+3

New Journal and Log view: Set column widths and horizontal scroll

Mike 6 years ago updated 6 years ago 0

Restore the ability to set the column widths, even wider than than the pane, and horizontally scroll to see the columns that doesn't fit in the pane width for both the Journal pane and the Commits pane.

What exactly is the advantage of making the display area wider than the visible area? It means having parts of the information invisible.


  • It means I can set it so I see just a small part of a column (like just the month/day of the date (the year the time and the AM/PM are very much noise I rarely care to see), much more important to see more of another column like the message. Maybe I'd rather see half of the full name than just the compact name (initials).
  • It means that the pieces of information I'm usually interested are there and all I need to do is shift the horizontal scroll to see them when I want to know more about a particular commit, ie I can simply scroll back and forth with my eye still on the line of interest, not have to go take my eyes off the commit I'm interested in, find the menu to display another column, select that column or columns, find the line again, then do it all over to remove those columns.
  • Lastly, and this is related to the 1st reason, my Journal pane doesn't have enough room to display all of commit message summary. If I can change the width of the commit column, I can then read more of a particular commit message and then immediately make the column smaller. Or I could just leave it wide enough and horizontally scroll to read more when I want to.

The point is this is one of the things that make viewing a git repository via a GUI more useful than just using the command line, the ease with which you can view more information about commits together so you get a holistic view and understanding.