You're right! I actually discovered the stashing capabilities after writing what I wrote and forgot to edit it. I'll do that now. Thanks ewemoa.

Thanks ! Cool. Yes, this is certainly better than nothing (in Git Extensions, all commands are apparent so it is very transparent)... and I should've looked for a log file. Bad me.

From your post, this says it all :

It would be awesome if they were displayed in the status bar or a console popup.

This is a bit too well hidden IMO (even the mention of that log in the online docs!).
My log file is in not in the .setting directory but in \Application Data\syntevo\SmartGit\2.


Anyway... considering all that, SmartGit is probably what I'll try to use more in the next week.

Looking forward to any observations

I had to keep my old routine for now as I had to get things done... But I still plan to use SmartGit more. Will keep you posted.

BTW, I wanted to search the history of a project via the log window and was stumped initially.  I learned that "search as you type" (they call this speed-search apparently) seems to work.  Was this obvious to you?  I didn't find this in the docs...it was again via a posting to that support list.

Then I spent a while trying to figure out how to search for subsequent occurrences -- finally after trying a variety of combinations, I hit on using the down (for next) and up (for previous) arrow keys...feels odd but at least something works.

Wow, nope, I didn't know about the search as you type feature.
Thanks for sharing all this!
Yes, the arrows do feel a bit odd, but I'll get use to it.

On a related note, I've started to investigate gitk and am noticing that it seems to produce more search results than SmartGit for the same search terms in some cases.  It appears that SmartGit doesn't load all commits [1] by default and the searching only seems to take place over what's loaded -- once sufficiently more commits are loaded, additional search results seem to come up...


[1] Found a "Load all commits" menu item via the Query menu.

Again, nice find. 

Hello,

I'm Thomas Singer from syntevo, one of the developers of SmartGit. I was drawn attention to this thread.

Dunno which app(s), though - I wasn't all impressed when I checked out SmartGit, but can't remember exactly why, guess I'll give it another chance. I think my 'meh' was partially causes by the program being implemented in Java, and (worse) not having an option to use the system JDK but installing it's own separate copy.

SmartGit offers three download bundles for Windows, the default one which includes a Java Runtime Environment (so the normal users are using a tested JRE version), one without a bundled JRE (requires an installed one) and a portable one with JRE (stores its settings in the same directory structure, so it can be installed on an USB stick).

It does miss some other important ones though, like “blame”, “stash”, “clone –bare” (last one : surprising, to say the least… Unless I missed something ).

"blame" is on our todo-list. Could you please explain the use-case behind "clone --bare"? Isn't a bare repository usually located on a server without GUI?

I did encounter a few problems and solving these problems meant dropping to the command line. E.g. : how do you "correct" a rebase that’s stalled… and won't abort nor continue ? hmmmm... 

Do you mean, that SmartGit sometimes hangs during a rebase? This bug has been fixed in version "2.1 early-access build 5". This was caused by Git trying to open an editor and waiting for it to exit.

The manual is ok, but not as clear as Tortoise’s, IMHO. Very dry, almost no graphs… and so it remains slightly abstract. I’d almost rather read Git’s man pages (not bad at all btw).

You are right, our manual is a weak spot.

On a related note, I've started to investigate gitk and am noticing that it seems to produce more search results than SmartGit for the same search terms in some cases.  It appears that SmartGit doesn't load all commits [1] by default and the searching only seems to take place over what's loaded -- once sufficiently more commits are loaded, additional search results seem to come up...


[1] Found a "Load all commits" menu item via the Query menu.

"Load all commits" does not load all commits from the repository (which might be too large), but instead loads commits which are not reachable from a branch or tag any more, e.g. those which remain after performing an amend-commit. Maybe one has a better name suggestion?

Wow, nope, I didn't know about the search as you type feature.
Thanks for sharing all this!
Yes, the arrows do feel a bit odd, but I'll get use to it.

What shortcut did you expect? What we can do to make the "search-as-you-type" feature more noticeable?

Cheers,
Tom

Since I'm running out of time, I'll have to be brief but might be able to expand during the weekend.

Quote from: Armando on March 15, 2011, 05:26 AM

It does miss some other important ones though, like “blame”, “stash”, “clone –bare” (last one : surprising, to say the least… Unless I missed something ).

"blame" is on our todo-list. Could you please explain the use-case behind "clone --bare"? Isn't a bare repository usually located on a server without GUI?

Nice to know blame is on the todo list.
As for the "clone --bare" use-case... If I remember correctly, I think I was toying with the idea of using Dropbox as a Git repository/server and wanted to clone my current working directory to the Dropbox folder. I don't remember all the details at the moment. I'll see if I can find more details later.

Quote from: Armando on March 15, 2011, 05:26 AM

I did encounter a few problems and solving these problems meant dropping to the command line. E.g. : how do you "correct" a rebase that’s stalled… and won't abort nor continue ? hmmmm...  

Do you mean, that SmartGit sometimes hangs during a rebase? This bug has been fixed in version "2.1 early-access build 5". This was caused by Git trying to open an editor and waiting for it to exit.

That must be it. I will Download the latest version. Thanks for the heads up.
I think I also had another problem with rebase -- not sure. I'll have to checkout my notes and maybe try to reproduce the problem later... that is, if there was a problem.

Quote from: Armando on March 15, 2011, 05:26 AM

The manual is ok, but not as clear as Tortoise’s, IMHO. Very dry, almost no graphs… and so it remains slightly abstract. I’d almost rather read Git’s man pages (not bad at all btw).

You are right, our manual is a weak spot.

SmartGit is pretty feature rich. It would greatly benefit from a better manual where all features are clearly documented. A few interface images would be good too...

Quote from: Armando on May 19, 2011, 02:00 PM

Wow, nope, I didn't know about the search as you type feature.
Thanks for sharing all this!
Yes, the arrows do feel a bit odd, but I'll get use to it.

What shortcut did you expect? What we can do to make the "search-as-you-type" feature more noticeable?

As you probably know, a lot of Windows applications (text editors, IDEs) use F3 and Shift/ctrl+F3 to move to next/previous occurrence (can't talk about Linux or Mac as I haven't really worked with those in the last couple years and I forgot...). I couldn't say for sure what the standard is, but F3 is what I'm used to... Hence the "awkward" feel.

That said, it's probably not a big deal if everything is documented properly or easily discovered (tooltips or whatever). Arrows are perfectly fine if one knows what they're supposed to do. Documentation is key here.


Other small points I can think of:

- Some other shortcuts feel a bit weird. E.g.: Ctrl+T for staging. I immediately changed it for Alt+Enter, and Ctrl+Alt+Enter for editing the index, which seems much more natural when reviewing changes using Alt+Arrows. This is personal of course... but just saying.

- After staging some content, the focus always moves to the newly staged file, which interrupts the "files modifications reviewing". There might be a way to prevent that but I haven't found it. Question: Could the focus remain at the top of the list and not move? When reviewing files before committing , it's inconvenient to always have to move back to the top of the file list or where the other file to review is located. But like I said, I'm aware that I might be missing something.

And last one for today (something  super minor that occurred to me while using SmartGit this morning):

- Some tooltips seem too verbose.
E.g., in the files section/table : "if selected,  unchanged files will be shown".
Why not simply : "Show unchanged files" ? It's more "to the point" IMO.

Like I said, it's minor, but... the devil is in the details!

Thanks for your attention.

As you probably know, a lot of Windows applications (text editors, IDEs) use F3 and Shift/ctrl+F3 to move to next/previous occurrence (can't talk about Linux or Mac as I haven't really worked with those in the last couple years and I forgot...). I couldn't say for sure what the standard is, but F3 is what I'm used to... Hence the "awkward" feel.

OK, I'll try to add (Shift+) F3 in the next 2.1 build. Unfortunately, this will be hard-coded and not customizable, because only the shortcuts for menu items are customizable.

- Some other shortcuts feel a bit weird. E.g.: Ctrl+T for staging. I immediately changed it for Alt+Enter, and Ctrl+Alt+Enter for editing the index, which seems much more natural when reviewing changes using Alt+Arrows. This is personal of course... but just saying.

We took Ctrl+T from the Git GUI. BTW, I have changed Alt+Up/+Down to F3/F4 so I only need one hand for navigation...

- After staging some content, the focus always moves to the newly staged file, which interrupts the "files modifications reviewing". There might be a way to prevent that but I haven't found it. Question: Could the focus remain at the top of the list and not move? When reviewing files before committing , it's inconvenient to always have to move back to the top of the file list or where the other file to review is located.

We'll try to find a solution.

- Some tooltips seem too verbose.
E.g., in the files section/table : "if selected,  unchanged files will be shown".
Why not simply : "Show unchanged files" ? It's more "to the point" IMO.

IMHO "Show unchanged files" is ambiguous: it could mean the current state or the action which happens when clicking. Hence we decided to be precise.

@ewemoa: it looks like Microsoft is the only one which does not comply to the Microsoft Windows standard (F3).

To confirm, do you mean something like the following?

1. Before "Stage" (HEAD vs. Working Tree) - focus is on right side (Working Tree)


2. After "Stage" (HEAD vs. Index) - focus is on left side (HEAD)


3. After "Unstage" (HEAD vs. Working Tree) - focus is on left side (HEAD) and cursor has moved up to the top-leftmost position.

On a separate note, does the right side content look "stale"?  Or may be the label of "HEAD vs. Working Tree" should be "HEAD vs. Index"?

4. After "Reload the previewed file contents" (HEAD vs. Working Tree) - focus is on left side and the cursor is at the beginning of the first difference in text(?)


FWIW, I got similar results with the cursor starting in an area of the content which didn't change.

OS: Windows XP SP3
SmartGit Version: 2.0.4
Build Date: 2011-04-05
Java Version: 1.6.0_24-b07

Quote from: http://stevelosh.com/blog/2010/01/the-real-difference-between-mercurial-and-git/

With all that said, I’ve considered creating a Mercurial extension that adds git’s index functionality to Mercurial, because I think it would make the transition to Mercurial easier for git users. I’ve had enough experience with Mercurial’s internals to know that such a thing is possible, but I simply don’t have the time to do it all myself. If you’re interested in helping out please let me know!

...  So maybe this index isn't that useless after all.

BTW, have you seen the same author's post on Mercurial Queues?

  A Git User’s Guide to Mercurial Queues

Stacked Git and guilt look interesting too.

Thanks for the additional links

To diverge a bit, I'm taking a look at etckeeper -- a tool to manage a *nix (hmm, not sure about the *BSDs) system's configuration info via a DVCS.  Looks like it's supposed to work with Git, Bazaar, Mercurial, and Darcs.  Perhaps for folks who are looking after certain types of systems, this kind of thing might be an entry point into learning to use one of the DVCS systems.

Does it have any value other than just looking damn cool?

Looks more like a tool to do art than work

Woa... Gource is weird. I don't really see the point, but... why not. Maybe I'm just lacking imagination today.

...and give the gource developer more practice with OpenGL may be..

Most likely.

This "comment" is one of the best for git/mercurial comparisons. Read it several times a couple months ago when I was trying to figure out where  I wanted to invest my energy.