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Gitbox 1.0 released: a version control app for Mac

gitboxapp.com

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Re: Gitbox 1.0 released: a version control app for Mac

#51

Post by oleganza »

carterschonwald wrote: post #49
oleganza wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gitbox is superior to what you have today. Very common things like commiting and checking the status and log are much faster and cleaner than in the command line or GitX. It is easier to extract a file from history, compare and manage the branches. You also pay for a level of attention to details in Gitbox, I explain it here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1944698

One thing I notice is that gitbox seems to have a persistent notion of which repositories it cares about. This will not work well with how I (and presumably many other folks) use git/hg/et al. Namely, for every little project with writing (latex) or programming (in some language), I create a repo. Over the course of a given year, this means easily 50+ repos, some short lived, some that I use for quite a while. I do n…

I understand the limitations of the current sidebar design. This will be improved over time.

Regarding smartgit: it is simply not for the people I'm trying to work for. It looks and feels like another scary development tool you should have a commitment with. I'm okay to have such tools if it is worth it. In case of version control, the app should be a simple small appliance which does not grab a lot of your attention.

I can try to understand how Linus spends a lot of time with git merging all the patches for his projects. He really needs to care about version control and browsing all the tiny details. For the rest of us, we work with code, graphics, but not with merges and versions. We should spend more time in Xcode and Photoshop than in any version control app. Smartgit is for guys like Linus, Gitbox is for everyone else.

Re: Gitbox 1.0 released: a version control app for Mac

#52

Post by oleganza »

oleganza wrote: post #45
dchest wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ZIP on OS X supports symlinks.

I couldn't get it store hardlinks properly (using ditto). Do you know how to fix that?

corprew: the situation with hardlinks and the app size will improve over time. I just had a lot of more important things to do.

(sorry, cannot reply to you directly: no reply link)

Re: Gitbox 1.0 released: a version control app for Mac

#53

Post by rchowe »

oleganza wrote: post #26
to wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

agreed. i dont know why one would pay 40 bucks for an app that already exists for free.

Gitbox is superior to what you have today. Very common things like commiting and checking the status and log are much faster and cleaner than in the command line or GitX. It is easier to extract a file from history, compare and manage the branches. You also pay for a level of attention to details in Gitbox, I explain it here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1944698

The question is, are you going to be using your GUI in addition to or instead of the command line. GitX fits into my thinking as a supplement to the command line (I'd never create a repository or commit with it, I just look at the graph and changes), while Gitbox could be a replacement for using the command line on OS X... I just think it needs a graph like GitX (and every other git GUI tool) and it needs to act a little more like Versions.app, which gives the impression that it's not just a few simple tasks for repositories, but the all-in-one experience.

Re: Gitbox 1.0 released: a version control app for Mac

#54

Post by oleganza »

defroost wrote: post #47
phsr wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Very common things like commiting and checking the status and log are much faster and cleaner than in the command line... git st, git add ., git ci seem pretty quick to me. I set aliases for status to st and commit to ci, but tab completion work pretty well. I've been stepping away from GUIs lately when the command line is available. It's quicker for my hands to stay on the keyboard than it is to switch to the mouse…

> It's quicker for my hands to stay on the keyboard than it is to switch to the mouse and back Agreed. Why would anyone want to stop working, grab the mouse and click on a menu, when the command-line interface for git works perfectly.

You may use Cmd+tab and keyboard shortcuts in Gitbox as well. It is even faster than in Terminal and you don't have to type "git status" or "git log" (even with aliases)

Re: Gitbox 1.0 released: a version control app for Mac

#55

Post by oleganza »

rchowe wrote: post #53
oleganza wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gitbox is superior to what you have today. Very common things like commiting and checking the status and log are much faster and cleaner than in the command line or GitX. It is easier to extract a file from history, compare and manage the branches. You also pay for a level of attention to details in Gitbox, I explain it here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1944698

The question is, are you going to be using your GUI in addition to or instead of the command line. GitX fits into my thinking as a supplement to the command line (I'd never create a repository or commit with it, I just look at the graph and changes), while Gitbox could be a replacement for using the command line on OS X... I just think it needs a graph like GitX (and every other git GUI tool) and it needs to act a li…

Soon Gitbox will indeed provide all-in-one experience, but it will still look like a little simple app. No way it will look like an IDE: people should spend their time inventing, drawing and coding, not managing versions.

Re: Gitbox 1.0 released: a version control app for Mac

#56

Post by oleganza »

ardell wrote: post #40
oleganza wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gitbox is superior to what you have today. Very common things like commiting and checking the status and log are much faster and cleaner than in the command line or GitX. It is easier to extract a file from history, compare and manage the branches. You also pay for a level of attention to details in Gitbox, I explain it here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1944698

Talk with some web designers who have been looking for a decent gui tool for git. They don't want to learn to use command line and aren't happy with existing tool support. They are your market. Go to a local designer meetup group and sell your software to every one of them. Iterate on feedback, absolutely, but don't iterate on feedback of hackers, iterate on feedback of people who actually want your software and are…

Thanks for the inspiration :-)

Re: Gitbox 1.0 released: a version control app for Mac

#57

Post by oleganza »

flipgimble wrote: post #46

Can anyone compare this to SourceTree? http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/ which appears to support git and mercurial as a native MacOSX app and only 8MB download. Both appear to be too early of a release for me to shell out $40 for.

Thanks for sharing the link. I have commented earlier on SmartGit, the same ideas apply to SourceTree as well.

PS. The size is almost a non-issue since it does not affect performance and you don't download the app every day. Anyway, the size will go down in the next updates.

Re: Gitbox 1.0 released: a version control app for Mac

#58

Post by nestlequ1k »

oleganza wrote: post #13
nestlequ1k wrote: post #12

I've been trying hard to use GitBox for the last 2 month (beta version), but the lack of a quick view for commits makes me always revert back to GitX. With GitX, I can easily cycle through all the files and see a quick summary of what was changed. With GitBox, I have to double click on every single file to get the diff. Either that, or just blind commit files. Not good options. GitBox has the best push/pull functiona…

All points a valid and will be addressed in the upcoming versions.

Awesome. Thanks!

Re: Gitbox 1.0 released: a version control app for Mac

#60

Post by raldred »

sant0sk1 wrote: post #38
iipalindromeii wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which fork of GitX would you recommend? Maintaining a tool like this is basically unpleasant. You either need to be maintaining it for internal customers in a large company, or you need to sell it as a product - in other words, it's one of those products you really want to get paid for. Maybe having a paid project will help keep this app actively developed.

Brotherbard's fork has a bunch of additional features and I've found it to be pretty stable. I use it daily and highly recommend it. https://github.com/brotherbard/gitx

+1 brotherbard's fork is awesome. Gitx is all I need dev a Ruby dev.
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