Sublime Merge (opens in new tab)

(sublimemerge.com)

88 pointsrococode1y ago93 comments

93 comments

I used Git on the command line exclusively for many years and occasionally tried the built-in Git tools for various editors as well as GitHub Desktop, but I never felt they were a lift in usability over the CLI or very pleasant to use. That was until I tried Sublime Merge on a whim. One thing I like is how keyboard oriented most of it is, and how it maps quite closely to CLI commands. If I want to commit I open the command palette with command+p and then fuzzy-search for commit with “co…” or “cm” or whatever you like, and it brings up the suggested commands which I can select with enter. And beyond that I like the generally attractive styling which makes viewing diffs and searching commit history (command+f, fuzzy find “contents:”, type what you want to search for) pleasant. It’s also totally snappy in most cases, even with multiple tabs for repos open — the only time I’ve seen it slow down was opening Unreal Engine, and that was at least a year ago so they may have made improvements on that. I use it every day and I am quite pleased with it.

codetrotter1y ago

> If I want to commit I open the command palette with command+p and then fuzzy-search for commit with “co…” or “cm” or whatever you like, and it brings up the suggested commands which I can select with enter.

cm is exactly how I think of commit, but I use it as a custom command on the cli.

I use my cm command like:

cm “Small refactoring of quux and baz”

and it runs

git commit -m “Small refactoring of quux and baz”

Similarly I have other two letter commands for all of the other git operations I most frequently use. (I.e for almost all of the ones I use day to day.)

the_gipsy1y ago

Have you tried any TUI tools? I'm super happy with tig for visualizing history, diffs, staging chunks and staged/unchanged changes. For anything else I just use the git CLI commands.

pilif1y ago

Sublime Merge is cough sublimely good at performing 3-way merges.

I don't like it as much as a generic git frontend (nothing beats the command line once you're used to it, but for 3-way merges, it's absolutely perfect and I have yet to see anything better.

Another very good tool for 3-way merges is meld, but the macOS port (where I do most of my development work on) is not very good, mostly because the GTK macOS port isn't very good.

alimbada1y ago

I tried Meld for 3-way merges and while it seemed ok I prefer P4Merge. It's free, but not open source. If I'm using Jetbrains tools though, I'll always use the built in merge tool as it's the most intuitive to use in my experience.

rationably1y ago

> yet to see anything better.

Try Beyond Compare v5.

wodenokoto1y ago

It’s also very good at committing chunks, especially from different files in the same commit.

It’s not good at getting an overview of your history or blaming, but for committing and merging it is really nice

fastball1y ago

What don't you like about the blame interface?

2 more replies

tored1y ago

I use WinMerge for that, unfortunately, as the name implies, Windows only.

ubercow131y ago

I don't think WinMerge supports proper 3 way merge..

chrizel1y ago

Using Sublime Merge for over a year now after using Magit/Emacs mostly (and git command line for years before that).

What I like about Sublime Merge is its performance and the stage/unstage UI/UX is intuitive and fast backed by a competent text editor engine, similar to what I liked about Magit. Having multiple repositories open in a tab interface is also nice.

What you have to keep in mind is that Sublime Merge also includes a competent merge tool (hence the name). Sometimes we have to do more complex merges and Sublime Merge does this in an intuitive and integrated way, which would be a completely separate application in many other popular Git front-ends. Therefore the price is IMHO fair and justified. I can recommend giving it a try for a couple of weeks.

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