Gitbox is 1 year old: status report | Hacker News Reader

Gitbox is 1 year old: status report

blog.oleganza.com

88 pointsoleganza50 comments

I really want to like Gitbox (wow, a Git GUI that don't try to put every Git command in its menu bar!) however I always feel its lacks of branch/commit graph make it "too simple" for a $40. For me commit visualization is possibly the only thing I'd ever want to use GUI client for, and lacking that make the app nearly useless for me.

Useful graph visualization and multiple branch handling is already designed and is planned for one of the nearest updates.

+1 purchase. Look forward to it ;)

I'd love to try it out, but I'm getting an error from the App Store currently:

    We could not complete your request.
    There was an error in the App Store. Please try again later. (100)

    Purchase of this item is not currently available.
    This item is being modified. Please try again later.

Some rare problem with App Store today. I've already submitted a request to fix this. You may try a bit later. For many users it works fine.

FYI: I'm still having that issue...

As am I..

There we go, you just got my $5.

This story’s link is to the general Gitbox blog. The actual post with that title is at http://blog.oleganza.com/post/13630966174/gitbox-is-1-year-o....

Congrats!

I've told the devs at one of my clients to grab this and give it a try for $5. They're primarily tower users, but for $5 they should give gitbox a real spin (vs the trial version).

Thanks for your work over the last year. I remember I sent you what I thought was an odd bug a year ago when I first got it during your discount period, and you replied back very quickly and dealt with my issue awesomely. I don't even remember the problem now, only the service :)

Just upgrading to 1.5.2 this morning - looking forward to the new features in 1.5!

Guys, sorry for some App Store error messages or incorrect pricing.

Apple is propagating changes through their servers for an hour already. Please try to check it out again in an hour or so.

Still unable to buy, just an FYI :)

What store do you use? (UK?)

It's currently not working in the US for me.

Still not working in US, 2:30 eastern time.

Working now, 4:15.

I'm in the UK and I still can't buy it.

I'm in the UK and can buy it as of 5 minutes ago

Yeah it's working now :)

Still not working for me in .at :/

Still not working for me on Brazilian App Store. How long will you keep it on sale? I don't wanna miss it :)

Didn't know about gitbox, just bought it, well done. I can cross "make a simple, sane git GUI" off my 2012 to-do list.

Not to obsess over details, but the window resizer draws over checkboxes. Would you consider adding a thin footer bar to the bottom of the window, like Safari, or reduce the width of the content pane, like Xcode?

Thanks for suggestion. It's only an issue in Snow Leopard. However, I will add a bottom toolbar, but for other reasons.

I bought it but it triggers the discrete video card in my 2010 MBP whenever I view a change. That makes it impossible to keep running or it will drain my battery twice as fast.

I do like the single view but it really needs to have the timeline.

In my experience with other apps, I think the GPU behavior is an artifact of Core Animation (I definitely recall seeing this in Sparrow, at least). Bit weird that OSX would default to breaking out the GPU for the smallest UI effects, especially because of the effect on battery life.

Yeah, and it's annoying that the discrete switch is kept until the app shuts down. I have no clue what Gitbox is doing on the change set viewer to trigger the switch. I didn't see any animations.

Chrome also triggers the discrete GPU so I can't use it either. I'd really like to because of Safari's problems with the debug tools. I don't want to get used to Chrome when I can only realistically use it when on power.

It looks great for browsing repos. However, to be really useful for me it would have to have something similar to gitx's commit view - show what's staged and what's not, show diffs, give the option to stage selected lines.

Line-by-line staging and built-in diff is planned in one of the next updates.

While Gitbox obviously misses branch visualization and submodule handling it makes my daily git workflow so much better. I can only recommend it. Especially at this price point.

Submodules' support is coming very soon. Multiple branches handling and tree visualization is coming next.

Hmm.. 5$ respectively 5 CHF? I want to try it but when I click on "Buy app" it tells me that the price is actually 20 CHF and not 5... Someone else with a similar problem?

Apple is propagating changes through their servers for an hour already. Please try to check it out again in an hour or so.

Ah ok, thx for the quick reply :)

Gitbox looks really nice. Sadly, I'm not using Mac OS X?

Any chance of a linux version, maybe via GNUStep/etoile?

So when are we going to get a good, affordable or free Windows Git client?

When you write it

Sounds like an opp for someone to build and market via the upcoming windows app store, no?

Tortoise git is really good http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/

What exactly does CMD+Z do for a push?

It pushes previous commit ID into the remote branch.

If it doesn't revert the last commit, what you say would be a forced push, correct?

Yes, it's a force push. Useful when you accidentally pushed just a couple of seconds ago and want to undo. Of course, if people have already pulled it, they'll have to rebase or reset the branch later.

Teaching people to use Git incorrectly is a bad UI design decision.

Since I can't reply to your reply, I'm answering right here.

Are you sure it's good practice to force other people to rebase, because you did a mistake?

That's exactly what I was afraid of what CMD+Z did.

If you are quick enough and project is small and everyone is in the same room (or it's just you with an iMac and laptop), it's very-very convenient. People who start using Git and/or using it as a sole committers value such convenience a lot.

I get that. But it's also sending me red flashing lights, because people with GUIs sometimes not only 'value such convenience a lot', sometimes they don't know better.

I agree. Rewriting public history causes lightening to fall from the sky and strike you down. Also everyone then hates you. This is what I've had problems with Git UI's the in past... They try to make git easier and as a result tend to hide, or gloss over, very important details. Rewriting history is a non-trivial thing to do and should be done with the utmost care.

Can you put up a warning dialog, at least, when doing a force push?

Since I can't reply to your reply, I'm answering right here.

If someone does that and it messes things for other guys, it just takes extra 5 minutes to teach him/her how Git works and what to do. And everybody benefits.

To everybody receiving an error purchasing the app: remove the copy you already have in /Applications/

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