I’m wondering if you use any (graphical) clients to manage your Git, and if so, what client you use.
I myself have to use git professionally across all 3 major OS-es, and I currently use Sourcetree on Windows and macOS, and the Git tools built-in into IntelliJ on Linux.
Have given MaGit a try, but just couldn’t get all the shortcuts to stick in my mind.
Interested to hear your experiences!
Git cola
Off topic: day-after-day with these kinds of posts and especially the replies, I need Reddit less and less. That’s a very good thing.
I use VSCode and SourceGit. SourceGit is similar to Fork (which I’ve used before), but it’s FOSS and cross-platform (Windows/macOS/Linux).
Vscode and gitlens for routine stuff, and then just CLI when push comes to shove and I need some more advanced feature.
Lazy git most of the time, sourcegit for heavy duty stuff.
Is Vscode a git client?
No one take from me though idk what I’m doing when it comes to programming stuff.
It is. Not as advanced as others but it still is nonetheless!
Fork !!!
It’s hands down the best git client.
It’s free as in: sublime text or winzip where they ask you once a month if you want to pay for it but you can just select: I’m still trying it out, and it gets out of your way.
- It’s got a well designed tree graph like in GitKraken except it doesn’t lag
- It’s interactive rebasing is as smooth as JJ / LazyGit, so you can edit/rename/reorder your commits except you don’t have to have to remember CLI flags since it has its own UI
- It’s lets you commit individual lines by selecting them instead of adding/removing whole hunks like Sourcetree except it isn’t filled with paper cuts where a feature breaks in an annoying way for 2 years and you have to do extra steps to keep using it how you want.
And one killer feature that I haven’t seen any other git clients handle: allowing me to stage only one side of the diff. As in: if I change a line (so it shows up as one removed line and one new line in git), I can decide to add the new line change while still keeping the old line.
So changing this:
doThing(1);into this:
doThing(2);Shows up in git as:
- doThing(1); + doThing(2);But if I still want to keep
doThing(1);, I don’t have to go back into my code to retypedoThing(1);, or do any manual copy-pasting. I can just highlight and add onlydoThing(2);to the staging area and discard the change todoThing(1);.So now the code exists as:
doThing(1); doThing(2);Now with a one-liner example like this, we could always re-enter the code again. But for larger code changes? It’s far easier to just highlight the code in the diff and say: yes to this and no to the other stuff.
And when you get used to it, it makes it really easy to split what would be large git commits into smaller related changes keeping your git history clean and easy to understand.
In case you’re interested,
git add <files> -pallows you to do this on the command line. I use it daily.I love Fork, bought the license to support the developer.
The only thing I don’t like is that there is no Linux version, asked the dev and he told me that the issue with Linux is that there are different distros with different GUI libraries so it would require multiple versions for Linux.
A bit saddened it I completely understand.
I paid for it too!
It’s the first piece of shareware I actually went out of my way to pay for because it was so good that I’d be genuinely pissed off if it died. I’d probably end up switching to pijul or something else for my projects if it ever did.
I’ve seen a bunch of people messing the windows version running in linux in the fork forums, so it may be coming in an unsupported capacity.
I’ll second Fork, it’s been my go to for years! Maybe I’ll pay for it one day
Magit is what allowed me to finally commit to switching to Git full time.
It’s such an excellent front-end for Git that I’ve known numerous workmates learn Emacs just to use Magit.
GitKraken ❤️
If not present, vscode + gitlens
i loved fork on windows but i’m too lazy to set up wine to try and get it to work now i just use git cola and the cli.
CLI with some aliases for viewing commit history and branching, or less frequently an IDE plugin
Mostly vscode, and GitHub desktop for projects that I don’t use vscode for. I want to learn how to use the CLI, I just didn’t get around to it yet.
I mostly use git from the console.
- git with a bunch of aliases for common operations and making the log pretty.
- gitk when I need a UI to browse the history
- kdiff3 as mergetool
Lazygit. Used gitui for a long while but lazygit has vim key bindings which is much nicer and it also seems much more stable.
CLI, gitui, SmartGit, various editor integrations when I’m there anyway (VS code, JetBrains)
The CLI is great because it works everywhere, but it’s not the best to review changes before I commit, or to inspect the log, plan merges etc. So I tend to go for more graphical tools for these tasks. Used SmartGit a lot at work. But recently learned about gitui and like its simplicity at times esp when I’m at the command line anyway.
The editor integrations I only really use to commit small changes or switch branches, see if I have changes etc.
