{"id":288109,"date":"2019-07-02T15:41:22","date_gmt":"2019-07-02T22:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/css-tricks.com\/?p=288109"},"modified":"2019-07-18T19:21:23","modified_gmt":"2019-07-19T02:21:23","slug":"graphical-user-interfaces-for-git","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/graphical-user-interfaces-for-git\/","title":{"rendered":"Graphical User Interfaces for Git"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/git-scm.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Git<\/a> is command-line-driven software, but that doesn&#8217;t mean you have to use the command line to make it work. There are lots of options! Some of the deepest programmer nerds I know prefer to use <abbr title=\"Graphical User Interface\">GUI<\/abbr>s for Git (Graphic<br \/>\nUser Interface, or you know, software you can see things and click stuff), and some near pure-designers I know prefer working with the command line for Git. Swear to Git.<\/p>\n<p>Lemme round up what look like the major players for Git  <abbr title=\"Graphic User Interface\">GUI<\/abbr>s these days. <\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">No matter how much you love the CLI, don&#39;t GUI-shame. Lots of perfectly amazing programmers like working with GUIs, and it&#39;s perfectly fine.<\/p>\n<p>There&#39;s some weird gatekeeping tendencies centered around the command line. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/DevDiscuss?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener\">#DevDiscuss<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Ben Halpern &#x1f917; (@bendhalpern) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bendhalpern\/status\/1067602747191689224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener\">November 28, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.git-tower.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Tower<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>I&#8217;ve used Tower for ages and it&#8217;s the one used the most. I&#8217;m not sure the exact release dates of all these, but I feel like Tower was an early player here. They&#8217;ve been around a long time and continuously improve, which I always respect. <\/p>\n<figure id=\"post-291362\" class=\"align-none media-291362 slide-figure\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/tower.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/tower-usage.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/git-fork.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Fork<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>It&#8217;s free and actively developed, incredibly. <\/p>\n<figure id=\"post-291361\" class=\"align-none media-291361 slide-figure\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/fork.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/fork-usage.jpg?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/desktop.github.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\">GitHub Desktop<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>This is a 2.0 of the original GitHub Desktop. I had some gripes with the 1.0 version in that its terminology was weird (to me) and seemed to vastly deviate from Git, which was more confusing than it was worth (again, to me). This version cleans most of that up. It&#8217;s deeply integrated into GitHub so it makes GitHubb-y things (e.g. pull requests) feel like first-class citizens, but it will still happily work with any Git repo. <\/p>\n<figure id=\"post-291360\" class=\"align-none media-291360 slide-figure\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/github-desktop.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/github-desktop-usage.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gitkraken.com\/git-client\" rel=\"noopener\">GitKraken<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>I&#8217;m pretty intrigued by this one. Upgrading (monthly cost) to get the in-app merge conflict tool seems worth it, but you also have to upgrade to access private repos. It seems <em>highly<\/em> feature-rich, but I think my favorite part is the dark-with-rainbow-accent-colors theme.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"post-291359\" class=\"align-none media-291359 slide-figure\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/kraken.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/gitkraken-usage.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sourcetreeapp.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Sourcetree<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>You might be compelled by Sourcetree if you&#8217;re a big <a href=\"https:\/\/bitbucket.org\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Bitbucket<\/a> user because they are both Atlassian products. I know it works for any Git repo though. I imagine there is some smooth Bitbucket integration stuff with this, similar to the GitHub\/GitHub Desktop connection. <\/p>\n<figure id=\"post-291363\" class=\"align-none media-291363 slide-figure\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/sourcetree.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/sourcetree-usage.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/panic.com\/coda\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Coda<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>You don&#8217;t really think of Coda as a version control tool (it&#8217;s more of a direct-to-<abbr title=\"File Transfer Protocol\">FTP<\/abbr> thing), and even though I&#8217;d argue the support for it is fairly half-baked, it does work! Seems likely <a href=\"https:\/\/panic.com\/next\/\" rel=\"noopener\">the next evolution of Coda<\/a> will address this. <\/p>\n<figure id=\"post-291365\" class=\"align-none media-291365 slide-figure\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/coda.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/coda-usage.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/code.visualstudio.com\/docs\/editor\/versioncontrol\" rel=\"noopener\">VS Code<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>Having version control right in your <abbr title-\"Integrated Development Environment\">IDE<\/abbr> like this, to me, feels like kind of a tweener between <abbr title=\"Graphical User Interface\">GUI<\/abbr> and <abbr title=\"Command Line Interface\">CLI<\/abbr>. There are a lot of features here, but it&#8217;s not really a full-blown <abbr title=\"Graphical User Interface\">GUI<\/abbr> to me, but you&#8217;ve got a terminal built in right there so it almost encourages that. A lot of Git usage is pretty basic pulling, committing, and pushing &mdash; so having this right within the app is kinda sweet.<\/p>\n<p>(I imagine there are lots of other <abbr title-\"Integrated Development Environment\">IDE<\/abbr>s that offer version control features. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jetbrains.com\/phpstorm\/features\/\" rel=\"noopener\">PHPStorm<\/a>, etc.)<\/p>\n<figure id=\"post-291364\" class=\"align-none media-291364 slide-figure\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/vscode.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/vscode-usage.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/github.atom.io\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Atom<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>I don&#8217;t quite know what to make of Atom. It&#8217;s certainly pretty popular, but Atom is GitHub&#8217;s thing, and now Microsoft owns GitHub, and Microsoft has VS Code which is a direct competitor with way more momentum. Plus GitHub has GitHub Desktop which also seems to have momentum. Still, hey, it&#8217;s a great integration and if you love it you love it.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"post-293032\" class=\"align-none media-293032 slide-figure\">\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/github-atom.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/atom-git.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<h3>Sublime Merge<\/h3>\n<p>From the makers of Sublime Text! Like Sublime Text, you can use it kinda free forever but in this case, for now, you just pay if you want the dark theme.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"post-293070\" class=\"align-none media-293070 slide-figure\">\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/sublime-merge.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/sublime-merge-ui.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gitboxapp.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Gitbox<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>It looks like the last update was 7 years ago, but it also has great reviews. It looks like you don&#8217;t see code difs within the app itself which is a little weird (the &#8220;view dif&#8221; stuff didn&#8217;t work for me, anyway). But functionally otherwise, seemed perfectly working to me. <\/p>\n<figure id=\"post-293072\" class=\"align-none media-293072 slide-figure\">\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/gitbox.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/gitbox-ui.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/tortoisegit.org\/\" rel=\"noopener\">TortoiseGit<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>Windows only here so I can&#8217;t give even a brief review, but they have <a href=\"https:\/\/tortoisegit.org\/about\/screenshots\/\" rel=\"noopener\">a ton of screenshots<\/a> here. <\/p>\n<figure id=\"post-293078\" class=\"align-none media-293078 slide-figure\">\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/tortoisegit.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/tortoisegit-ui.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.syntevo.com\/smartgit\/\" rel=\"noopener\">SmartGit<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>Cross-platform, and looks very full-featured (even stuff like a file merge tool for conflicts). The UI snob in me squinches my face a little looking at it. <\/p>\n<figure id=\"post-293080\" class=\"align-none media-293080 slide-figure\">\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/smartgit.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/SmartGit-Hg_1.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/gitup.co\/\" rel=\"noopener\">GitUp<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>Looks to be very big on the visual graphing of git branches and giving you control over all the nodes and what you do with them. I&#8217;ll embed their demo video here which shows all that off:<\/p>\n<figure><video src=\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/css-tricks\/video\/upload\/q_auto,vc_auto\/v1563494083\/screencast_baoaho.mp4\" controls><\/figure>\n<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/gitextensions.github.io\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Git Extensions<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>Windows only here so I can&#8217;t give even a brief review, but several people mentioned it so it feels like it&#8217;s got legs to me. The 4000+ stars <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/gitextensions\/gitextensions\" rel=\"noopener\">on GitHub<\/a> (it&#8217;s open-source!) is very cool too. <\/p>\n<figure id=\"post-293082\" class=\"align-none media-293082 slide-figure\">\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/git-extensions.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/git-extensions-ui.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Git is command-line-driven software, but that doesn&#8217;t mean you have to use the command line to make it work. There are lots of options! Some of the deepest programmer nerds I know prefer to use GUIs for Git (Graphic User Interface, or you know, software you can see things and click stuff), and some near [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":282854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"sig_custom_text":"","sig_image_type":"featured-image","sig_custom_image":0,"sig_is_disabled":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"c2c_always_allow_admin_comments":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[4],"tags":[774,1047,788,1479,677,1418],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/git-pattern.png?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"featured_media_src_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/css-tricks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/git-pattern.png?fit=1024%2C512&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288109"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288109"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":293087,"href":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288109\/revisions\/293087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}