Feature Request: Graph history view

[rlabrecque]

Just testing the waters on this one but, one thing that I'm missing from all of the more 'advanced' clients is essentially git log --graph.

This would just display all branches in one history view, with a nice little DAG graph showing how the repo fits together.

Pretty much like this:

(Taken from Stack Overfloew: http://stackoverflow.com/a/9074343)

(SourceTree)

[mshahat]

Would that be considered related to the Comparison Graph in the current non beta version ? I can't see as part of the current beta ?

[rlabrecque]

I guess so, sort of, could you only select two branches in the native version though? Having it vertical and tied to the actual commits is quite a bit nicer too though.

[b1rdex]

IMO, full tree is too complex and we should decide the main reason to add this feature.
Native desktop had this:

These was pretty neat feature in GitHub Desktop and I used to it.
Main differencies between this and native git log --graph:

• comparing two branches — very easy to see if branch is outdated
• action to merge from original branch
• local commits (not pushed) are marked and notable

[mshahat]

This simple Comparison Graph was very usable, and is definitely something you'd want to make sure is there. It's a good compromise than the overwhelming Git graph.

Cheers,

[joshaber]

Thanks for the suggestion!

This idea is interesting for the future, but this is beyond the scope of our current roadmap.

I'm going to add the future-proposal label to this issue and close it out, so that we don't get overwhelmed with our backlog! We'll revisit these as part of our next planning session.

[mikeytag]

@joshaber I know you're kicking the can on this one, but I find this feature one of the most valuable features of the earlier native Desktop version. As such, are there plans to deprecate or make the earlier versions not work? I'm hoping not so I can keep using the earlier version until the visual branch makes it into the new release.

Please note, I'm not trying to be a jerk about this. I love GitHub and really enjoy the Desktop experience. I've just settled into workflows that the visual branch really helps with.

[shiftkey]

@mikeytag check out our roadmap for 1.1 - we want to tackle the relationship between the current branch and some other context. We're still thinking more on this, but our learnings from the classic apps and the comparison graph will help us here.

[joshaber]

are there plans to deprecate or make the earlier versions not work?

To answer this specifically, when the beta hits 1.0, the classic apps will be deprecated. We will no longer support them.

That said, we don't plan to disable them or disallow their continued use in any way.

[stebiger]

I am sorry if I am about to open that topic but I am not sure what the actual output of that discussion was.

Will there be any visualization for my repository? I can't find it on the roadmap even future versions but I also can not read any decisions about that in this issue.

[rlabrecque]

@stebiger A full graph view is not on the table (at this time), but something like the classic app had is pending for Milestone 1.1. The big difference between this issue/request and what might be coming in 1.1 is the scope exposed to the end user.

[orangeswim]

Would like to see this feature as other configuration management software have this as a standard. I know I'm not adding anything new, except to say that there are people who want this for git desktop.

[edwinveldhuizen]

I also really want to see back this feature. I've still been using the old native GitHub desktop app because of the graph missing in the "new" app.

We're working with tens of different branches and the original graph gave a really good overview of which commits are in master that are not yet in my local branch.

[carrotalan]

+1 - I'll have to switch back to SourceTree until this is present

[lordtherick]

Agreed - the visualisation is a great selling point for change control and the operations team to see who and where changes were introduced.
I would like to offer the business a GitHub ecosystem and this is definitely a tick in the negative column. (even a separate GitHub app would be acceptable for us)

[gary-menzel]

I've only just upgraded to the latest version and agree with other comments here. I had some issues just before upgrading and the mini-graph helped identify that there was a problem. It was then suggested I upgrade and now that problem would be much harder to identify (although, there may be new features that help in this latest version that I am not aware of).

[shiftkey]

I've only just upgraded to the latest version and agree with other comments here. I had some issues just before upgrading and the mini-graph helped identify that there was a problem.

@gary-menzel what sort of problems were you encountering that the graph helped you out?

[individual61]

Why on Earth would such a useful feature be removed? I am a very visual person, and this made git finally "click" for me. Please put it back on the roadmap!

[edwinveldhuizen]

@mshahat @rlabrecque @b1rdex @joshaber @mikeytag @shiftkey @stebiger @carrotalan @lordtherick @gary-menzel @orangeswim @LeahPike @gutrix @DrZYin @j-f1 @kinghuang @Am1rr3zA @roee-leverate @lrgsteven @r-laporte @KMFSousa @sursir @const-int @individual61

Please sign and share this petition:
https://www.change.org/p/github-bring-back-the-visual-history-graph-on-github

Maybe this will work better than commenting in this old closed issue.. 😊

[amputek]

+1 - The Graph was incredible useful. Would love to see this added to the new Desktop. I'm surprised that they old app has been discontinued given that the new app lacks this feature

[kinghuang]

@edwinveldhuizen Signed! I've been trying out different Git clients recently, and nothing comes close to the simplicity of the old graph history view.

[jaketyo]

@kinghuang I tried 1.0, but I was forced back because of the lack of graph view.

I think that should have been part of the feature-partiy when building the new app. Seems odd to remove a massively useful feature and call it an improvement.

[mikeytag]

I gave the new Desktop app a try for 2 weeks. I really did, but just went back to the old client for one reason: the graph view. I found myself lost too many times in the new one without the visual reference. Crossing my fingers hoping the dev team takes notice of how many people want the graph view back. For every person on this thread there are thousands of users that don't take the time to talk about it and just switch to something else.

FWIW, the speed in the new app is nice. It's just a more confusing experience.

[timdeng2324]

so just wondering, was this revisited as part of the next planning session and will it make a future release? it's been a while.

[iAmWillShepherd]

@timdeng2324 we did revisit this and decided to prioritize other things (roadmap); however, it is still something that could potentially get prioritized in our next planning session.

[raeleus]

Please do. The only reason I don't go back to SourceTree is that the requests they have ignored are more annoying than the ones found here.

-edit words

[mikeytag]

@iAmWillShepherd would it be ok if I forked and took a crack at adding a view like the one that was in the native app? I know I went too far with my issue about this recently, and I really am sorry about that. I figure that if I feel so strongly about this feature then maybe I should just try to implement it myself.

However, I want to be respectful of you guys and I don't want a PR to be seen as harassment if I were to code it and there is a business decision to not do the view for some reason. In the meantime, I've been reading the developer docs to make sure that whatever I do adheres to the coding standards the team expects.

[iAmWillShepherd]

@mikeytag

would it be ok if I forked and took a crack at adding a view like the one that was in the native app?

The short answer is yes. We wouldn't mind if you forked Desktop to add this feature, but...

The desktop team has not settled on whether we will tackle this yet, so us accepting a PR at this point is unlikely. Why? Simply because we'd like to make sure that whatever we build or accept from the community fits within the overall design of the application.

If you are keen on having this ASAP and don't mind that their is potential your PR won't get merged, then by all means, do it 👍 . Who knows, it may be a good starting point should we decide to pursue this. Otherwise, I'd recommend holding off until we have a good idea of how we want this to work.

I know this response isn't ideal, but I wanted to be as transparent as possible. 😃

[mikeytag]

@iAmWillShepherd

Thank you for the reply. I hear you on a PR being merged. I've been interested in Electron development and may go for it just to scratch my own itch and learn something along the way. I understand on the PR acceptance.

FWIW, I really loved the simple implementation in the old native app that just compares the current branch against one other with a default to the default GitHub branch. There's a bit of animation going on in the old one so it may throw me for a loop, but I'm planning at trying to recreate that view and add a menu option to make it visible/hidden. That way you guys could accept the PR if the default was hidden on that pane. I'm not the first to request this so it may be a good compromise?

All that's left is for me to find the time to tackle it and get it to work.

[j-f1]

FYI the old comparison view was also made with web technologies, and you can find it in the Contents → Resources folder of the old Mac app.

[mikeytag]

Thanks @j-f1 ! This may have just gotten a lot easier.

[mikeytag]

Found it at Contents/Resources/comparison-graph

It looks like they used jQuery and a couple plugins with some svg stuff.

[JeanCollas]

It seems that is a popular demand, that has been backed by a large number of people (not including all who don't ask for it but would like it), and which is coming back frequently.
How could it be so complicated? "The desktop team has not settled on whether we will tackle this yet" :(

As many other, it was one of my favorite feature on Github Desktop, and I have spent a long time to understand why it disappeared and how to bring it back until I got here.

I haven't migrated to other solutions because I am used to this one, but that would definitely be something for which I would switch if somebody shows me a nice and simple other product.

The desktop simple tree version was nearly perfect for me, and very easy to use.

[bmcdonnell-ionx]

I don't understand how people comfortably work without getting a visual overview of the repo, i.e. full tree view.

[middiu]

this is a must have

[albinekb]

I have never ever used that and have never needed it. I don't think this is a must have @middiu @bmcdonnell-ionx

[bmcdonnell-ionx]

@albinekb, how do you discern the relationships of your branches to each other, at a glance or all at once? e.g. feature-abc branch is 3 commits ahead of master, and master is 2 commits ahead of feature-abc; feature-abandoned is 30 commits behind master. And how do you tell which commits those are?

[trusktr]

Literally the only reason I left my terminal to try GitHub Desktop was hoping there was a visual graph. The rest I can do just fine in a terminal.

[JeanCollas]

@joshaber is there any chance to see this back on the roadmap?

This would really be useful. On my view, much more than several other "improvement" done the last months... I still don't understand why it disappeared...

(I am talking about the visual graph on @b1rdex screenshot, not the "total project" view, which is not of the same use )

[bmcdonnell-ionx]

@trusktr,

FYI, in a terminal you can get a visual graph as sort of ANSI art with some options to git log. I like to create an alias in my .gitconfig:

[alias]
    tree = log --all --graph --decorate --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit

Here are some other variants.

And other GUI clients have a tree view (e.g. Git for Windows and Git Extensions).