Lightweight checkbox in "Create Tag" window

[Gama11]

There are significant differences between "lightweight" and "annotated" tags. For instance, the former won't show up in git describe, but it's what Fork seems to create by default (unless you enter a message?).

It would be nice if the "Create Tag" window had a checkbox for this, similar to SourceTree (there tags are even annotated by default, with an explicit "not recommended" message for lightweight tags):

[DanPristupov]

That's correct. A tag will be lightweight, until it has a message.

[Gama11]

Gotcha. I'd like to have the option to make tags without messages non-lightweight too. :)

[sinbad]

My 2c here: Git recommends that you don't use lightweight tags except for temporary pins for your personal use. Lightweight tags don't show up in git show or git describe and generally behave unintuitively compared to what most people expect when creating a tag. In practice most people expect the behaviour of annotated tags by default, with or without a message..

[DanPristupov]

Thank you for the explanation.

OK, what about vice versa? What if we always create annotated tags? Is there a reason to have the ability to create lightweight ones?

[Gama11]

Personally I wouldn't mind that since I don't really have a use case for lightweight tags. But perhaps others do?

[sinbad]

I do think defaulting to annotated is what more people would expect. I personally never use lightweight tags except by accident, although I can imagine they could be useful for special cases or automation, say for temporary tags while tracking down an issue. But even in those cases I don't think annotated tags have very much of a downside in a GUI driven case - they create a tiny amount more data but it's negligible.

I suspect the main use for lightweight tags is to save time on the command line (no launching of the editor to prompt for messages) when doing quick / temporary things rather than full release tags.

[DanPristupov]

I think we don't need an option then.

To make the behavior change more clear I will:

• Mention in the release notes that tags will always be annotated.
• Update the dialog description to say 'Create annotated tag...'

This update is going to be part of the 1.39 release which is planned for this Friday.

[DanPristupov]

I just released the 1.39 update which always creates annotated tags.