Thursday, February 15, 2018

GitFinder 1.0

ZigZag:

Apple has finally come up with official way and API to extend Finder functionality and offer custom badges for icons, as well as contextual and/or toolbar menu items (actually, adding contextual menu items was possible prior macOS 10.6, but it required tons of Carbon code, while icon badging was never officially supported). That was in macOS 10.10, also known as Yosemite. I immediately remembered seeing people years before using TortoiseGit/SVN on Windows and thought it would be nice to have something similar on Mac. However, the API in 10.10 was crippled in many ways (especially when it came to menus), that I just filled a bunch of bug reports and stopped thinking about it. As it usually happens in the last 7-8 years, Apple didn't bother fixing those things in minor updates, so most issues haven't been fixed before 10.11 (El Capitan) came out, a full year later.

[…]

The end result is the application, which can be used solely as Finder's extension, giving you quick access to files' git statuses via icon badging and most frequently used git command via Finder contextual and/or toolbar item menu. But, you can also kick its repository browser window and use it as a separate, fully functional git client. Repository browser offers all you could expect from such client; full list of branches, tags, remotes, submodules and other references, commits list, commit diffs, commits search and others. All just a click in a Finder window away.

I’ve been testing this for a while, and it looks promising. I like being able to quickly get the history of a particular file by Control-clicking on it. And it’s nice to be able to click, search, or glob in the Finder to choose which files to stage or revert. The main site has some good screenshots that show what it can do. For me, at least, it’s currently more of an adjunct than a replacement for other clients. Like GitUp, it uses libgit2 rather than the git command-line tool.

3 Comments RSS · Twitter

Is it just me or did they completely rip off the design for their repository browser from Tower (https://www.git-tower.com/mac/) I mean the left sidebar is a word-for-word, practically pixel-by-pixel rip off of Tower. So is the details section at the top of the diffs when viewing commits. So is the diffs section for that matter. I use Tower everyday so I noticed this right away. Nice little Finder integration, but other than that, I would suggest buying the original app (Tower) and not what appears to be a blatant clone.

A lot of the interface looks suspiciously like Tower (https://www.git-tower.com).

Sad the developer didn't take the time and create an original interface but opted to steal on existing software.

@B @Samuel The layout is almost exactly the same. The icons are different. I’m currently using Tower, GitFinder, and GitUp, as each does things the others don’t.

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