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GitHub for Mac

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Re: GitHub for Mac

#41
post #16

How does this compare to Tower? It's not obvious from the website, but I'm guessing is less fully featured. Anyone with experience with both who can comment?

I used Tower for a while, and I didn't have the chance to test Git for Mac yet (will do later today when I'll be using my Mac). One thing that Tower can do quite well is dealing with multiple remote repositories (e.g. github + heroku). If GitHub for Mac does that as well, I believe I'm going to switch to that.

it only works on github

Re: GitHub for Mac

#43
post #26
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, their web app tracks the history and changes of your repo hosted there. It means you see them only after you perform a push. On the announcement they say: > But those things are only great after you've pushed your code to GitHub. With the desktop app you can manage your local repository before pushing changes to github

Git is tracking the changes and history, not GitHub.

Ah, that's what I missed. So it's technically possible to have all of the niceties of GitHub without having to use GitHub?

Re: GitHub for Mac

#44
post #12
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it a huge deal? It's just a desktop version of their web app. Or am I missing something?

That's kind of like saying that a BMW M5 is just a version of a Ford Fiesta. Both will get you there, but the comfort and enjoyment will be somewhat different.

Ford Fiesta? That might be selling the web app a bit short.

Re: GitHub for Mac

#46
post #3

Looks nice. For someone who has some decent familiarity with version control but none with git specifically: does anybody have any opinion on whether this would be a good way to pick up git for use with Xcode? Version control has always struck me as lending itself well to visual tools so I'm always kind of surprised how poor they usually tend to be.

Though Xcode 4 does support git, I've stuck with using git from the command line mostly, as I'd had some issues with it in Xcode 4 (betas, mind you). My guess is it's a lot more stable now.

Having said that, I still use it from the command line just fine. And you're right, it's often the case where a version control tool like git requires something more visual (especially when dealing with out-of-sync branch merging). For that I've typically used GitX, but GitHub for Mac so far looks like a really nice alternative.

Re: GitHub for Mac

#48
post #7
post #2

This is a huge deal. The app looks amazing. I used Tower for a bit but didn't cut it for me. I was planning to ditch Github for Codebase tonight but I'll reconsider after this

Why is it a huge deal? It's just a desktop version of their web app. Or am I missing something?

This is huge, because for many people, the current interface to git is the command line, which is too much for people who want GUIs. Yes, there are other GUIs out there, but those are not controlled by GitHub. In this case, they did something very similar to what Google did with Chrome; they wanted to provide a consistent and predictable end-to-end solution for users so they built their own desktop app.

It also does not hurt that the app defaults to use GitHub, though it does seem like you can use remotes that are not GitHub (see repository -> Settings).

Re: GitHub for Mac

#49
post #28

I hate all the visual clutter and unjustified complexity the new stylish iOS-like interfaces bring. Those interfaces are only good for Twitter and friends (and for screenshots). Some feedback: * Get rid of huge spacing everywhere (for example here: http://github-images.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/2011/mac-screensh... ) * Make animations go faster. * History should have preview pane with diffs (see Mail) instead of making m…

There are windows on macs, but it appears Macs are going away from them with the full screen apps. Look at all of Apple's apps - they're all going single window. Document based apps can still have multiple windows, but everything is self contained.

Re: GitHub for Mac

#50
post #28

I hate all the visual clutter and unjustified complexity the new stylish iOS-like interfaces bring. Those interfaces are only good for Twitter and friends (and for screenshots). Some feedback: * Get rid of huge spacing everywhere (for example here: http://github-images.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/2011/mac-screensh... ) * Make animations go faster. * History should have preview pane with diffs (see Mail) instead of making m…

I think it is worth mentioning that while the GUI could use a few tweaks, the overall user experience was amazing. And got right a number of things that were hard or tempting to get wrong:

1. Let me enter an email address separate from my GitHub account. 2. Automatically found git repos on my system. Let me pick which ones to use.

My only two requests are:

1. Show untracked files the way git does, where if a whole folder is untracked, it only shows up in the list once, rather than showing every subfolder and file inside it.

2. Handle submodules better: let me see the submodule changes in a commit, let me browse and commit submodule changes and the commit the parent.

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