1 # git-cola: The highly caffeinated Git GUI
3 git-cola is a powerful Git GUI with a slick and intuitive user interface.
5 Copyright (C) 2007-2020, David Aguilar and contributors
7 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
8 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
9 the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or
10 (at your option) any later version.
12 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
13 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
14 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
15 GNU General Public License for more details.
17 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
18 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
22 Screenshots are available on the
23 [git-cola screenshots page](https://git-cola.github.io/screenshots.html).
29 New releases are available on the
30 [git-cola download page](https://git-cola.github.io/downloads.html).
34 git clone git://github.com/git-cola/git-cola.git
36 [![git-cola build status](https://api.travis-ci.org/git-cola/git-cola.svg?branch=main)](https://travis-ci.org/git-cola/git-cola)
38 [git-cola on github](https://github.com/git-cola/git-cola)
40 [git-cola google group](https://groups.google.com/group/git-cola/)
47 * [git](https://git-scm.com/) 1.6.3 or newer.
49 * [Python](https://python.org/) 2.6 or newer (Python 2+3 compatible).
51 * [QtPy](https://github.com/spyder-ide/qtpy) 1.1.0 or newer.
53 * [argparse](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/argparse) 1.1 or newer.
54 argparse is part of the stdlib in Python 2.7; install argparse separately if
55 you are running on Python 2.6.
57 * [Sphinx](http://sphinx-doc.org/) for building the documentation.
59 git-cola uses QtPy, so you can choose between PyQt4, PyQt5, and
60 PySide by setting the `QT_API` environment variable to `pyqt4`, `pyqt5` or
61 `pyside` as desired. `qtpy` defaults to `pyqt5` and falls back to `pyqt4`
62 if `pyqt5` is not installed.
64 Any of the following Python Qt libraries must be installed:
66 * [PyQt4](https://www.riverbankcomputing.com/software/pyqt/download)
69 * [PyQt5](https://www.riverbankcomputing.com/software/pyqt/download5)
72 * [PySide](https://github.com/PySide/PySide)
75 Set `QT_API=pyqt4` in your environment if you have both
76 versions of PyQt installed and want to ensure that PyQt4 is used.
80 git-cola enables additional features when the following
81 Python modules are installed.
83 [send2trash](https://github.com/hsoft/send2trash) enables cross-platform
84 "Send to Trash" functionality.
86 # BREWING INSTRUCTIONS
90 You don't need to install git-cola to run it.
91 Running git-cola from its source tree is the easiest
92 way to try the latest version.
94 git clone git://github.com/git-cola/git-cola.git
99 You can also start `cola` as a Python module if Python can find it.
105 Having git-cola's `bin/` directory in your path allows you to run
106 `git cola` like a regular built-in Git command:
108 # Replace "$PWD/bin" with the path to git-cola's bin/ directory
109 PATH="$PWD/bin":"$PATH"
115 The instructions below assume that you have git-cola present in your
116 `$PATH`. Replace "git cola" with "./bin/git-cola" as needed if you'd like to
117 just run it in-place.
121 * [HTML documentation](https://git-cola.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)
123 * [git-cola manual](share/doc/git-cola/git-cola.rst)
125 * [git-dag manual](share/doc/git-cola/git-dag.rst)
127 * [Keyboard shortcuts](https://git-cola.github.io/share/doc/git-cola/hotkeys.html)
129 * [Contributing guidelines](CONTRIBUTING.md)
133 Normally you can just do "make install" to install git-cola
134 in your `$HOME` directory (`$HOME/bin`, `$HOME/share`, etc).
135 If you want to do a global install you can do
137 make prefix=/usr install
139 The platform-specific installation methods below use the native
140 package manager. You should use one of these so that all of git-cola's
141 dependencies are installed.
143 Distutils is used by the `Makefile` via `setup.py` to install git-cola and
144 its launcher scripts. distutils replaces the `#!/usr/bin/env python` lines in
145 scripts with the full path to python at build time, which can be undesirable
146 when the runtime python is not the same as the build-time python. To disable
147 the replacement of the `#!/usr/bin/env python` lines, pass `USE_ENV_PYTHON=1`
152 Linux is it! Your distro has probably already packaged git-cola.
153 If not, please file a bug against your distribution ;-)
157 Available in the [AUR](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/git-cola/).
173 zypper install git-cola
177 Available in [SlackBuilds.org](http://slackbuilds.org/result/?search=git-cola).
181 # install from official binary packages
182 pkg install -r FreeBSD devel/git-cola
184 cd /usr/ports/devel/git-cola && make clean install
188 The default version on 18.04 is older and is missing features and enhancements.
189 Use this [PPA](https://launchpad.net/~pavreh/+archive/ubuntu/git-cola)
190 maintained by @pavreh to get a newer version.
194 [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/) is the easiest way to install
195 git-cola's Qt4 and PyQt4 dependencies. We will use Homebrew to install
196 the git-cola recipe, but build our own .app bundle from source.
198 [Sphinx](http://sphinx-doc.org/latest/install.html) is used to build the
201 brew install sphinx-doc
202 brew install git-cola
204 Once brew has installed git-cola you can:
208 `git clone git://github.com/git-cola/git-cola.git && cd git-cola`
210 2. Build the git-cola.app application bundle
214 PYTHON=$(brew --prefix python3)/bin/python3 \
215 PYTHON_CONFIG=$(brew --prefix python3)/bin/python3-config \
216 SPHINXBUILD=$(brew --prefix sphinx-doc)/bin/sphinx-build \
220 3. Copy it to /Applications
222 `rm -fr /Applications/git-cola.app && cp -r git-cola.app /Applications`
224 Newer versions of Homebrew install their own `python3` installation and
225 provide the `PyQt5` modules for `python3` only. You have to use
226 `python3 ./bin/git-cola` when running from the source tree.
228 ### UPGRADING USING HOMEBREW
230 If you upgrade using `brew` then it is recommended that you re-install
231 git-cola's dependencies when upgrading. Re-installing ensures that the
232 Python modules provided by Homebrew will be properly set up.
234 This is required when upgrading to a modern (post-10.11 El Capitan) Mac OS X.
235 Homebrew now bundles its own Python3 installation instead of using the
236 system-provided default Python.
242 # uninstall git-cola and its dependencies
243 brew uninstall git-cola
247 # re-install git-cola and its dependencies
248 brew install git-cola
250 ## WINDOWS INSTALLATION
252 IMPORTANT If you have a 64-bit machine, install the 64-bit versions only.
253 Do not mix 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
255 Download and install the following:
257 * [Git for Windows](https://git-for-windows.github.io/)
259 * [Git Cola](https://github.com/git-cola/git-cola/releases)
261 Once these are installed you can run Git Cola from the Start menu.
263 See "WINDOWS (continued)" below for more details.
267 git cola ships with an interactive rebase editor called `git-cola-sequence-editor`.
268 `git-cola-sequence-editor` is used to reorder and choose commits when rebasing.
269 Start an interactive rebase through the "Rebase" menu, or through the
270 `git cola rebase` sub-command to use the `git-cola-sequence-editor`:
272 git cola rebase origin/main
274 git-cola-sequence-editor can be launched independently of git cola by telling
275 `git rebase` to use it as its editor through the `GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR`
276 enviironment variable:
278 env GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR="$PWD/bin/git-cola-sequence-editor" \
279 git rebase -i origin/main
283 The git-cola command exposes various sub-commands that allow you to quickly
284 launch tools that are available from within the git-cola interface.
285 For example, `./bin/git-cola find` launches the file finder,
286 and `./bin/git-cola grep` launches the grep tool.
288 See `git cola --help-commands` for the full list of commands.
290 $ git cola --help-commands
293 {cola,am,archive,branch,browse,config,
294 dag,diff,fetch,find,grep,merge,pull,push,
295 rebase,remote,search,stash,tag,version}
299 {cola,am,archive,branch,browse,config,
300 dag,diff,fetch,find,grep,merge,pull,push,
301 rebase,remote,search,stash,tag,version}
304 am apply patches using "git am"
305 archive save an archive
306 branch create a branch
307 browse browse repository
308 config edit configuration
315 pull pull remote branches
316 push push remote branches
317 rebase interactive rebase
319 search search commits
320 stash stash and unstash changes
322 version print the version
326 The following commands should be run during development:
331 # Run tests and longer-running pylint and flake8 checks
334 # Run tests against multiple python interpreters using tox
337 The test suite can be found in the [test](test) directory.
339 The tests are set up to run automatically when code is pushed using
340 [Travis CI](https://travis-ci.org/git-cola/git-cola).
341 Checkout the [Travis config file](.travis.yml) for more details.
343 Auto-format `po/*.po` files before committing when updating translations:
347 When submitting patches, consult the
348 [contributing guidelines](CONTRIBUTING.md).
352 For Linux/Unix-like environments with symlinks, an easy way to use the latest
353 `git cola` is to keep a clone of the repository and symlink it into your
354 `~/bin` directory. If `$HOME/bin` is not already in your `$PATH` you can
355 add these two lines to the bottom of your `~/.bashrc` to make the linked
358 PATH="$HOME/bin":"$PATH"
361 Then, install git-cola by linking it into your `~/bin`:
364 git clone git://github.com/git-cola/git-cola.git ~/src/git-cola
366 ln -s ../src/git-cola/bin/git-cola &&
367 ln -s ../src/git-cola/bin/git-dag)
369 You should then get the latest `git cola` in your shell.
374 Git Cola installs its modules into the default Python site-packages directory
375 (eg. `lib/python2.7/site-packages`), and in its own private `share/git-cola/lib`
376 area by default. The private modules are redundant and not needed when cola's modules
377 have been installed into the site-packages directory.
379 Git Cola will prefer its private modules when the `share/git-cola/lib` directory
380 exists, but they are not required to exist. This directory is optional, and can
381 be safely removed if the cola modules have been installed into site-pacakges
382 and are importable through the default `sys.path`.
384 To suppress the installation of the private (redundant) `share/git-cola/lib/cola`
385 package, specify `make NO_PRIVATE_LIBS=1 ...` when invoking `make`,
386 or export `GIT_COLA_NO_PRIVATE_LIBS=1` into the build enviornment.
388 make NO_PRIVATE_LIBS=1 ...
390 Git Cola installs a vendored copy of its QtPy dependency by default.
391 Git Cola provides a copy of the `qtpy` module in its private modules area
392 when installing Git Cola so that you are not required to install QtPy separately.
393 If you'd like to provide your own `qtpy` module, for example from the `python-qtpy`
394 Debian package, then specify `make NO_VENDOR_LIBS=1 ...` when invoking `make`,
395 or export `GIT_COLA_NO_VENDOR_LIBS=1` into the build environment.
397 make NO_VENDOR_LIBS=1 ...
399 Python3 users on debian will need to install `python3-distutils` in order
400 to run the Makefile's installation steps. `distutils` is a Python build
401 requirement, but not needed at runtime.
403 # WINDOWS (continued)
407 In order to develop Git Cola on Windows you will need to install
408 Python3 and pip. Install PyQt5 using `pip install PyQt5`
409 to make the PyQt5 bindings available to Python.
411 Once these are installed you can use `python.exe` to run
412 directly from the source tree. For example, from a Git Bash terminal:
414 /c/Python36/python.exe ./bin/git-cola
416 ## Multiple Python versions
418 If you have multiple versions of Python installed, the `contrib/win32/cola`
419 launcher script might choose the newer version instead of the python
420 that has PyQt installed. In order to resolve this, you can set the
421 `cola.pythonlocation` git configuration variable to tell cola where to
422 find python. For example:
424 git config --global cola.pythonlocation /c/Python36
426 ## BUILDING WINDOWS INSTALLERS
428 Windows installers are built using
430 * [Pynsist](https://pynsist.readthedocs.io/en/latest/).
432 * [NSIS](http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Main_Page) is also needed.
434 To build the installer using Pynsist run:
436 ./contrib/win32/run-pynsist.sh
438 This will generate an installer in `build/nsis/`.
440 ## WINDOWS HISTORY BROWSER CONFIGURATION UPGRADE
442 You may need to configure your history browser if you are upgrading from an
443 older version of Git Cola.
445 `gitk` was originally the default history browser, but `gitk` cannot be
446 launched as-is on Windows because `gitk` is a shell script.
448 If you are configured to use `gitk`, then change your configuration to
449 go through Git's `sh.exe` on Windows. Similarly, we must go through
450 `python.exe` if we want to use `git-dag`.
452 If you want to use gitk as your history browser open the
453 Preferences screen and change the history browser command to:
455 "C:/Program Files/Git/bin/sh.exe" --login -i C:/Git/bin/gitk
457 git-dag became the default history browser on Windows in `v2.3`, so new
458 users should not need to configure anything.