1GIT-COLA(1) git-cola GIT-COLA(1)
2
6 git-cola - The highly caffeinated Git GUI
7
9 git cola [options] [sub-command]
10
12 git cola is a sleek and powerful Git GUI.
13
15 –amend
16 Start git cola in amend mode.
17 –prompt
19 Prompt for a Git repository. Defaults to the current directory.
20 -r, –repo <path>
22 Open the Git repository at <path>. Defaults to the current directory.
23 -s, –status-filter <filter>
25 Apply the path filter to the status widget.
26 –version
28 Print the git cola version and exit.
29 -h, –help
31 Show usage and optional arguments.
32 –help-commands
34 Show available sub-commands.
35
37 am
38 Apply patches.
39 archive
41 Export tarballs from Git.
42 branch
44 Create branches.
45 browse
47 Browse tracked files.
48 config
50 Configure settings.
51 dag
53 Start the git dag Git history browser.
54 diff
56 Diff changed files.
57 fetch
59 Fetch history from remote repositories.
60 grep
62 Use git grep to search for content.
63 merge
65 Merge branches.
66 pull
68 Fetch and merge remote branches.
69 push
71 Push branches to remotes.
72 rebase
74 Start an interactive rebase.
75 remote
77 Create and edit remotes.
78 search
80 Search for commits.
81 stash
83 Stash uncommitted modifications.
84 tag
86 Create tags.
87 version
89 Print the git cola version.
90
92 The editor used by Ctrl-e is configured from the Preferences screen.
93 The environment variable $VISUAL is consulted when no editor has been
94 configured.
95 ProTip: Configuring your editor to gvim -f -p will open multiple tabs
97 when editing files. gvim -f -o uses splits.
98 git cola is {vim, emacs, textpad, notepad++}-aware. When you select a
100 line in the grep screen and press any of Enter, Ctrl-e, or the Edit
101 button, you are taken to that exact line.
102 The editor preference is saved in the gui.editor variable using git
104 config.
105
107 git cola has many useful keyboard shortcuts.
108 You can see the available shortcuts by pressing the ? key, choosing
110 Help -> Keyboard shortcuts from the main menu, or by consulting the git
111 cola keyboard shortcuts reference.
112
114 The git cola interface is composed of various cooperating tools. Dou‐
115 ble-clicking a tool opens it in its own subwindow. Dragging it around
116 moves and places it within the window.
117 Tools can be hidden and rearranged however you like. git cola care‐
119 fully remembers your window layout and restores it the next time it is
120 launched.
121 The Control-{1, 2, 3, …} hotkey gives focus to a specific tool. A hid‐
123 den tool can be re-opened using the Tools menu or the Shift+Control-{1,
124 2, 3, …} shortcut keys.
125 The Diff editor can be focused with Ctrl-j. the Status tool can be
127 focused with Ctrl-k. the Commit tool can be focused with Ctrl-l.
128
130 The Status tool provides a visual analog to the git status command.
131 Status displays files that are modified relative to the staging area,
133 staged for the next commit, unmerged files from an in-progress merge,
134 and files that are untracked to git.
135 These are the same categories one sees when running git status on the
137 command line.
138 You can navigate through the list of files using keyboard arrows as
140 well as the ergonomical and vim-like j and k shortcut keys.
141 There are several convenient ways to interact with files in the Status
143 tool.
144 Selecting a file displays its diff in the DIFF viewer. Double-clicking
146 a file stages its contents, as does the the Ctrl-s shortcut key.
147 Ctrl-e opens selected files in the conifgured editor, and Ctrl-d opens
149 selected files using git difftool
150 Additional actions can be performed using the right-click context menu.
152 Actions
154 Clicking the Staged folder shows a diffstat for the index.
155 Clicking the Modified folder shows a diffstat for the worktree.
157 Clicking individual files sends diffs to the Diff Display.
159 Double-clicking individual files adds and removes their content from
161 the index.
162 Various actions are available through the right-click context menu.
164 Different actions are available depending a file’s status.
165 Stage Selected
167 Add to the staging area using git add Marks unmerged files as resolved.
168 Launch Editor
170 Launches the configured visual text editor
171 Launch Difftool
173 Visualize changes using git difftool.
174 Revert Unstaged Edits
176 Reverts unstaged content by checking out selected paths from the
177 index/staging area
178 Revert Uncommitted Edits
180 Throws away uncommitted edits
181 Unstage Selected
183 Remove from the index/staging area with git reset
184 Launch Merge Tool
186 Resolve conflicts using git mergetool.
187 Delete File(s)
189 Delete untracked files from the filesystem.
190 Add to .gitignore
192 Adds untracked files to to the .gitignore file.
193
195 The diff viewer/editor displays diffs for selected files. Additions
196 are shown in green and removals are displayed in light red. Extraneous
197 whitespace is shown with a pure-red background.
198 Right-clicking in the diff provides access to additional actions that
200 use either the cursor location or text selection.
201 Staging content for commit
203 The @@ patterns denote a new diff hunk. Selecting lines of diff and
204 using the Stage Selected Lines command will stage just the selected
205 lines. Clicking within a diff hunk and selecting Stage Diff Hunk
206 stages the entire patch diff hunk.
207 The corresponding opposite commands can be performed on staged files as
209 well, e.g. staged content can be selectively removed from the index
210 when we are viewing diffs for staged content.
211
213 The commit message editor is a simple text widget for entering commit
214 messages.
215 You can navigate between the Subject and Extended description… fields
217 using the keyboard arrow keys.
218 Pressing enter when inside the Subject field jumps down to the extended
220 description field.
221 The Options button menu to the left of the subject field provides
223 access to the additional actions.
224 The Ctrl+i keyboard shortcut adds a standard “Signed-off-by: ” line,
226 and Ctrl+Enter creates a new commit using the commit message and staged
227 content.
228 Sign Off
230 The Sign Off button adds a standard:
231 Signed-off-by: A. U. Thor <a.u.thor@example.com>
233 line to the bottom of the commit message.
235 Invoking this action is equivalent to passing the -s option to git com‐
237 mit.
238 Commit
240 The commit button runs git commit. The contents of the commit message
241 editor is provided as the commit message.
242 Only staged files are included in the commit – this is the same behav‐
244 ior as running git commit on the command-line.
245 Line and Column Display
247 The current line and column number is displayed by the editor. E.g. a
248 5,0 display means that the cursor is located at line five, column zero.
249 The display changes colors when lines get too long. Yellow indicates
251 the safe boundary for sending patches to a mailing list while keeping
252 space for inline reply markers.
253 Orange indicates that the line is starting to run a bit long and should
255 break soon.
256 Red indicates that the line is running up against the standard 80-col‐
258 umn limit for commit messages.
259 Keeping commit messages less than 76-characters wide is encouraged.
261 git log is a great tool but long lines mess up its formatting for
262 everyone else, so please be mindful when writing commit messages.
263 Amend Last Commit
265 Clicking on Amend Last Commit makes git cola amend the previous commit
266 instead of creating a new one. git cola loads the previous commit mes‐
267 sage into the commit message editor when this option is selected.
268 The Status tool will display all of the changes for the amended commit.
270 Create Signed Commit
272 Tell git commit and git merge to sign commits using GPG.
273 Using this option is equivalent to passing the --gpg-sign option to git
275 commit and git merge.
276 This option’s default value can be configured using the cola.signcom‐
278 mits configuration variable.
279 Prepare Commit Message
281 The Commit -> Prepare Commit Message action or Ctrl-Shift-Return key‐
282 board shortcut runs the cola-prepare-commit-msg hook if it is available
283 in .git/hooks/. This is a git cola-specific hook that takes the same
284 parameters as Git’s prepare-commit-msg hook
285 The hook is passed the path to .git/GIT_COLA_MSG as the first argument
287 and the hook is expected to write an updated commit message to speci‐
288 fied path. After running this action, the commit message editor is
289 updated with the new commit message.
290 To override the default path to this hook set the cola.prepareCom‐
292 mitMessageHook git config variable to the path to the hook script.
293 This is useful if you would like to use a common hook across all repos‐
294 itories.
295
297 The Branches tool provides a visual tree to navigate through the
298 branches. The tree has three main nodes Local Branch, Remote Branch
299 and Tags. Branches are grouped by their name divided by the character
300 ‘/’.Ex:
301 branch/feature/foo
303 branch/feature/bar
304 branch/doe
305 Will produce:
307 branch
309 - doe
310 + feature
311 - bar
312 - foo
313 Current branch will display a star icon. If current branch has commits
315 ahead/behind it will display an up/down arrow with it’s number.
316 Actions
318 Various actions are available through the right-click context menu.
319 Different actions are available depending of selected branch status.
320 Checkout
322 The checkout action runs git checkout [<branchname>].
323 Merge in current branch
325 The merge action runs git merge –no-commit [<branchname>].
326 Pull
328 The pull action runs git pull –no-ff [<remote>] [<branchname>].
329 Push
331 The push action runs git push [<remote>] [<branchname>].
332 Rename Branch
334 The rename branch action runs git branch -M [<branchname>].
335 Delete Branch
337 The delete branch branch action runs git branch -D [<branchname>].
338 Delete Remote Branch
340 The remote branch action runs git push –delete [<remote>] [<branch‐
341 name>].
342
344 Use the File -> Apply Patches menu item to begin applying patches.
345 Dragging and dropping patches onto the git cola interface adds the
347 patches to the list of patches to apply using git am.
348 You can drag either a set of patches or a directory containing patches.
350 Patches can be sorted using in the interface and are applied in the
351 same order as is listed in the list.
352 When a directory is dropped git cola walks the directory tree in search
354 of patches. git cola sorts the list of patches after they have all
355 been found. This allows you to control the order in which patchs are
356 applied by placing patchsets into alphanumerically-sorted directories.
357
359 git cola remembers modifications to the layout and arrangement of tools
360 within the git cola interface. Changes are saved and restored at
361 application shutdown/startup.
362 git cola can be configured to not save custom layouts by unsetting the
364 Save Window Settings option in the git cola preferences.
365
367 These variables can be set using git config or from the settings.
368 cola.blameviewer
370 The command used to blame files. Defaults to git gui blame.
371 cola.browserdockable
373 Whether to create a dock widget with the Browser tool. Defaults to
374 false to speedup startup time.
375 cola.checkconflicts
377 Inspect unmerged files for conflict markers before staging them. This
378 feature helps prevent accidental staging of unresolved merge conflicts.
379 Defaults to true.
380 cola.defaultrepo
382 git cola, when run outside of a Git repository, prompts the user for a
383 repository. Set cola.defaultrepo to the path of a Git repository to
384 make git cola attempt to use that repository before falling back to
385 prompting the user for a repository.
386 cola.dictionary
388 Specifies an additional dictionary for git cola to use in its spell
389 checker. This should be configured to the path of a newline-separated
390 list of words.
391 cola.expandtab
393 Expand tabs into spaces in the commit message editor. When set to
394 true, git cola will insert a configurable number of spaces when tab is
395 pressed. The number of spaces is determined by cola.tabwidth.
396 Defaults to false.
397 cola.fileattributes
399 Enables per-file gitattributes encoding support when set to true. This
400 tells git cola to honor the configured encoding when displaying and
401 applying diffs.
402 cola.fontdiff
404 Specifies the font to use for git cola’s diff display.
405 cola.icontheme
407 Specifies the icon themes to use throughout git cola. The theme speci‐
408 fied must be the name of the subdirectory containing the icons, which
409 in turn must be placed in the inside the main “icons” directory in git
410 cola’s installation prefix.
411 If unset, or set either “light” or “default”, then the default style
413 will be used. If set to “dark” then the built-in “dark” icon theme,
414 which is suitable for a dark window manager theme, will be used.
415 If set to an absolute directory path then icons in that directory will
417 be used. This value can be set to multiple values using, git config
418 –add cola.icontheme $theme.
419 This setting can be overridden by the GIT_COLA_ICON_THEME environment
421 variable, which can specify multiple themes using a colon-separated
422 value.
423 The icon theme can also be specified by passing –icon-theme=<theme> on
425 the command line, once for each icon theme, in the order that they
426 should be searched. This can be used to override a subset of the
427 icons, and fallback to the built-in icons for the remainder.
428 cola.inotify
430 Set to false to disable file system change monitoring. Defaults to
431 true, but also requires either Linux with inotify support or Windows
432 with pywin32 installed for file system change monitoring to actually
433 function.
434 cola.refreshonfocus
436 Set to true to automatically refresh when git cola gains focus.
437 Defaults to false because this can cause a pause whenever switching to
438 git cola from another application.
439 cola.linebreak
441 Whether to automatically break long lines while editing commit mes‐
442 sages. Defaults to true. This setting is configured using the Prefer‐
443 ences dialog, but it can be toggled for one-off usage using the commit
444 message editor’s options sub-menu.
445 cola.maxrecent
447 git cola caps the number of recent repositories to avoid cluttering the
448 start and recent repositories menu. The maximum number of repositories
449 to remember is controlled by cola.maxrecent and defaults to 8.
450 cola.dragencoding
452 git cola encodes paths dragged from its widgets into utf-16 when adding
453 them to the drag-and-drop mime data (specifically, the text/x-moz-url
454 entry). utf-16 is used to make gnome-terminal see the right paths, but
455 other terminals may expect a different encoding. If you are using a
456 terminal that expects a modern encoding, e.g. terminator, then set this
457 value to utf-8.
458 cola.readsize
460 git cola avoids reading large binary untracked files. The maximum size
461 to read is controlled by cola.readsize and defaults to 2048.
462 cola.safemode
464 The “Stage” button in the git cola Actions panel stages all files when
465 it is activated and no files are selected. This can be problematic if
466 it is accidentally triggered after carefully preparing the index with
467 staged changes. “Safe Mode” is enabled by setting cola.safemode to
468 true. When enabled, git cola will do nothing when “Stage” is activated
469 without a selection. Defaults to false.
470 cola.savewindowsettings
472 git cola will remember its window settings when set to true. Window
473 settings and X11 sessions are saved in $HOME/.config/git-cola.
474 cola.showpath
476 git cola displays the absolute path of the repository in the window
477 title. This can be disabled by setting cola.showpath to false.
478 Defaults to true.
479 cola.signcommits
481 git cola will sign commits by default when set true. Defaults to false.
482 See the section below on setting up GPG for more details.
483 cola.tabwidth
485 The number of columns occupied by a tab character. Defaults to 8.
486 cola.terminal
488 The command to use when launching commands within a graphical terminal.
489 cola.terminal defaults to xterm -e when unset. e.g. when opening a
491 shell, git cola will run xterm -e $SHELL.
492 If either gnome-terminal, xfce4-terminal, or konsole are installed then
494 they will be preferred over xterm when cola.terminal is unset.
495 cola.textwidth
497 The number of columns used for line wrapping. Tabs are counted accord‐
498 ing to cola.tabwidth.
499 cola.turbo
501 Set to true to enables “turbo” mode. “Turbo” mode disables some fea‐
502 tures that can slow things down when operating on huge repositories.
503 “Turbo” mode will skip loading Git commit messages, author details,
504 status information, and commit date details in the File Browser tool.
505 Defaults to false.
506 cola.color.text
508 The default diff text color, in hexadecimal #RRGGBB notation. Defaults
509 to “#030303”.
510 cola.color.add
512 The default diff “add” background color, in hexadecimal #RRGGBB nota‐
513 tion. Defaults to “#d2ffe4”.
514 cola.color.remove
516 The default diff “remove” background color, in hexadecimal #RRGGBB
517 notation. Defaults to “#fee0e4”.
518 cola.color.header
520 The default diff header text color, in hexadecimal #RRGGBB notation.
521 Defaults to “#bbbbbb”.
522 gui.diffcontext
524 The number of diff context lines to display.
525 gui.displayuntracked
527 git cola avoids showing untracked files when set to false.
528 gui.editor
530 The default text editor to use is defined in gui.editor. The config
531 variable overrides the VISUAL environment variable. e.g. gvim -f -p.
532 gui.historybrowser
534 The history browser to use when visualizing history. Defaults to gitk.
535 diff.tool
537 The default diff tool to use.
538 merge.tool
540 The default merge tool to use.
541 user.email
543 Your email address to be recorded in any newly created commits. Can be
544 overridden by the ‘GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL’, ‘GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL’, and
545 ‘EMAIL’ environment variables.
546 user.name
548 Your full name to be recorded in any newly created commits. Can be
549 overridden by the ‘GIT_AUTHOR_NAME’ and ‘GIT_COMMITTER_NAME’ environ‐
550 ment variables.
551
553 GIT_COLA_ICON_THEME
554 When set in the environment, GIT_COLA_ICON_THEME overrides the theme
555 specified in the cola.icontheme configuration. Read the section on
556 cola.icontheme above for more details.
557 GIT_COLA_SCALE
559 git cola can be made to scale its interface for HiDPI displays. When
560 defined, git cola will scale icons, radioboxes, and checkboxes accord‐
561 ing to the scale factor. The default value is 1. A good value is 2
562 for high-resolution displays.
563 Fonts are not scaled, as their size can already be set in the settings.
565 GIT_COLA_TRACE
567 When defined, git cola logs git commands to stdout. When set to full,
568 git cola also logs the exit status and output. When set to trace, git
569 cola logs to the Console widget.
570 VISUAL
572 Specifies the default editor to use. This is ignored when the gui.edi‐
573 tor configuration variable is defined.
574
576 git cola automatically detects your language and presents some transla‐
577 tions when available. This may not be desired, or you may want git
578 cola to use a specific language.
579 You can make git cola use an alternative language by creating a ~/.con‐
581 fig/git-cola/language file containing the standard two-letter gettext
582 language code, e.g. “en”, “de”, “ja”, “zh”, etc.:
583 mkdir -p ~/.config/git-cola &&
585 echo en >~/.config/git-cola/language
586 Alternatively you may also use LANGUAGE environmental variable to tem‐
588 porarily change git cola’s language just like any other gettext-based
589 program. For example to temporarily change git cola’s language to Eng‐
590 lish:
591 LANGUAGE=en git cola
593 To make git cola use the zh_TW translation with zh_HK, zh, and en as a
595 fallback.:
596 LANGUAGE=zh_TW:zh_HK:zh:en git cola
598
600 git cola allows you to define custom GUI actions by setting git config
601 variables. The “name” of the command appears in the “Actions” menu.
602 guitool.<name>.cmd
604 Specifies the shell command line to execute when the corresponding item
605 of the Tools menu is invoked. This option is mandatory for every tool.
606 The command is executed from the root of the working directory, and in
607 the environment it receives the name of the tool as GIT_GUITOOL, the
608 name of the currently selected file as FILENAME, and the name of the
609 current branch as CUR_BRANCH (if the head is detached, CUR_BRANCH is
610 empty).
611 guitool.<name>.background
613 Run the command in the background (similar to editing and difftool
614 actions). This avoids blocking the GUI. Setting background to true
615 implies noconsole and norescan.
616 guitool.<name>.needsfile
618 Run the tool only if a diff is selected in the GUI. It guarantees that
619 FILENAME is not empty.
620 guitool.<name>.noconsole
622 Run the command silently, without creating a window to display its out‐
623 put.
624 guitool.<name>.norescan
626 Don’t rescan the working directory for changes after the tool finishes
627 execution.
628 guitool.<name>.confirm
630 Show a confirmation dialog before actually running the tool.
631 guitool.<name>.argprompt
633 Request a string argument from the user, and pass it to the tool
634 through the ARGS environment variable. Since requesting an argument
635 implies confirmation, the confirm option has no effect if this is
636 enabled. If the option is set to true, yes, or 1, the dialog uses a
637 built-in generic prompt; otherwise the exact value of the variable is
638 used.
639 guitool.<name>.revprompt
641 Request a single valid revision from the user, and set the REVISION
642 environment variable. In other aspects this option is similar to arg‐
643 prompt, and can be used together with it.
644 guitool.<name>.revunmerged
646 Show only unmerged branches in the revprompt subdialog. This is useful
647 for tools similar to merge or rebase, but not for things like checkout
648 or reset.
649 guitool.<name>.title
651 Specifies the title to use for the prompt dialog. Defaults to the tool
652 name.
653 guitool.<name>.prompt
655 Specifies the general prompt string to display at the top of the dia‐
656 log, before subsections for argprompt and revprompt. The default value
657 includes the actual command.
658 guitool.<name>.shortcut
660 Specifies a keyboard shortcut for the custom tool.
661 The value must be a valid string understood by the QAction::setShort‐
663 cut() API. See
664 http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/qkeysequence.html#QKeySequence-2 for
665 more details about the supported values.
666 Avoid creating shortcuts that conflict with existing built-in git cola
668 shortcuts. Creating a conflict will result in no action when the
669 shortcut is used.
670
672 When creating signed commits gpg will attempt to read your password
673 from the terminal from which git cola was launched. The way to make
674 this work smoothly is to use a GPG agent so that you can avoid needing
675 to re-enter your password every time you commit.
676 This also gets you a graphical passphrase prompt instead of getting
678 prompted for your password in the terminal.
679 Install gpg-agent and friends
681 On Mac OS X, you may need to brew install gpg-agent and install the Mac
682 GPG Suite.
683 On Linux use your package manager to install gnupg2, gnupg-agent and
685 pinentry-qt, e.g.:
686 sudo apt-get install gnupg2 gnupg-agent pinentry-qt
688 On Linux, you should also configure Git so that it uses gpg2 (gnupg2),
690 otherwise you will get errors mentioning, “unable to open /dev/tty”.
691 Set Git’s gpg.program to gpg2:
692 git config --global gpg.program gpg2
694 Configure gpg-agent and a pin-entry program
696 On Mac OS X, edit ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf to include the line,:
697 use-agent
699 This is typically not needed on Linux, where gpg2 is used, as this is
701 the default value when using gpg2.
702 Next, edit ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf to contain a pinentry-program line
704 pointing to the pinentry program for your platform.
705 The following example ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf shows how to use pinen‐
707 try-gtk-2 on Linux:
708 pinentry-program /usr/bin/pinentry-gtk-2
710 default-cache-ttl 3600
711 This following example .gnupg/gpg-agent.conf shows how to use MacGPG2’s
713 pinentry app on On Mac OS X:
714 pinentry-program /usr/local/MacGPG2/libexec/pinentry-mac.app/Contents/MacOS/pinentry-mac
716 default-cache-ttl 3600
717 enable-ssh-support
718 use-standard-socket
719 Once this has been setup then you will need to reload your gpg-agent
721 config.:
722 echo RELOADAGENT | gpg-connect-agent
724 If you see the following output:
726 OK
728 Then the daemon is already running, and you do not need to start it
730 yourself.
731 If it is not running, eval the output of gpg-agent –daemon in your
733 shell prior to launching git cola.:
734 eval $(gpg-agent --daemon)
736 git cola
737
739 Git Installation
740 If Git is installed in a custom location, e.g. not installed in C:/Git
741 or Program Files, then the path to Git must be configured by creating a
742 file in your home directory ~/.config/git-cola/git-bindir that points
743 to your git installation. e.g.:
744 C:/Tools/Git/bin
746
748 Git Cola’s Git Repository
749 https://github.com/git-cola/git-cola/
750 Git Cola Homepage
752 https://git-cola.github.io/
753 Mailing List
755 https://groups.google.com/group/git-cola
756
758 David Aguilar and contributors
759
761 2007-2017, David Aguilar and contributors
7623.2 Jan 31, 2019 GIT-COLA(1)