1GIT-COLA(1) git-cola GIT-COLA(1)
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6 git-cola - The highly caffeinated Git GUI
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9 git cola [options] [sub-command]
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12 Git Cola is a sleek and powerful Git GUI.
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15 –amend
16 Start git cola in amend mode.
17
18 –prompt
19 Prompt for a Git repository. Defaults to the current directory.
20
21 -r, –repo <path>
22 Open the Git repository at <path>. Defaults to the current directory.
23
24 -s, –status-filter <filter>
25 Apply the path filter to the status widget.
26
27 –version
28 Print the git cola version and exit.
29
30 -h, –help
31 Show usage and optional arguments.
32
33 –help-commands
34 Show available sub-commands.
35
37 am
38 Apply patches.
39
40 archive
41 Export tarballs from Git.
42
43 branch
44 Create branches.
45
46 browse
47 Browse tracked files.
48
49 config
50 Configure settings.
51
52 dag
53 Start the git dag Git history browser.
54
55 diff
56 Diff changed files.
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58 fetch
59 Fetch history from remote repositories.
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61 grep
62 Use git grep to search for content.
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64 merge
65 Merge branches.
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67 pull
68 Fetch and merge remote branches.
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70 push
71 Push branches to remotes.
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73 rebase
74 Start an interactive rebase.
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76 remote
77 Create and edit remotes.
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79 search
80 Search for commits.
81
82 stash
83 Stash uncommitted modifications.
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85 tag
86 Create tags.
87
88 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
96 ProTip: Configuring your editor to gvim -f -p will open multiple tabs
97 when editing files. gvim -f -o uses splits.
98
99 git cola is {vim, emacs, textpad, notepad++}-aware. When you select a
100 line in the diff or grep screens and press any of Enter, Ctrl-e, or the
101 Edit button, you are taken to that exact line.
102
103 The editor preference is saved in the gui.editor variable using git
104 config.
105
107 git cola has many useful keyboard shortcuts.
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109 Many of git cola’s editors understand vim-style hotkeys, eg. {h,j,k,l}
110 for navigating in the diff, status, grep, and file browser widgets.
111
112 {d,u} move down/up one half page at a time (similar to vim’s
113 ctrl-{d,u}). The space and shift-space hotkeys are mapped to the same
114 operations.
115
116 Shift-{j,k,d,u,f,b,page-up,page-down,left,right,up,down} can be be used
117 in the diff editor to select lines while navigating.
118
119 s is a useful hotkey in the diff editor. It stages/unstages the cur‐
120 rent selection when a selection is present. When nothing is selected,
121 the diff hunk at the current text cursor position is staged. This
122 makes it very easy to review changes by selecting good hunks with s
123 while navigating down and over hunks that are not going to be staged.
124
125 Ctrl-u in the diff editor reverts unstaged edits, and respects the se‐
126 lection. This is useful for selectively reverted edits from the work‐
127 tree. This same hotkey reverts the entire file when used from the sta‐
128 tus tool.
129
130 Ctrl-s in the diff editor and status tools stages/unstages the entire
131 file.
132
133 You can see the available shortcuts by pressing pressing the ? key,
134 choosing Help -> Keyboard shortcuts from the main menu, or by consult‐
135 ing the git cola keyboard shortcuts reference.
136
138 The git cola interface is composed of various cooperating tools. Dou‐
139 ble-clicking a tool opens it in its own subwindow. Dragging it around
140 moves and places it within the main window.
141
142 Tools can be hidden and rearranged however you like. git cola care‐
143 fully remembers your window layout and restores it the next time it is
144 launched.
145
146 The Control-{1, 2, 3, …} hotkey gives focus to a specific tool. A hid‐
147 den tool can be re-opened using the Tools menu or the Shift+Control-{1,
148 2, 3, …} shortcut keys.
149
150 The Diff editor can be focused with Ctrl-j. the Status tool can be fo‐
151 cused with Ctrl-k. the Commit tool can be focused with Ctrl-l.
152
154 The Status tool provides a visual analog to the git status command.
155
156 Status displays files that are modified relative to the staging area,
157 staged for the next commit, unmerged files from an in-progress merge,
158 and files that are untracked to git.
159
160 These are the same categories one sees when running git status on the
161 command line.
162
163 You can navigate through the list of files using keyboard arrows as
164 well as the ergonomical and vim-like j and k shortcut keys.
165
166 There are several convenient ways to interact with files in the Status
167 tool.
168
169 Selecting a file displays its diff in the DIFF viewer. Double-clicking
170 a file stages its contents, as does the the Ctrl-s shortcut key.
171
172 Ctrl-e opens selected files in the conifgured editor, and Ctrl-d opens
173 selected files using git difftool
174
175 Additional actions can be performed using the right-click context menu.
176
177 Actions
178 Clicking the Staged folder shows a diffstat for the index.
179
180 Clicking the Modified folder shows a diffstat for the worktree.
181
182 Clicking individual files sends diffs to the Diff Display.
183
184 Double-clicking individual files adds and removes their content from
185 the index.
186
187 Various actions are available through the right-click context menu.
188 Different actions are available depending a file’s status.
189
190 Stage Selected
191 Add to the staging area using git add Marks unmerged files as resolved.
192
193 Launch Editor
194 Launches the configured visual text editor
195
196 Launch Difftool
197 Visualize changes using git difftool.
198
199 Revert Unstaged Edits
200 Reverts unstaged content by checking out selected paths from the in‐
201 dex/staging area
202
203 Revert Uncommitted Edits
204 Throws away uncommitted edits
205
206 Unstage Selected
207 Remove from the index/staging area with git reset
208
209 Launch Merge Tool
210 Resolve conflicts using git mergetool.
211
212 Delete File(s)
213 Delete untracked files from the filesystem.
214
215 Add to .gitignore
216 Adds untracked files to to the .gitignore file.
217
219 The diff viewer/editor displays diffs for selected files. Additions
220 are shown in green and removals are displayed in light red. Extraneous
221 whitespace is shown with a pure-red background.
222
223 Right-clicking in the diff provides access to additional actions that
224 use either the cursor location or text selection.
225
226 Staging content for commit
227 The @@ patterns denote a new diff hunk. Selecting lines of diff and
228 using the Stage Selected Lines command will stage just the selected
229 lines. Clicking within a diff hunk and selecting Stage Diff Hunk
230 stages the entire patch diff hunk.
231
232 The corresponding opposite commands can be performed on staged files as
233 well, e.g. staged content can be selectively removed from the index
234 when we are viewing diffs for staged content.
235
237 The commit message editor is a simple text widget for entering commit
238 messages.
239
240 You can navigate between the Subject and Extended description… fields
241 using the keyboard arrow keys.
242
243 Pressing enter when inside the Subject field jumps down to the extended
244 description field.
245
246 The Options button menu to the left of the subject field provides ac‐
247 cess to the additional actions.
248
249 The Ctrl+i keyboard shortcut adds a standard “Signed-off-by: ” line,
250 and Ctrl+Enter creates a new commit using the commit message and staged
251 content.
252
253 Sign Off
254 The Sign Off button adds a standard:
255
256 Signed-off-by: A. U. Thor <a.u.thor@example.com>
257
258 line to the bottom of the commit message.
259
260 Invoking this action is equivalent to passing the -s option to git com‐
261 mit.
262
263 Commit
264 The commit button runs git commit. The contents of the commit message
265 editor is provided as the commit message.
266
267 Only staged files are included in the commit – this is the same behav‐
268 ior as running git commit on the command-line.
269
270 Line and Column Display
271 The current line and column number is displayed by the editor. E.g. a
272 5,0 display means that the cursor is located at line five, column zero.
273
274 The display changes colors when lines get too long. Yellow indicates
275 the safe boundary for sending patches to a mailing list while keeping
276 space for inline reply markers.
277
278 Orange indicates that the line is starting to run a bit long and should
279 break soon.
280
281 Red indicates that the line is running up against the standard 80-col‐
282 umn limit for commit messages.
283
284 Keeping commit messages less than 76-characters wide is encouraged.
285 git log is a great tool but long lines mess up its formatting for ev‐
286 eryone else, so please be mindful when writing commit messages.
287
288 Amend Last Commit
289 Clicking on Amend Last Commit makes git cola amend the previous commit
290 instead of creating a new one. git cola loads the previous commit mes‐
291 sage into the commit message editor when this option is selected.
292
293 The Status tool will display all of the changes for the amended commit.
294
295 Create Signed Commit
296 Tell git commit and git merge to sign commits using GPG.
297
298 Using this option is equivalent to passing the --gpg-sign option to git
299 commit and git merge.
300
301 This option’s default value can be configured using the cola.signcom‐
302 mits configuration variable.
303
304 Prepare Commit Message
305 The Commit -> Prepare Commit Message action or Ctrl-Shift-Return key‐
306 board shortcut runs the cola-prepare-commit-msg hook if it is available
307 in .git/hooks/. This is a git cola-specific hook that takes the same
308 parameters as Git’s prepare-commit-msg hook
309
310 The hook is passed the path to .git/GIT_COLA_MSG as the first argument
311 and the hook is expected to write an updated commit message to speci‐
312 fied path. After running this action, the commit message editor is up‐
313 dated with the new commit message.
314
315 To override the default path to this hook set the cola.prepareCom‐
316 mitMessageHook git config variable to the path to the hook script.
317 This is useful if you would like to use a common hook across all repos‐
318 itories.
319
321 The Branches tool provides a visual tree to navigate through the
322 branches. The tree has three main nodes Local Branch, Remote Branch
323 and Tags. Branches are grouped by their name divided by the character
324 ‘/’.Ex:
325
326 branch/feature/foo
327 branch/feature/bar
328 branch/doe
329
330 Will produce:
331
332 branch
333 - doe
334 + feature
335 - bar
336 - foo
337
338 Current branch will display a star icon. If current branch has commits
339 ahead/behind it will display an up/down arrow with its number.
340
341 Actions
342 Various actions are available through the right-click context menu.
343 Different actions are available depending of selected branch status.
344
345 Checkout
346 The checkout action runs git checkout [<branchname>].
347
348 Merge in current branch
349 The merge action runs git merge –no-commit [<branchname>].
350
351 Pull
352 The pull action runs git pull –no-ff [<remote>] [<branchname>].
353
354 Push
355 The push action runs git push [<remote>] [<branchname>].
356
357 Rename Branch
358 The rename branch action runs git branch -M [<branchname>].
359
360 Delete Branch
361 The delete branch branch action runs git branch -D [<branchname>].
362
363 Delete Remote Branch
364 The remote branch action runs git push –delete [<remote>] [<branch‐
365 name>].
366
368 Use the File -> Apply Patches menu item to begin applying patches.
369
370 Dragging and dropping patches onto the git cola interface adds the
371 patches to the list of patches to apply using git am.
372
373 You can drag either a set of patches or a directory containing patches.
374 Patches can be sorted using in the interface and are applied in the
375 same order as is listed in the list.
376
377 When a directory is dropped git cola walks the directory tree in search
378 of patches. git cola sorts the list of patches after they have all
379 been found. This allows you to control the order in which patches are
380 applied by placing patchsets into alphanumerically-sorted directories.
381
383 git cola remembers modifications to the layout and arrangement of tools
384 within the git cola interface. Changes are saved and restored at ap‐
385 plication shutdown/startup.
386
387 git cola can be configured to not save custom layouts by unsetting the
388 Save Window Settings option in the git cola preferences.
389
391 Git Cola contains a default theme which follows the current Qt style
392 and a handful of built-in color themes. See cola.theme for more de‐
393 tails.
394
395 To use icons appropriate for a dark application theme, configure git
396 config --global cola.icontheme dark to use the dark icon theme. See
397 cola.icontheme for more details.
398
399 On Linux, you may want Qt to follow the Window manager theme by config‐
400 uring it to do so using the qt5ct Qt5 configuration tool. Install
401 qt5ct on Debian/Ubuntu systems to make this work.:
402
403 sudo apt install qt5ct
404
405 Once installed, update your ~/.bash_profile to activate qt5ct:
406
407 # Use the style configured using the qt5ct tool
408 QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=qt5ct
409 export QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME
410
411 This only work with the default theme. The other themes replace the
412 color palette with theme-specific colors.
413
414 On macOS, using the default theme will automatically inherit “Dark
415 Mode” color themes when configured via System Preferences. You will
416 need to configure the dark icon theme as noted above when dark mode is
417 enabled.
418
420 These variables can be set using git config or from the settings.
421
422 cola.autocompletepaths
423 Set to false to disable auto-completion of filenames in completion wid‐
424 gets. This can speed up operations when working in large repositories.
425 Defaults to true.
426
427 cola.autoloadCommitTemplate
428 Set to true to automatically load the commit template in the commit
429 message editor If the commit.template variable has not been configured,
430 raise the corresponding error. Defaults to false.
431
432 cola.blameviewer
433 The command used to blame files. Defaults to git gui blame.
434
435 cola.browserdockable
436 Whether to create a dock widget with the Browser tool. Defaults to
437 false to speedup startup time.
438
439 cola.checkconflicts
440 Inspect unmerged files for conflict markers before staging them. This
441 feature helps prevent accidental staging of unresolved merge conflicts.
442 Defaults to true.
443
444 cola.defaultrepo
445 git cola, when run outside of a Git repository, prompts the user for a
446 repository. Set cola.defaultrepo to the path of a Git repository to
447 make git cola attempt to use that repository before falling back to
448 prompting the user for a repository.
449
450 cola.dictionary
451 Specifies an additional dictionary for git cola to use in its spell
452 checker. This should be configured to the path of a newline-separated
453 list of words.
454
455 cola.expandtab
456 Expand tabs into spaces in the commit message editor. When set to
457 true, git cola will insert a configurable number of spaces when tab is
458 pressed. The number of spaces is determined by cola.tabwidth. De‐
459 faults to false.
460
461 cola.fileattributes
462 Enables per-file gitattributes encoding and binary file support. This
463 tells git cola to honor the configured encoding when displaying and ap‐
464 plying diffs.
465
466 A .gitattributes file can set the binary attribute in order to force
467 specific untracked paths to be treated as binary files when diffing.
468 Binary files are displayed using a hexdump display.
469
470 # Treat *.exr files as binary files.
471 *.exr binary
472
473 cola.fontdiff
474 Specifies the font to use for git cola’s diff display.
475
476 cola.hidpi
477 Specifies the High DPI displays scale factor. Set 0 to automatically
478 scaled. Setting value between 0 and 1 is undefined. This option re‐
479 quires at least Qt 5.6 to work. See Qt QT_SCALE_FACTOR documentation
480 for more information.
481
482 cola.icontheme
483 Specifies the icon themes to use throughout git cola. The theme speci‐
484 fied must be the name of the subdirectory containing the icons, which
485 in turn must be placed in the inside the main “icons” directory in git
486 cola’s installation prefix.
487
488 If unset, or set either “light” or “default”, then the default style
489 will be used. If set to “dark” then the built-in “dark” icon theme,
490 which is suitable for a dark window manager theme, will be used.
491
492 If set to an absolute directory path then icons in that directory will
493 be used. This value can be set to multiple values using, git config
494 --add cola.icontheme $theme.
495
496 This setting can be overridden by the GIT_COLA_ICON_THEME environment
497 variable, which can specify multiple themes using a colon-separated
498 value.
499
500 The icon theme can also be specified by passing --icon-theme=<theme> on
501 the command line, once for each icon theme, in the order that they
502 should be searched. This can be used to override a subset of the
503 icons, and fallback to the built-in icons for the remainder.
504
505 cola.imagediff.<extension>
506 Enable image diffs for the specified file extension. For example, con‐
507 figuring git config –global cola.imagediff.svg false will disable use
508 of the visual image diff for .svg files in all repos until is is ex‐
509 plicitly toggled on. Defaults to true.
510
511 cola.inotify
512 Set to false to disable file system change monitoring. Defaults to
513 true, but also requires either Linux with inotify support or Windows
514 with pywin32 installed for file system change monitoring to actually
515 function.
516
517 cola.refreshonfocus
518 Set to true to automatically refresh when git cola gains focus. De‐
519 faults to false because this can cause a pause whenever switching to
520 git cola from another application.
521
522 cola.linebreak
523 Whether to automatically break long lines while editing commit mes‐
524 sages. Defaults to true. This setting is configured using the Prefer‐
525 ences dialog, but it can be toggled for one-off usage using the commit
526 message editor’s options sub-menu.
527
528 cola.maxrecent
529 git cola caps the number of recent repositories to avoid cluttering the
530 start and recent repositories menu. The maximum number of repositories
531 to remember is controlled by cola.maxrecent and defaults to 8.
532
533 cola.dragencoding
534 git cola encodes paths dragged from its widgets into utf-16 when adding
535 them to the drag-and-drop mime data (specifically, the text/x-moz-url
536 entry). utf-16 is used to make gnome-terminal see the right paths, but
537 other terminals may expect a different encoding. If you are using a
538 terminal that expects a modern encoding, e.g. terminator, then set this
539 value to utf-8.
540
541 cola.readsize
542 git cola avoids reading large binary untracked files. The maximum size
543 to read is controlled by cola.readsize and defaults to 2048.
544
545 cola.resizebrowsercolumns
546 git cola will automatically resize the file browser columns as folders
547 are expanded/collapsed when cola.resizebrowsercolumns is set to true.
548
549 cola.safemode
550 The “Stage” button in the git cola Actions panel stages all files when
551 it is activated and no files are selected. This can be problematic if
552 it is accidentally triggered after carefully preparing the index with
553 staged changes. “Safe Mode” is enabled by setting cola.safemode to
554 true. When enabled, git cola will do nothing when “Stage” is activated
555 without a selection. Defaults to false.
556
557 cola.savewindowsettings
558 git cola will remember its window settings when set to true. Window
559 settings and X11 sessions are saved in $HOME/.config/git-cola.
560
561 cola.showpath
562 git cola displays the absolute path of the repository in the window ti‐
563 tle. This can be disabled by setting cola.showpath to false. Defaults
564 to true.
565
566 cola.signcommits
567 git cola will sign commits by default when set true. Defaults to false.
568 See the section below on setting up GPG for more details.
569
570 cola.startupmode
571 Control how the list of repositories is displayed in the startup dia‐
572 log. Set to list to view the list of repositories as a list, or folder
573 to view the list of repositories as a collection of folder icons. De‐
574 faults to list.
575
576 cola.statusindent
577 Set to true to indent files in the Status widget. Files in the Staged,
578 Modified, etc. categories will be grouped in a tree-like structure.
579 Defaults to false.
580
581 cola.statusshowtotals
582 Set to true to display files counts in the Status widget’s category ti‐
583 tles. Defaults to false.
584
585 cola.tabwidth
586 The number of columns occupied by a tab character. Defaults to 8.
587
588 cola.terminal
589 The command to use when launching commands within a graphical terminal.
590
591 cola.terminal defaults to xterm -e when unset. e.g. when opening a
592 shell, git cola will run xterm -e $SHELL.
593
594 git cola has built-in support for xterm, gnome-terminal, konsole. If
595 either gnome-terminal, xfce4-terminal, or konsole are installed then
596 they will be preferred over xterm when cola.terminal is unset.
597
598 The table below shows the built-in values that are used for the respec‐
599 tive terminal. You can force the use of a specific terminal by config‐
600 uring cola accordingly.
601
602 cola.terminalshellquote
603 Some terminal require that the command string get passed as a string.
604 For example, xfce4-terminal -e "git difftool" requires shellquoting,
605 whereas gnome-terminal -- git difftool does not.
606
607 You should not need to set this variable for the built-in terminals
608 cola knows about – it will behave correctly without configuration. For
609 example, when unconfigured, cola already knows that xfce4-terminal re‐
610 quires shellquoting.
611
612 This configuration variable is for custom terminals outside of the
613 builtin set. The table below shows the builtin configuration.
614 Terminal cola.terminal cola.terminalshellquote
615 ——– ————- ———————– gnome-terminal
616 gnome-terminal – false konsole konsole -e
617 false xfce4-terminal xfce4-terminal -e true xterm
618 xterm -e false
619
620 cola.textwidth
621 The number of columns used for line wrapping. Tabs are counted accord‐
622 ing to cola.tabwidth.
623
624 cola.theme
625 Specifies the GUI theme to use throughout git cola. The theme specified
626 must be one of the following values:
627
628 • default – default Qt theme, may appear different on various systems
629
630 • flat-dark-blue
631
632 • flat-dark-green
633
634 • flat-dark-grey
635
636 • flat-dark-red
637
638 • flat-light-blue
639
640 • flat-light-green
641
642 • flat-light-grey
643
644 • flat-light-red
645
646 If unset, or set to an invalid value, then the default style will be
647 used. The default theme is generated by Qt internal engine and should
648 look native but may look noticeably different on different platforms.
649 The flat themes on the other hand should look similar (but not identi‐
650 cal) on various systems.
651
652 The GUI theme can also be specified by passing --theme=<name> on the
653 command line.
654
655 cola.turbo
656 Set to true to enable “turbo” mode. “Turbo” mode disables some fea‐
657 tures that can slow things down when operating on huge repositories.
658 “Turbo” mode will skip loading Git commit messages, author details,
659 status information, and commit date details in the File Browser tool.
660 Defaults to false.
661
662 cola.color.text
663 The default diff text color, in hexadecimal #RRGGBB notation. Defaults
664 to “#030303”:
665
666 git config cola.color.text '#030303'
667
668 cola.color.add
669 The default diff “add” background color, in hexadecimal #RRGGBB nota‐
670 tion. Defaults to “#d2ffe4”:
671
672 git config cola.color.add '#d2ffe4'
673
674 cola.color.remove
675 The default diff “remove” background color, in hexadecimal #RRGGBB no‐
676 tation. Defaults to “#fee0e4”:
677
678 git config cola.color.remove '#fee0e4'
679
680 cola.color.header
681 The default diff header text color, in hexadecimal #RRGGBB notation.
682 Defaults to “#bbbbbb”:
683
684 git config cola.color.header '#bbbbbb'
685
686 core.hooksPath
687 Hooks are programs you can place in a hooks directory to trigger ac‐
688 tions at certain points in git’s execution. Hooks that don’t have the
689 executable bit set are ignored.
690
691 By default the hooks directory is $GIT_DIR/hooks, but that can be
692 changed via the core.hooksPath configuration variable
693
694 The cola-prepare-commit-msg hook functionality and Cola’s Git LFS de‐
695 tection honors this configuration.
696
697 Please see the git hooks documentation for more details.
698
699 gui.diffcontext
700 The number of diff context lines to display.
701
702 gui.displayuntracked
703 git cola avoids showing untracked files when set to false.
704
705 gui.editor
706 The default text editor to use is defined in gui.editor. The config
707 variable overrides the VISUAL environment variable. e.g. gvim -f -p.
708
709 gui.historybrowser
710 The history browser to use when visualizing history. Defaults to gitk.
711
712 diff.tool
713 The default diff tool to use.
714
715 merge.tool
716 The default merge tool to use.
717
718 user.email
719 Your email address to be recorded in any newly created commits. Can be
720 overridden by the ‘GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL’, ‘GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL’, and
721 ‘EMAIL’ environment variables.
722
723 user.name
724 Your full name to be recorded in any newly created commits. Can be
725 overridden by the ‘GIT_AUTHOR_NAME’ and ‘GIT_COMMITTER_NAME’ environ‐
726 ment variables.
727
729 GIT_COLA_ICON_THEME
730 When set in the environment, GIT_COLA_ICON_THEME overrides the theme
731 specified in the cola.icontheme configuration. Read cola.icontheme for
732 more details.
733
734 GIT_COLA_SCALE
735 IMPORTANT:
736 GIT_COLA_SCALE should not be used with newer versions of Qt.
737
738 Set QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR to 1 and Qt will automatically scale
739 the interface to the correct size based on the display DPI. This
740 option is also available by setting cola.hidpi configuration.
741
742 See the Qt High DPI documentation for more details.
743
744 git cola can be made to scale its interface for HiDPI displays. When
745 defined, git cola will scale icons, radioboxes, and checkboxes accord‐
746 ing to the scale factor. The default value is 1. A good value is 2
747 for high-resolution displays.
748
749 Fonts are not scaled, as their size can already be set in the settings.
750
751 GIT_COLA_TRACE
752 When defined, git cola logs git commands to stdout. When set to full,
753 git cola also logs the exit status and output. When set to trace, git
754 cola logs to the Console widget.
755
756 VISUAL
757 Specifies the default editor to use. This is ignored when the gui.edi‐
758 tor configuration variable is defined.
759
761 git cola automatically detects your language and presents some transla‐
762 tions when available. This may not be desired, or you may want git
763 cola to use a specific language.
764
765 You can make git cola use an alternative language by creating a ~/.con‐
766 fig/git-cola/language file containing the standard two-letter gettext
767 language code, e.g. “en”, “de”, “ja”, “zh”, etc.:
768
769 mkdir -p ~/.config/git-cola &&
770 echo en >~/.config/git-cola/language
771
772 Alternatively you may also use LANGUAGE environmental variable to tem‐
773 porarily change git cola’s language just like any other gettext-based
774 program. For example to temporarily change git cola’s language to Eng‐
775 lish:
776
777 LANGUAGE=en git cola
778
779 To make git cola use the zh_TW translation with zh_HK, zh, and en as a
780 fallback.:
781
782 LANGUAGE=zh_TW:zh_HK:zh:en git cola
783
785 git cola allows you to define custom GUI actions by setting git config
786 variables. The “name” of the command appears in the “Actions” menu.
787
788 guitool.<name>.cmd
789 Specifies the shell command line to execute when the corresponding item
790 of the Tools menu is invoked. This option is mandatory for every tool.
791 The command is executed from the root of the working directory, and in
792 the environment it receives the name of the tool as GIT_GUITOOL, the
793 name of the currently selected file as FILENAME, and the name of the
794 current branch as CUR_BRANCH (if the head is detached, CUR_BRANCH is
795 empty).
796
797 If <name> contains slashes (/) then the leading part of the name, up
798 until the final slash, is treated like a path of submenus under which
799 the actions will be created.
800
801 For example, configuring guitool.Commands/Util/echo.cmd creates a Com‐
802 mands menu inside the top-level Actions menu, a Util menu inside the
803 Commands menu and an echo action inside the Commands submenu.
804
805 guitool.<name>.background
806 Run the command in the background (similar to editing and difftool ac‐
807 tions). This avoids blocking the GUI. Setting background to true im‐
808 plies noconsole and norescan.
809
810 guitool.<name>.needsfile
811 Run the tool only if a diff is selected in the GUI. It guarantees that
812 FILENAME is not empty.
813
814 guitool.<name>.noconsole
815 Run the command silently, without creating a window to display its out‐
816 put.
817
818 guitool.<name>.norescan
819 Don’t rescan the working directory for changes after the tool finishes
820 execution.
821
822 guitool.<name>.confirm
823 Show a confirmation dialog before actually running the tool.
824
825 guitool.<name>.argprompt
826 Request a string argument from the user, and pass it to the tool
827 through the ARGS environment variable. Since requesting an argument im‐
828 plies confirmation, the confirm option has no effect if this is en‐
829 abled. If the option is set to true, yes, or 1, the dialog uses a
830 built-in generic prompt; otherwise the exact value of the variable is
831 used.
832
833 guitool.<name>.revprompt
834 Request a single valid revision from the user, and set the REVISION en‐
835 vironment variable. In other aspects this option is similar to arg‐
836 prompt, and can be used together with it.
837
838 guitool.<name>.revunmerged
839 Show only unmerged branches in the revprompt subdialog. This is useful
840 for tools similar to merge or rebase, but not for things like checkout
841 or reset.
842
843 guitool.<name>.title
844 Specifies the title to use for the prompt dialog. Defaults to the tool
845 name.
846
847 guitool.<name>.prompt
848 Specifies the general prompt string to display at the top of the dia‐
849 log, before subsections for argprompt and revprompt. The default value
850 includes the actual command.
851
852 guitool.<name>.shortcut
853 Specifies a keyboard shortcut for the custom tool.
854
855 The value must be a valid string understood by the QAction::setShort‐
856 cut() API. See
857 http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/qkeysequence.html#QKeySequence-2 for
858 more details about the supported values.
859
860 Avoid creating shortcuts that conflict with existing built-in git cola
861 shortcuts. Creating a conflict will result in no action when the
862 shortcut is used.
863
865 When creating signed commits, gpg will attempt to read your password
866 from the terminal from which git cola was launched. The way to make
867 this work smoothly is to use a GPG agent so that you can avoid needing
868 to re-enter your password every time you commit.
869
870 This also gets you a graphical passphrase prompt instead of getting
871 prompted for your password in the terminal.
872
873 Install gpg-agent and friends
874 On Mac OS X, you may need to brew install gpg-agent and install the Mac
875 GPG Suite.
876
877 On Linux use your package manager to install gnupg2, gnupg-agent and
878 pinentry-qt, e.g.:
879
880 sudo apt-get install gnupg2 gnupg-agent pinentry-qt
881
882 On Linux, you should also configure Git so that it uses gpg2 (gnupg2),
883 otherwise you will get errors mentioning, “unable to open /dev/tty”.
884 Set Git’s gpg.program to gpg2:
885
886 git config --global gpg.program gpg2
887
888 Configure gpg-agent and a pin-entry program
889 On Mac OS X, edit ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf to include the line,:
890
891 use-agent
892
893 This is typically not needed on Linux, where gpg2 is used, as this is
894 the default value when using gpg2.
895
896 Next, edit ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf to contain a pinentry-program line
897 pointing to the pinentry program for your platform.
898
899 The following example ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf shows how to use pinen‐
900 try-gtk-2 on Linux:
901
902 pinentry-program /usr/bin/pinentry-gtk-2
903 default-cache-ttl 3600
904
905 This following example .gnupg/gpg-agent.conf shows how to use MacGPG2’s
906 pinentry app on On Mac OS X:
907
908 pinentry-program /usr/local/MacGPG2/libexec/pinentry-mac.app/Contents/MacOS/pinentry-mac
909 default-cache-ttl 3600
910 enable-ssh-support
911 use-standard-socket
912
913 Once this has been set up then you will need to reload your gpg-agent
914 config:
915
916 echo RELOADAGENT | gpg-connect-agent
917
918 If you see the following output:
919
920 OK
921
922 Then the daemon is already running, and you do not need to start it
923 yourself.
924
925 If it is not running, eval the output of gpg-agent --daemon in your
926 shell prior to launching git cola.:
927
928 eval $(gpg-agent --daemon)
929 git cola
930
932 Git Installation
933 If Git is installed in a custom location, e.g. not installed in C:/Git
934 or Program Files, then the path to Git must be configured by creating a
935 file in your home directory ~/.config/git-cola/git-bindir that points
936 to your git installation. e.g.:
937
938 C:/Tools/Git/bin
939
940 SSH Agents for Key-based Authentication
941 You may need to setup ssh-agent in order to use SSH key-based authenti‐
942 cation on Windows. It has been reported that starting OpenSSH agent in
943 Windows Services and adding the key using Powershell are necessary in
944 order to get things working.
945
946 Please see the following links for more details.
947
948 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18683092/how-to-run-ssh-add-on-windows
949
951 FIPS Security Mode is available in newer versions of Python. These in‐
952 clude Python 3.9+ and the patched Python 3.6 used by CentOS8/RHEL8 (and
953 possibly others).
954
955 Git Cola uses the hashlib.md5 function and adheres to the FIPS security
956 mode when available. Git Cola does not use the MD5 value for security
957 purposes. MD% is used only for the purposes of implementing the
958 cola/gravatar.py Gravatar client.
959
961 Git Cola’s Git Repository
962 https://github.com/git-cola/git-cola/
963
964 Git Cola Homepage
965 https://git-cola.github.io/
966
967 Mailing List
968 https://groups.google.com/group/git-cola
969
971 David Aguilar and contributors
972
974 2007-2022, David Aguilar and contributors
975
976
977
978
9793.12.0 Jan 25, 2022 GIT-COLA(1)