An easy-to-use, visually-oriented desktop client for Git aimed at helping students learn the standard Git workflow. You can get a summary of our project by reading our cool poster :)
npm (Node Package Manager) is used to manage VisualGit's dependencies, therefore it is required to install and run VisualGit. Follow the installation instructions below:
sudo yum install npm
sudo apt-get install npm
If you have homebrew installed:
brew install npm
Otherwise download and install the latest version of Node.j (v6.2.1 or later)
Download and install the latest version of Node.js (v6.2.1 or later)
Clone with either HTTPS or SSH:
git clone [email protected]:ElliotWhiley/VisualGit.git
git clone https://github.com/ElliotWhiley/VisualGit.git
then...
cd VisualGit
npm install
npm start
As VisualGit utilises SSH for user authentication, ensure you generate an SSH key for your GitHub account. If you are not running on Mac, you will also need to set up and run an ssh-agent to access your SSH key at run time without providing your credentials each time.
TypeScript is a statically-typed superset of JavaScript that compiles into JavaScript. Most of our source files are written in TypeScript (.ts files), therefore you will need to run a TypeScript compiler to compile the source code to JavaScript (.js files) as you make changes, e.g. typescript-compiler for Node.
Sass (Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets) is a CSS preprocessor with some handy extra features. All of our Style Sheets are written in Sass (.scss files), which compile into CSS (.css files). Therefore, you will need to a run a Sass-compiler to compile your .scss files into .css files as you make changes, e.g. node-sass for Node.
Repositories can be added by two methods; either by cloning the remotely hosted repository or opening it from the local file system. This is achieved using the add repository button in the top left which will update the screen to the add repository view.
Cloning with SSH is recommended as there is not yet any method for entering user credentials in VisualGit. This means that if you clone using HTTPS, you will still be able to see local changes and commit locally but not push.
Currently, when you clone a repository, it is saved to a directory under ./VisualGit/. This means that when you open a repository which is saved locally, you can simply enter the name of the directory relative to the VisualGit directory. Other save locations are not currently supported but it is planned in future work.
When changes are made in a repository which is open, the interface will update by showing each file which has uncommitted changes. These changes will be displayed as a traffic light scheme:
- Green: Added file
- Orange: Modified file
- Red: Deleted file
This is used to allow users to see the different types of changes easily and once they click on the files, the file differences will be shown. The file differences are shown line by line with green lines representing added lines and red representing deleted lines. Any other parts of the file are unchanged.
The pulling and pushing currently works for changes which are made on master and origin/master by syncing these up. When the pull button is clicked, any changes on the remote repository will be added to the local repository and the graph will be updated. When pushing, the same process applies. The changes on master will be pushed to the remote repository.
Branch support is the most important feature to be developed in the future. In order to properly support Git workflows, the ability to make new branches and manage them is extremely important. This would be available through the top bar which could contain a drop-down menu of all the branches. This functionality
Being able to merge branches and resolve conflicts in VisualGit is an important part of the workflow and is something which would help beginners to understand the merging process and how conflicts are handled within Git. This would likely be part of the file difference panel which would highlight the different changes.
We are open to pull requests with new features or improvements.
Visualgit utilises a range of libraries and frameworks, more information on them can be found below: