Re: Python extension commands in git - request for policy change

On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 1:24 PM, David Aguilar <davvid@gmail.com> wrote:

Gitk does a lot of things that people don't realise, since they're not really documented and you have to scrounge around on the UI. The thing is, it's just about the most awesome tool for code archeology I have seen.

I realise (from looking at the doc page) that git-cola helps you do all sorts of things, but those are all things I am happier doing at the command line.

Gitk does precisely those things which *require* a GUI, where the amount of information presented overwhelms a text interface. The display is concisely designed to give you the maximum information at a minimum space use. For example, a little black square when a commit has a note attached. Even hovering over the arrow-heads, on complex trees where the line gets broken, does something meaningful.

if I had to pin it down, the feature I use most often is "Show origin
of this line".  Other features I use often are
  - review a commit file by file (f and b keys, also spacebar and 'd')
  - search by SHA1 (4 digits appear to be enough, regardless of how
big your repo is),
  - search for commits changing path/dir (while still showing all the
commits; i.e., this is not 'git-dag -- README.txt' but within gitk you
search up and down for commits touching README.txt
  - and navigating the commit tree looking for stuff

http://sitaramc.github.com/1-basic-usage/gitk.html is my attempt to document some of the stuff I have found and use.

One final point: the DAG on the right wastes enormous amounts of space. Purely subjectively, it is almost jarring on the senses. (If you reduce it, it becomes unreadable).

With all due respect, git-cola/dag isn't anywhere near what gitk does, at least for people who are not afraid of the command line and only need the GUI to visualise a truly complex tree.