documentation at our web site.

## 1.2. Reading guide

This Preface explains a little about the TortoiseHg project, the community of people who work on it, and the licensing conditions for using it and distributing it.

The Introduction explains what TortoiseHg is, what it does, where it comes from and the basics for installing it on your PC.

A Quick Start Guide to TortoiseHg is a quick tutorial on how to start with TortoiseHg.

TortoiseHg in daily use is the main chapter, it describes the frequently used components of TortoiseHg.

Settings describes how to configure TortoiseHg.

Use with other VCS systems describes how to use TortoiseHg as a client for non-Mercurial servers.

Frequently Asked Questions has a list of common questions and their answers.

Debugging describes how to debug any problems that you find.

## 1.3. TortoiseHg is free!

TortoiseHg is released under GPLv2. You are free to install it on as many computers as you like, and to redistribute it according to the GPLv2 license.

## 1.4. Community

Mailing List:

    `Developers <thg-dev@googlegroups.com>`_ - Patches, bug reports, development discussions.

And our wiki on Bitbucket.

## 1.5. Acknowledgements

Thanks to the many people who contribute to the TortoiseHg project. It takes a community of developers, translators, and users to build a truly useful tool (especially users who care enough to report bugs and file feature requests).

The TortoiseHg installer for Windows includes the TortoiseOverlays handler, as provided by the TortoiseSVN project.

The history viewer of TortoiseHg is based on hgview, a tool developed by David Douard and others, with the financial support of Logilab.

## 1.6. Conventions used in this manual

The following typographical conventions are used in this manual:

`Ctrl`-`A`

  Indicates a key, or combination of keys, to press.

Commit

  Indicates a label, button or anything that appears in user interfaces.

TortoiseHg… ‣ About

  Indicates a menu choice, or a combination of menu choice, tab selection and GUI label. For example TortoiseHg… ‣ Global settings ‣ Commit ‣ User name means do something in User name label under Commit tab selectable from the menu choice TortoiseHg… ‣ Global settings.

`.hg/hgrc`

  Indicates a filename or directory name.

thg log

  Indicates a command to enter into command window.

`myproxy:8000`

  Indicates a text to enter into a text input field in the GUI.

Note

This is a note.

Warning

An important note. Pay attention.