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 following environment variables are consulted when no editor is
95 configured. If defined, the first of these variables is used:
96 • GIT_VISUAL
98 • VISUAL
100 • GIT_EDITOR
102 • EDITOR
104 The *VISUAL variables are consulted before the *EDITOR variables so
106 that you can configure a graphical editor independently of the editor
107 used by the Git CLI.
108 ProTip: Configuring your editor to gvim -f -p will open multiple tabs
110 when editing files. gvim -f -o uses splits.
111 git cola is {vim, emacs, textpad, notepad++}-aware. When you select a
113 line in the diff or grep screens and press any of Enter, Ctrl-e, or the
114 Edit button, you are taken to that exact line.
115 The editor preference is saved in the gui.editor variable using git
117 config.
118 The following are some recommend editor configurations.
120 • Neovim + Neovim-Qt
122 git config --global core.editor nvim
124 git config --global gui.editor 'nvim-qt --nofork'
125 • Vim + gvim
127 git config --global core.editor vim
129 git config --global gui.editor 'gvim -f'
130 • Sublime Text
132 git config --global gui.editor 'subl --wait'
134
136 git cola has many useful keyboard shortcuts.
137 Many of git cola’s editors understand vim-style hotkeys, eg. {h,j,k,l}
139 for navigating in the diff, status, grep, and file browser widgets.
140 {d,u} move down/up one half page at a time (similar to vim’s
142 ctrl-{d,u}). The space and shift-space hotkeys are mapped to the same
143 operations.
144 Shift-{j,k,d,u,f,b,page-up,page-down,left,right,up,down} can be be used
146 in the diff editor to select lines while navigating.
147 s is a useful hotkey in the diff editor. It stages/unstages the cur‐
149 rent selection when a selection is present. When nothing is selected,
150 the diff hunk at the current text cursor position is staged. This
151 makes it very easy to review changes by selecting good hunks with s
152 while navigating down and over hunks that are not going to be staged.
153 Ctrl-u in the diff editor reverts unstaged edits, and respects the se‐
155 lection. This is useful for selectively reverted edits from the work‐
156 tree. This same hotkey reverts the entire file when used from the sta‐
157 tus tool.
158 Ctrl-s in the diff editor and status tools stages/unstages the entire
160 file.
161 You can see the available shortcuts by pressing pressing the ? key,
163 choosing Help -> Keyboard shortcuts from the main menu, or by consult‐
164 ing the git cola keyboard shortcuts reference.
165
167 The git cola interface is composed of various cooperating tools. Dou‐
168 ble-clicking a tool opens it in its own subwindow. Dragging it around
169 moves and places it within the main window.
170 Tools can be hidden and rearranged however you like. git cola care‐
172 fully remembers your window layout and restores it the next time it is
173 launched.
174 The Control-{1, 2, 3, …} hotkey gives focus to a specific tool. A hid‐
176 den tool can be re-opened using the Tools menu or the Shift+Control-{1,
177 2, 3, …} shortcut keys.
178 The Diff editor can be focused with Ctrl-j. the Status tool can be fo‐
180 cused with Ctrl-k. the Commit tool can be focused with Ctrl-l.
181
183 The Status tool provides a visual analog to the git status command.
184 Status displays files that are modified relative to the staging area,
186 staged for the next commit, unmerged files from an in-progress merge,
187 and files that are untracked to git.
188 These are the same categories one sees when running git status on the
190 command line.
191 You can navigate through the list of files using keyboard arrows as
193 well as the ergonomical and vim-like j and k shortcut keys.
194 There are several convenient ways to interact with files in the Status
196 tool.
197 Selecting a file displays its diff in the Diff viewer. Double-clicking
199 a file stages its contents, as does the the Ctrl-s shortcut key.
200 Ctrl-e opens selected files in the configured editor, and Ctrl-d opens
202 selected files using git difftool
203 Additional actions can be performed using the right-click context menu.
205 Drag and Drop
207 Files can be dragged from the the Status tool onto other applications.
208 Some terminals will treat a drag with multiple files by separating them
210 with newlines, which is less amenable for pasting command-line argu‐
211 ments.
212 To avoid this issue, hold down Alt / Option when dragging from the Sta‐
214 tus tool. The drag and drop payload will no longer contain local file
215 URLs – it will contain plain text that is amenable for use on a com‐
216 mand-line.
217 Note: if drag and drop is not working and you are on Wayland then you
219 may need to export QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland in your environment.
220 Actions
222 Clicking the Staged folder shows a diffstat for the index.
223 Clicking the Modified folder shows a diffstat for the worktree.
225 Clicking individual files sends diffs to the Diff Display.
227 Double-clicking individual files adds and removes their content from
229 the index.
230 Various actions are available through the right-click context menu.
232 Different actions are available depending a file’s status.
233 Stage Selected
235 Add to the staging area using git add Marks unmerged files as resolved.
236 Launch Editor
238 Launches the configured visual text editor
239 Launch Difftool
241 Visualize changes using git difftool.
242 Revert Unstaged Edits
244 Reverts unstaged content by checking out selected paths from the in‐
245 dex/staging area
246 Revert Uncommitted Edits
248 Throws away uncommitted edits
249 Unstage Selected
251 Remove from the index/staging area with git reset
252 Launch Merge Tool
254 Resolve conflicts using git mergetool.
255 Delete File(s)
257 Delete untracked files from the filesystem.
258 Add to .gitignore
260 Adds untracked files to to the .gitignore file.
261
263 The diff viewer/editor displays diffs for selected files. Additions
264 are shown in green and removals are displayed in light red. Extraneous
265 whitespace is shown with a pure-red background.
266 Right-clicking in the diff provides access to additional actions that
268 use either the cursor location or text selection.
269 The “Copy Diff” action at Alt + Shift + C copies the selected lines to
271 the clipboard. The +, - and `` `` diff line prefixes are stripped from
272 each line when copying diffs using the “Copy Diff” action.
273 Staging content for commit
275 The @@ patterns denote a new diff hunk. Selecting lines of diff and
276 using the Stage Selected Lines command will stage just the selected
277 lines. Clicking within a diff hunk and selecting Stage Diff Hunk
278 stages the entire patch diff hunk.
279 The corresponding opposite commands can be performed on staged files as
281 well, e.g. staged content can be selectively removed from the index
282 when we are viewing diffs for staged content.
283 Diff Against Commit (Diff Mode)
285 Diff Mode allows you to selectively unstage and revert edits from arbi‐
286 trary commits so that you can bring these edits back into your work‐
287 tree.
288 You can use the diff editor to unstage edits against arbitrary commits
290 by using the Diff > Against Commit... (Diff Mode) menu action.
291 You can exit Diff Mode by clicking on the red circle-slash icon on the
293 Status widget, by using the Diff > Exit Diff mode menu action, or by
294 clicking in an empty area in the Status tool.
295
297 The commit message editor is a simple text widget for entering commit
298 messages.
299 You can navigate between the Subject and Extended description… fields
301 using the keyboard arrow keys.
302 Pressing enter when inside the Subject field jumps down to the extended
304 description field.
305 The Options button menu to the left of the subject field provides ac‐
307 cess to the additional actions.
308 The Ctrl+i keyboard shortcut adds a standard “Signed-off-by: “ line,
310 and Ctrl+Enter creates a new commit using the commit message and staged
311 content.
312 Sign Off
314 The Sign Off button adds a standard:
315 Signed-off-by: A. U. Thor <a.u.thor@example.com>
317 line to the bottom of the commit message.
319 Invoking this action is equivalent to passing the -s option to git com‐
321 mit.
322 Commit
324 The commit button runs git commit. The contents of the commit message
325 editor is provided as the commit message.
326 Only staged files are included in the commit – this is the same behav‐
328 ior as running git commit on the command-line.
329 Line and Column Display
331 The current line and column number is displayed by the editor. E.g. a
332 5,0 display means that the cursor is located at line five, column zero.
333 The display changes colors when lines get too long. Yellow indicates
335 the safe boundary for sending patches to a mailing list while keeping
336 space for inline reply markers.
337 Orange indicates that the line is starting to run a bit long and should
339 break soon.
340 Red indicates that the line is running up against the standard 80-col‐
342 umn limit for commit messages.
343 Keeping commit messages less than 76-characters wide is encouraged.
345 git log is a great tool but long lines mess up its formatting for ev‐
346 eryone else, so please be mindful when writing commit messages.
347 Amend Last Commit
349 Clicking on Amend Last Commit makes git cola amend the previous commit
350 instead of creating a new one. git cola loads the previous commit mes‐
351 sage into the commit message editor when this option is selected.
352 The Status tool will display all of the changes for the amended commit.
354 Create Signed Commit
356 Tell git commit and git merge to sign commits using GPG.
357 Using this option is equivalent to passing the --gpg-sign option to git
359 commit and git merge.
360 This option’s default value can be configured using the cola.signcom‐
362 mits configuration variable.
363 Prepare Commit Message
365 The Commit -> Prepare Commit Message action or Ctrl-Shift-Return key‐
366 board shortcut runs the cola-prepare-commit-msg hook if it is available
367 in .git/hooks/. This is a git cola-specific hook that takes the same
368 parameters as Git’s prepare-commit-msg hook
369 The hook is passed the path to .git/GIT_COLA_MSG as the first argument
371 and the hook is expected to write an updated commit message to speci‐
372 fied path. After running this action, the commit message editor is up‐
373 dated with the new commit message.
374 To override the default path to this hook set the cola.prepareCom‐
376 mitMessageHook git config variable to the path to the hook script.
377 This is useful if you would like to use a common hook across all repos‐
378 itories.
379
381 The Branches tool provides a visual tree to navigate through the
382 branches. The tree has three main nodes Local Branch, Remote Branch
383 and Tags. Branches are grouped by their name divided by the character
384 ‘/’.Ex:
385 branch/feature/foo
387 branch/feature/bar
388 branch/doe
389 Will produce:
391 branch
393 - doe
394 + feature
395 - bar
396 - foo
397 Current branch will display a star icon. If current branch has commits
399 ahead/behind it will display an up/down arrow with its number.
400 Actions
402 Various actions are available through the right-click context menu.
403 Different actions are available depending of selected branch status.
404 Checkout
406 The checkout action runs git checkout [<branchname>].
407 Merge in current branch
409 The merge action runs git merge –no-commit [<branchname>].
410 Pull
412 The pull action runs git pull –no-ff [<remote>] [<branchname>].
413 Push
415 The push action runs git push [<remote>] [<branchname>].
416 Rename Branch
418 The rename branch action runs git branch -M [<branchname>].
419 Delete Branch
421 The delete branch branch action runs git branch -D [<branchname>].
422 Delete Remote Branch
424 The remote branch action runs git push –delete [<remote>] [<branch‐
425 name>].
426
428 Use the File -> Apply Patches menu item to begin applying patches.
429 Dragging and dropping patches onto the git cola interface adds the
431 patches to the list of patches to apply using git am.
432 You can drag either a set of patches or a directory containing patches.
434 Patches can be sorted using in the interface and are applied in the
435 same order as is listed in the list.
436 When a directory is dropped git cola walks the directory tree in search
438 of patches. git cola sorts the list of patches after they have all
439 been found. This allows you to control the order in which patches are
440 applied by placing patchsets into alphanumerically-sorted directories.
441
443 git cola remembers modifications to the layout and arrangement of tools
444 within the git cola interface. Changes are saved and restored at ap‐
445 plication shutdown/startup.
446 git cola can be configured to not save custom layouts by unsetting the
448 Save Window Settings option in the git cola preferences.
449
451 Git Cola contains a default theme which follows the current Qt style
452 and a handful of built-in color themes. See cola.theme for more de‐
453 tails.
454 To use icons appropriate for a dark application theme, configure git
456 config --global cola.icontheme dark to use the dark icon theme. See
457 cola.icontheme for more details.
458 On macOS, using the default theme will automatically inherit “Dark
460 Mode” color themes when configured via System Preferences. You will
461 need to configure the dark icon theme as noted above when dark mode is
462 enabled.
463 On Linux, you may want Qt to follow the Window manager theme by config‐
465 uring it to do so using the qt5ct Qt5 configuration tool. Install
466 qt5ct on Debian/Ubuntu systems to make this work.:
467 sudo apt install qt5ct
469 Once installed, update your ~/.bash_profile to activate qt5ct:
471 # Use the style configured using the qt5ct tool
473 export QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=qt5ct
474 This only work with the default theme. The other themes replace the
476 color palette with theme-specific colors.
477 Some systems may require that you override QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE in order
479 to use a dark theme or to better interact with the Desktop environment.
480 Some systems provide a theme that you can install:
481 sudo apt-get install adwaita-qt
483 You can activate the theme using the following environment variable:
485 # Override the default theme to adwaita-dark
487 export QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE=adwaita-dark
488 QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE may already be set in your Desktop Environment, so
490 check that variable for reference if you get unexpected hangs when
491 launching git-cola or when the default theme does not follow the desk‐
492 top’s theme on Linux.
493 If you don’t want to set this variable globally then you can set it
495 when launching cola from the command-line:
496 QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE=adwaita-dark git cola
498 The following is a user-contributed custom git-cola.desktop file that
500 can be used to launch Git Cola with these settings preset for you:
501 [Desktop Entry]
503 Name=Git Cola (dark)
504 Comment=The highly caffeinated Git GUI
505 TryExec=git-cola
506 Exec=env QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE=adwaita-dark git-cola --prompt --icon-theme dark
507 Icon=git-cola
508 StartupNotify=true
509 Terminal=false
510 Type=Application
511 Categories=Development;RevisionControl;
512 X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
513 You may also want to customize the diff colors when using a dark theme:
515 git config --global cola.color.add 86c19f
517 git config --global cola.color.remove c07067
518 Please see #760 for more details.
520 Custom Themes
522 To create your own custom theme for Git Cola just create a QSS file and
523 put it in ~/.config/themes/. You can add as many files as you want.
524 Each file will become an option in Menu -> File -> Preferences -> Ap‐
525 pearance -> GUI theme.
526 Some examples can be found here Qt Style Sheets Examples.
528
530 These variables can be set using git config or from the settings.
531 cola.autocompletepaths
533 Set to false to disable auto-completion of filenames in completion wid‐
534 gets. This can speed up operations when working in large repositories.
535 Defaults to true.
536 cola.autoloadCommitTemplate
538 Set to true to automatically load the commit template in the commit
539 message editor If the commit.template variable has not been configured,
540 raise the corresponding error. Defaults to false.
541 cola.blameviewer
543 The command used to blame files. Defaults to git gui blame.
544 cola.blockcursor
546 Whether to use a “block” cursor in diff editors. The block cursor is
547 easier to see compared to a line cursor. Set to false to use a thin
548 “line” cursor. Defauls to true.
549 cola.browserdockable
551 Whether to create a dock widget with the Browser tool. Defaults to
552 false to speedup startup time.
553 cola.checkconflicts
555 Inspect unmerged files for conflict markers before staging them. This
556 feature helps prevent accidental staging of unresolved merge conflicts.
557 Defaults to true.
558 cola.defaultrepo
560 git cola, when run outside of a Git repository, prompts the user for a
561 repository. Set cola.defaultrepo to the path of a Git repository to
562 make git cola attempt to use that repository before falling back to
563 prompting the user for a repository.
564 cola.dictionary
566 Specifies an additional dictionary for git cola to use in its spell
567 checker. This should be configured to the path of a newline-separated
568 list of words.
569 By default, git cola searches for dict/words and dict/propernames dic‐
571 tionary files in ~/.local/share and $XDG_DATA_DIRS.
572 If $XDG_DATA_DIRS is undefined or set to an empty value then /usr/lo‐
574 cal/share and /usr/share are searched for dictionary files.
575 Dictionary files are newline-separated and contain one word per line.
577 cola.expandtab
579 Expand tabs into spaces in the commit message editor. When set to
580 true, git cola will insert a configurable number of spaces when tab is
581 pressed. The number of spaces is determined by cola.tabwidth. De‐
582 faults to false.
583 cola.gravatar
585 Use the gravatar.com service to lookup icons for author emails. Gra‐
586 vatar icons work by sending an MD5 hash of an author’s email to gra‐
587 vatar.com when requesting an icon. Warning: this feature can leak in‐
588 formation. Network requests to gravatar.com are disabled when set to
589 false. Defaults to true.
590 cola.fileattributes
592 Enables per-file gitattributes encoding and binary file support. This
593 tells git cola to honor the configured encoding when displaying and ap‐
594 plying diffs.
595 A .gitattributes file can set the binary attribute in order to force
597 specific untracked paths to be treated as binary files when diffing.
598 Binary files are displayed using a hexdump display.
599 # Treat *.exr files as binary files.
601 *.exr binary
602 cola.fontdiff
604 Specifies the font to use for git cola’s diff display.
605 cola.hidpi
607 Specifies the High DPI displays scale factor. Set 0 to automatically
608 scaled. Setting value between 0 and 1 is undefined. This option re‐
609 quires at least Qt 5.6 to work. See Qt QT_SCALE_FACTOR documentation
610 for more information.
611 cola.icontheme
613 Specifies the icon themes to use throughout git cola. The theme speci‐
614 fied must be the name of the subdirectory containing the icons, which
615 in turn must be placed in the inside the main “icons” directory in git
616 cola’s installation prefix.
617 If unset, or set either “light” or “default”, then the default style
619 will be used. If set to “dark” then the built-in “dark” icon theme,
620 which is suitable for a dark window manager theme, will be used.
621 If set to an absolute directory path then icons in that directory will
623 be used. This value can be set to multiple values using, git config
624 --add cola.icontheme $theme.
625 This setting can be overridden by the GIT_COLA_ICON_THEME environment
627 variable, which can specify multiple themes using a colon-separated
628 value.
629 The icon theme can also be specified by passing --icon-theme=<theme> on
631 the command line, once for each icon theme, in the order that they
632 should be searched. This can be used to override a subset of the
633 icons, and fallback to the built-in icons for the remainder.
634 cola.imagediff.[extension]
636 Enable image diffs for the specified file extension. For example, con‐
637 figuring git config –global cola.imagediff.svg false will disable use
638 of the visual image diff for .svg files in all repos until is is ex‐
639 plicitly toggled on. Defaults to true.
640 cola.inotify
642 Set to false to disable file system change monitoring. Defaults to
643 true, but also requires either Linux with inotify support or Windows
644 with pywin32 installed for file system change monitoring to actually
645 function.
646 cola.refreshonfocus
648 Set to true to automatically refresh when git cola gains focus. De‐
649 faults to false because this can cause a pause whenever switching to
650 git cola from another application.
651 cola.linebreak
653 Whether to automatically break long lines while editing commit mes‐
654 sages. Defaults to true. This setting is configured using the Prefer‐
655 ences dialog, but it can be toggled for one-off usage using the commit
656 message editor’s options sub-menu.
657 cola.logdate
659 Set the default date-time mode for the DAG display. This value is
660 passed to git log –date=<format>. See git log(1) for more details.
661 cola.maxrecent
663 git cola caps the number of recent repositories to avoid cluttering the
664 start and recent repositories menu. The maximum number of repositories
665 to remember is controlled by cola.maxrecent and defaults to 8.
666 cola.mousezoom
668 Controls whether zooming text using Ctrl + MouseWheel scroll is en‐
669 abled. Set to false to disable scrolling with the mouse wheel. De‐
670 fauls to `true.
671 cola.dragencoding
673 git cola encodes paths dragged from its widgets into utf-16 when adding
674 them to the drag-and-drop mime data (specifically, the text/x-moz-url
675 entry). utf-16 is used to make gnome-terminal see the right paths, but
676 other terminals may expect a different encoding. If you are using a
677 terminal that expects a modern encoding, e.g. terminator, then set this
678 value to utf-8.
679 cola.readsize
681 git cola avoids reading large binary untracked files. The maximum size
682 to read is controlled by cola.readsize and defaults to 2048.
683 cola.resizebrowsercolumns
685 git cola will automatically resize the file browser columns as folders
686 are expanded/collapsed when cola.resizebrowsercolumns is set to true.
687 cola.patchesdirectory
689 The default directory to use when exporting patches. Relative paths are
690 treated as being relative to the current repository. Absolute paths are
691 used as-is. Defaults to patches.
692 cola.safemode
694 The “Stage” button in the git cola Actions panel stages all files when
695 it is activated and no files are selected. This can be problematic if
696 it is accidentally triggered after carefully preparing the index with
697 staged changes. “Safe Mode” is enabled by setting cola.safemode to
698 true. When enabled, git cola will do nothing when “Stage” is activated
699 without a selection. Defaults to false.
700 cola.savewindowsettings
702 git cola will remember its window settings when set to true. Window
703 settings and X11 sessions are saved in $HOME/.config/git-cola.
704 cola.showpath
706 git cola displays the absolute path of the repository in the window ti‐
707 tle. This can be disabled by setting cola.showpath to false. Defaults
708 to true.
709 cola.signcommits
711 git cola will sign commits by default when set true. Defaults to false.
712 See the section below on setting up GPG for more details.
713 cola.startupmode
715 Control how the list of repositories is displayed in the startup dia‐
716 log. Set to list to view the list of repositories as a list, or folder
717 to view the list of repositories as a collection of folder icons. De‐
718 faults to list.
719 cola.statusindent
721 Set to true to indent files in the Status widget. Files in the Staged,
722 Modified, etc. categories will be grouped in a tree-like structure.
723 Defaults to false.
724 cola.statusshowtotals
726 Set to true to display files counts in the Status widget’s category ti‐
727 tles. Defaults to false.
728 cola.tabwidth
730 The number of columns occupied by a tab character. Defaults to 8.
731 cola.terminal
733 The command to use when launching commands within a graphical terminal.
734 cola.terminal defaults to xterm -e when unset. e.g. when opening a
736 shell, git cola will run xterm -e $SHELL.
737 git cola has built-in support for xterm, gnome-terminal, konsole. If
739 either gnome-terminal, xfce4-terminal, or konsole are installed then
740 they will be preferred over xterm when cola.terminal is unset.
741 The table below shows the built-in values that are used for the respec‐
743 tive terminal. You can force the use of a specific terminal by config‐
744 uring cola accordingly.
745 cola.terminalshellquote
747 Some terminal require that the command string get passed as a string.
748 For example, xfce4-terminal -e "git difftool" requires shell quoting,
749 whereas gnome-terminal -- git difftool does not.
750 You should not need to set this variable for the built-in terminals
752 cola knows about – it will behave correctly without configuration. For
753 example, when unconfigured, cola already knows that xfce4-terminal re‐
754 quires shell quoting.
755 This configuration variable is for custom terminals outside of the
757 builtin set. The table below shows the builtin configuration.
758 ┌───────────────┬───────────────────┬────────────────────┐
760 │Terminal │ cola.terminal │ cola.terminalshel‐ │
761 │ │ │ lquote │
762 ├───────────────┼───────────────────┼────────────────────┤
763 │gnome-terminal │ gnome-terminal -- │ false │
764 ├───────────────┼───────────────────┼────────────────────┤
765 │konsole │ konsole -e │ false │
766 ├───────────────┼───────────────────┼────────────────────┤
767 │xfce4-terminal │ xfce4-terminal -e │ true │
768 ├───────────────┼───────────────────┼────────────────────┤
769 │xterm │ xterm -e │ false │
770 └───────────────┴───────────────────┴────────────────────┘
771 cola.textwidth
773 The number of columns used for line wrapping. Tabs are counted accord‐
774 ing to cola.tabwidth.
775 cola.theme
777 Specifies the GUI theme to use throughout git cola. The theme specified
778 must be one of the following values:
779 • default – default Qt theme, may appear different on various systems
781 • flat-dark-blue
783 • flat-dark-green
785 • flat-dark-grey
787 • flat-dark-red
789 • flat-light-blue
791 • flat-light-green
793 • flat-light-grey
795 • flat-light-red
797 If unset, or set to an invalid value, then the default style will be
799 used. The default theme is generated by Qt internal engine and should
800 look native but may look noticeably different on different platforms.
801 The flat themes on the other hand should look similar (but not identi‐
802 cal) on various systems.
803 The GUI theme can also be specified by passing --theme=<name> on the
805 command line.
806 cola.turbo
808 Set to true to enable “turbo” mode. “Turbo” mode disables some fea‐
809 tures that can slow things down when operating on huge repositories.
810 “Turbo” mode will skip loading Git commit messages, author details,
811 status information, and commit date details in the File Browser tool.
812 Defaults to false.
813 cola.color.text
815 The default diff text color, in hexadecimal #RRGGBB notation. Defaults
816 to “#030303”:
817 git config cola.color.text '#030303'
819 cola.color.add
821 The default diff “add” background color, in hexadecimal #RRGGBB nota‐
822 tion. Defaults to “#d2ffe4”:
823 git config cola.color.add '#d2ffe4'
825 cola.color.remove
827 The default diff “remove” background color, in hexadecimal #RRGGBB no‐
828 tation. Defaults to “#fee0e4”:
829 git config cola.color.remove '#fee0e4'
831 cola.color.header
833 The default diff header text color, in hexadecimal #RRGGBB notation.
834 Defaults to “#bbbbbb”:
835 git config cola.color.header '#bbbbbb'
837 core.hooksPath
839 Hooks are programs you can place in a hooks directory to trigger ac‐
840 tions at certain points in git’s execution. Hooks that don’t have the
841 executable bit set are ignored.
842 By default the hooks directory is $GIT_DIR/hooks, but that can be
844 changed via the core.hooksPath configuration variable
845 The cola-prepare-commit-msg hook functionality and Cola’s Git LFS de‐
847 tection honors this configuration.
848 Please see the git hooks documentation for more details.
850 gui.diffcontext
852 The number of diff context lines to display.
853 gui.displayuntracked
855 git cola avoids showing untracked files when set to false.
856 gui.editor
858 The default text editor to use is defined in gui.editor. The config
859 variable overrides the VISUAL environment variable. e.g. gvim -f -p.
860 gui.historybrowser
862 The history browser to use when visualizing history. Defaults to gitk.
863 diff.tool
865 The default diff tool to use.
866 merge.tool
868 The default merge tool to use.
869 user.email
871 Your email address to be recorded in any newly created commits. Can be
872 overridden by the ‘GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL’, ‘GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL’, and
873 ‘EMAIL’ environment variables.
874 user.name
876 Your full name to be recorded in any newly created commits. Can be
877 overridden by the ‘GIT_AUTHOR_NAME’ and ‘GIT_COMMITTER_NAME’ environ‐
878 ment variables.
879
881 GIT_COLA_ICON_THEME
882 When set in the environment, GIT_COLA_ICON_THEME overrides the theme
883 specified in the cola.icontheme configuration. Read cola.icontheme for
884 more details.
885 GIT_COLA_SCALE
887 IMPORTANT:
888 GIT_COLA_SCALE should not be used with newer versions of Qt.
889 Set QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR to 1 and Qt will automatically scale
891 the interface to the correct size based on the display DPI. This
892 option is also available by setting cola.hidpi configuration.
893 See the Qt High DPI documentation for more details.
895 git cola can be made to scale its interface for HiDPI displays. When
897 defined, git cola will scale icons, radioboxes, and checkboxes accord‐
898 ing to the scale factor. The default value is 1. A good value is 2
899 for high-resolution displays.
900 Fonts are not scaled, as their size can already be set in the settings.
902 GIT_COLA_TRACE
904 When defined, git cola logs git commands to stdout. When set to full,
905 git cola also logs the exit status and output. When set to trace, git
906 cola logs to the Console widget.
907 VISUAL
909 Specifies the default editor to use. This is ignored when the gui.edi‐
910 tor configuration variable is defined.
911
913 git cola automatically detects your language and presents some transla‐
914 tions when available. This may not be desired, or you may want git
915 cola to use a specific language.
916 You can make git cola use an alternative language by creating a ~/.con‐
918 fig/git-cola/language file containing the standard two-letter gettext
919 language code, e.g. “en”, “de”, “ja”, “zh”, etc.:
920 mkdir -p ~/.config/git-cola &&
922 echo en >~/.config/git-cola/language
923 Alternatively you may also use LANGUAGE environmental variable to tem‐
925 porarily change git cola’s language just like any other gettext-based
926 program. For example to temporarily change git cola’s language to Eng‐
927 lish:
928 LANGUAGE=en git cola
930 To make git cola use the zh_TW translation with zh_HK, zh, and en as a
932 fallback.:
933 LANGUAGE=zh_TW:zh_HK:zh:en git cola
935
937 git cola allows you to define custom GUI actions by setting git config
938 variables. The “name” of the command appears in the “Actions” menu.
939 guitool.<name>.cmd
941 Specifies the shell command line to execute when the corresponding item
942 of the Tools menu is invoked. This option is mandatory for every tool.
943 The command is executed from the root of the working directory, and in
944 the environment it receives the name of the tool as GIT_GUITOOL, the
945 name of the currently selected file as FILENAME, and the name of the
946 current branch as CUR_BRANCH (if the head is detached, CUR_BRANCH is
947 empty).
948 If <name> contains slashes (/) then the leading part of the name, up
950 until the final slash, is treated like a path of submenus under which
951 the actions will be created.
952 For example, configuring guitool.Commands/Util/echo.cmd creates a Com‐
954 mands menu inside the top-level Actions menu, a Util menu inside the
955 Commands menu and an echo action inside the Commands submenu.
956 guitool.<name>.background
958 Run the command in the background (similar to editing and difftool ac‐
959 tions). This avoids blocking the GUI. Setting background to true im‐
960 plies noconsole and norescan.
961 guitool.<name>.needsfile
963 Run the tool only if a diff is selected in the GUI. It guarantees that
964 FILENAME is not empty.
965 guitool.<name>.noconsole
967 Run the command silently, without creating a window to display its out‐
968 put.
969 guitool.<name>.norescan
971 Don’t rescan the working directory for changes after the tool finishes
972 execution.
973 guitool.<name>.confirm
975 Show a confirmation dialog before actually running the tool.
976 guitool.<name>.argprompt
978 Request a string argument from the user, and pass it to the tool
979 through the ARGS environment variable. Since requesting an argument im‐
980 plies confirmation, the confirm option has no effect if this is en‐
981 abled. If the option is set to true, yes, or 1, the dialog uses a
982 built-in generic prompt; otherwise the exact value of the variable is
983 used.
984 guitool.<name>.revprompt
986 Request a single valid revision from the user, and set the REVISION en‐
987 vironment variable. In other aspects this option is similar to arg‐
988 prompt, and can be used together with it.
989 guitool.<name>.revunmerged
991 Show only unmerged branches in the revprompt subdialog. This is useful
992 for tools similar to merge or rebase, but not for things like checkout
993 or reset.
994 guitool.<name>.title
996 Specifies the title to use for the prompt dialog. Defaults to the tool
997 name.
998 guitool.<name>.prompt
1000 Specifies the general prompt string to display at the top of the dia‐
1001 log, before subsections for argprompt and revprompt. The default value
1002 includes the actual command.
1003 guitool.<name>.shortcut
1005 Specifies a keyboard shortcut for the custom tool.
1006 The value must be a valid string understood by the QAction::setShort‐
1008 cut() API. See
1009 http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/qkeysequence.html#QKeySequence-2 for
1010 more details about the supported values.
1011 Avoid creating shortcuts that conflict with existing built-in git cola
1013 shortcuts. Creating a conflict will result in no action when the
1014 shortcut is used.
1015
1017 When creating signed commits, gpg will attempt to read your password
1018 from the terminal from which git cola was launched. The way to make
1019 this work smoothly is to use a GPG agent so that you can avoid needing
1020 to re-enter your password every time you commit.
1021 This also gets you a graphical passphrase prompt instead of getting
1023 prompted for your password in the terminal.
1024 Install gpg-agent and friends
1026 On Mac OS X, you may need to brew install gpg-agent and install the Mac
1027 GPG Suite.
1028 On Linux use your package manager to install gnupg2, gnupg-agent and
1030 pinentry-qt, e.g.:
1031 sudo apt-get install gnupg2 gnupg-agent pinentry-qt
1033 On Linux, you should also configure Git so that it uses gpg2 (gnupg2),
1035 otherwise you will get errors mentioning, “unable to open /dev/tty”.
1036 Set Git’s gpg.program to gpg2:
1037 git config --global gpg.program gpg2
1039 Configure gpg-agent and a pin-entry program
1041 On Mac OS X, edit ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf to include the line,:
1042 use-agent
1044 This is typically not needed on Linux, where gpg2 is used, as this is
1046 the default value when using gpg2.
1047 Next, edit ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf to contain a pinentry-program line
1049 pointing to the pinentry program for your platform.
1050 The following example ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf shows how to use pinen‐
1052 try-gtk-2 on Linux:
1053 pinentry-program /usr/bin/pinentry-gtk-2
1055 default-cache-ttl 3600
1056 This following example .gnupg/gpg-agent.conf shows how to use MacGPG2’s
1058 pinentry app on On Mac OS X:
1059 pinentry-program /usr/local/MacGPG2/libexec/pinentry-mac.app/Contents/MacOS/pinentry-mac
1061 default-cache-ttl 3600
1062 enable-ssh-support
1063 use-standard-socket
1064 Once this has been set up then you will need to reload your gpg-agent
1066 config:
1067 echo RELOADAGENT | gpg-connect-agent
1069 If you see the following output:
1071 OK
1073 Then the daemon is already running, and you do not need to start it
1075 yourself.
1076 If it is not running, eval the output of gpg-agent --daemon in your
1078 shell prior to launching git cola.:
1079 eval $(gpg-agent --daemon)
1081 git cola
1082
1084 Git Cola provides shell completions for zsh and bash. The completion
1085 scripts and instructions are included in Git Cola’s contrib directory.
1086 • Shell completion scripts
1088 • Setup instructions
1090
1092 Git Installation
1093 If Git is installed in a custom location, e.g. not installed in C:/Git
1094 or Program Files, then the path to Git must be configured by creating a
1095 file in your home directory ~/.config/git-cola/git-bindir that points
1096 to your git installation. e.g.:
1097 C:/Tools/Git/bin
1099 SSH Agents for Key-based Authentication
1101 You may need to setup ssh-agent in order to use SSH key-based authenti‐
1102 cation on Windows. It has been reported that starting OpenSSH agent in
1103 Windows Services and adding the key using Powershell are necessary in
1104 order to get things working.
1105 Please see the following links for more details.
1107 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18683092/how-to-run-ssh-add-on-windows
1109
1111 FIPS Security Mode is available in newer versions of Python. These in‐
1112 clude Python 3.9+ and the patched Python 3.6 used by CentOS8/RHEL8 (and
1113 possibly others).
1114 Git Cola uses the hashlib.md5 function and adheres to the FIPS security
1116 mode when available. Git Cola does not use the MD5 value for security
1117 purposes. MD5 is used only for the purposes of implementing the
1118 cola/gravatar.py Gravatar client.
1119
1121 Git Cola’s Git Repository
1122 https://github.com/git-cola/git-cola/
1123 Git Cola Homepage
1125 https://git-cola.github.io/
1126 Mailing List
1128 https://groups.google.com/group/git-cola
1129
1131 David Aguilar and contributors
1132
1134 2007-2023, David Aguilar and contributors
11354.3.2 Sep 18, 2023 GIT-COLA(1)