Show HN: Fork – a fast and friendly Git client for Mac and Windows | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Fork – a fast and friendly Git client for Mac and Windows

git-fork.com

49 pointsDanPristupov34 comments

This seems interesting for day-to-day operations, as a replacement for Tower or SourceTree! However an app I've found really helps with arcane Git incantations (anything that rewrites history) is GitUp for macOS. I've always found it underappreciated.

http://gitup.co

Git fork actually has more features than gitup and runs with lower ram. You can try it out to see what I mean

Gitup is the git client all others are measured against. It's so fast and useful, one of my favorite pieces of software.

Single best feature: It's not an Electron app.

Actually it has many cool features:

* Syntax highlighting * Interactive rebase * Merge conflict resolver * Side-by-side diff * Code mini-map on scrollbars * Light and Dark themes * GitHub notifications * Image diff * Tabbed interface * Ability to star/pin important branches * GPG support * Commit templates

And yeah, it's native, not an Electron app

How does this "feature" make your life better?

I'd guess better performance, more responsiveness, less wasted resources (RAM, disk space, etc) and longer battery life and less fan noise for laptops.

I switched to Fork a few months ago from GitKraken. Fork is faster and it's using much less memory, it's nice to see developers who still care about usability and performance rather than about development speed.

Switched to Fork from GitX and couldn't be happier (and I won't miss the hunt for whatever GitX fork is the most up to date when reinstalling)

The interactive rebase is awesome and it even makes a backup tag for you.

Btw Dan I will gladly pay for a licence when/if you decide to make it a paid app.

What made you pick gitx today compared to other (free) alternatives?

Speed. Simplicity. And RAM usage.

Nice job!

I don't usually use a Git client with a UI, but I'm going to be giving this a try on a couple of current projects at work.

You should add a "buy me a coffee/beer" option. I'm sure you'd gain some support

This has been my daily driver ever since Github Desktop dumped native in favor of electron. Zero complaints, it’s pretty awesome.

This looks super cool - would it be possible to have a linux (ubuntu) build as well?

Fork is native on both platforms so it will be tricky to implement and maintain a Linux version.

I switched to Fork from SourceTree because it has tabbed interface. My desktop is no longer cluttered with windows! It's been great. One question: How can I commit and push at the same time?

Hi. There are two options: 1. Hold `alt` key when press the commit button, 2. Enable 'Automatically push on commits' in Fork preferences.

Ah! I thought I searched everywhere, but how did I miss that? Thanks!

Don't know about Windows version but Mac version of SourceTree has tabbed interface.

When it is out of beta, will it be still free? I think I should try something more lightweight than GitKraken, it hangs up more and more often.

I call it beta because I keep adding new features every release.

Fork might become paid but not in the near future.

Seems like a mistake to me. Charge a small fee ($5-10) for "beta testers" (aka everyone now) limited to 2000 users. If you don't sell anything - fine. But if you do, it'll encourage and enable you to continue developing and may even generate more interest/publicity (FOMO).

I’m sure the reason is sensible but why the limit of users? Is 2000 just to keep it manageable? The app has a lot of features already and is stable.

No, the 2000 limit is just for the "beta price" with that assumption that the future price would be more (I'd assume $15-30)

It accomplishes a few things - measures interest, give people that value the product a way to thank the creator, and adds a FOMO factor which can be good for publicity, if he wants it.

When Google Reader shutdown, Feedly offered 5000 lifetime subscriptions for ~$100 (vs $65/year). They sold out in 8 hours. It's not the same case, I understand - but the idea is similar.

This looks great! Just wondering what your long term plans are? Are you eventually going to make a business out of it?

I've been working on Fork in my spare time. It would be great if it become something bigger one day. I don't have any particular plans though.

What did you use to develop this, and what did you use for the installer? Windows and Mac

I didn't use anything fancy. Cocoa + Dmg for Mac and WPF + Squirrel for Windows.

Looks nice, It doesn't seem to like git protocol v2 in git 2.18.

Not yet. Git 2.18 has been released just a week ago :).

Two questions:

1) Does it have a side-by-side diff?

2) If not, can I plug my own app?

There's side-by-side diff (it appears on spacebar press). You can also use external diff tools.

Update: both features are available in Mac version and will appear on Windows platform soon.

does it support auto stash/unstash on branch change? That's whats keeping me on the original GitHub Desktop Client

Yes, sure.

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