Paul Cantrell
Recommendation request:
A GUI Git client for Mac for a highly competent but nontechnical person using Git to track & deploy changes on their personal site? I’m looking for:
- Emphasis on the •simplest commit-push workflow•
- Visual emphasis on •what you are committing•, not the commit graph / branches / git internals / etc
- Minimal footgun potential
- No bells and whistles, no rows of buttons, no fancy visualizations, etc.
Paul Cantrell
(My usual recommendation for this it GitHub Desktop, which fits the bill pretty well, but I’m curious if there are other options out there.)
(My current preferred Git client is Fork, which is really great and and also the opposite of what the previous post describes.)
Yeshaya Lazarevich
@inthehands
Following
Jenniferplusplus
@inthehands my favorite git gui is jetbrains IDEs. But I realize that may not be the most helpful option in this case
Yeshaya Lazarevich
@inthehands
Bonus points if integrated WYSIWYG Markdown editor
Paul Cantrell
@alter_kaker
Sounds like the direction Obsidian is working in? Not sure how good the Git plugins are, but definitely the vibe they’re going for.
Yeshaya Lazarevich
@inthehands
I think that a Git client well optimized for this specific use case would sell like hot cakes
Paul Cantrell
@jenniferplusplus
Very much not the ticket, but always happy to know that JetBrains is still getting some love. I’m always amazed at the extent to which competitors, even ones that keep live ASTs while editing, still fail to match the JetBrains refactoring features.
Paul Cantrell
@thatandromeda
Yeah, I mean, to clarify: mathematician starting a blog using Hugo and Git-based deployment, very comfortable with LaTeX and will learn Markdown in about 3 seconds, but also…never opened the CLI at all before this, mostly avoids writing code, will never and should never use 98% of Git’s features, completely unexcited by tinkering with power-user stuff, would mostly prefer just to Not Have To Think About That Thank You Very Much
Andromeda Yelton
@inthehands (pssst I am pretty sure if you are *using git for a personal project* you are actually a technical person)
Paul Cantrell
@aslakr
I love GitUp!! Wrong for this case: too many power user things too close to the surface, somewhat inelegant commit flow IMO, but great piece of software for those of us who do want to work with the whole commit graph.
Aslak Raanes
Paul Cantrell
@pfue
Tower is great! Too many-featured for this use case — I’m looking for something much more stripped down — but great tool for those of us who work with Git in all its messy glory.
pfue
@inthehands I'm not sure if it meets your requirements, but I've loved Tower for years, and it might work with a little education.
Great default behaviors, a clean UI, etc.
Paul Cantrell
@eyeofmidas
Yes, •way• too technical, but Fork is my own preferred Git client!
EyeOfMidas
@inthehands Maybe a bit more technical than you're looking for but git fork has been amazingly easy to use for me. Even merge conflicts are understandable.
Paul Cantrell
@__jz The opportunity to •review• what they’re committing really is the primary feature here.
__jz
@inthehands
git plugin for the IDE or editor they are already using?
Or: alias publish="git add .; git commit -m .; git push origin HEAD" #USE AT YOUR OWN RISK
Yeshaya Lazarevich
@inthehands
Hmm yes but it also looks like their business model involves you publishing to their service
Paul Cantrell
@alter_kaker
I believe it runs and builds locally, and the pay-to-publish bit is an optional bolt-on that’s a growth play for the company, not the core model.
Paul Cantrell
@eyeofmidas Thanks! I do think GH Desktop is the ticket, but wanted to know if there’s something I’m missing.
EyeOfMidas
@inthehands oops, sorry! I didn't see your other post. Good luck in your search!
Wayne Myers
@inthehands NB, is very much WIP, not super finished / polished etc, requires NodeJS, honestly can't believe there isn't another better option already for my own use case.
Paul Cantrell
@conniptions
As a person who wrote a custom static site generator from scratch just for his own personal website, I completely approve of this kind of overkill .
Wayne Myers
@inthehands So... in a similar ballpark to, though definitely not exactly what you are after, is Repoco, the headless CMS I wrote mainly to help my father manage (parts of) his Jekyll based-site; we use git in the backend but he never needs to deal with any of it. Meanwhile, he can freely edit the Markdown in a WISIWYG editor, revoke (some) changes, "publish" to either a test or live deployment, and if things ever go wrong, we (ie I) can restore previous state from git: https://github.com/wgmyers/repoco/tree/main
Aslak Raanes
@inthehands The @WorkingCopy author have something called Source Files https://apps.apple.com/no/app/source-files-git-storage/id6450856155 but I haven't tried it. It isn't technically a git client since it uses rest api instead of git protocol.
Paul Cantrell
@aslakr @WorkingCopy
Interesting. GitHub as a cloud file system, basically? May not be exactly what I’m after for this use case, but definitely the most eye-opening suggestion I’ve received!
GNU social JP is a social network, courtesy of GNU social JP管理人. It runs on GNU social, version 2.0.2-dev, available under the GNU Affero General Public License.
All GNU social JP content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.