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Branches view: indicator/icon in "local branches" list of which ones don't have a corresponding server branch

Jeff Jensen 6 years ago updated 6 years ago 1

With a lot of active development and pull requests, branches I checkout/use/leave unattended/etc. can remain.  Having a quick indicator showing which ones do not have a remote branch hint that I can remove them.


It used to be quicker to know which branches don't have a remote but are tracked (remote was deleted) when hovering over a branch name and the tooltip shows "this branch is tracked but no remote branch exists", but 18.2 truncates the message and user must press F1 to see rest of message.



> If you don't consider tracking, such an indicator would also show up for newly created, local branches. Is this still what you are expecting?

Yes.  Could also restrict to when having a tracked remote configured but it's not found, per below.


> You will also see a red "?" after the local branch name which will only show up in case of an obsolete tracking config.

Thank you; I'm sorry I did not notice that, I think because branch names are all longer and exceed my Branches view width and I'm used to hovering over the name, not horizontally scrolling.

This is the case I mainly meant, and the "red ?" is already an indicator, so this is an invalid request to add one.



Perhaps make red the whole branch name when the tracked remote does not exist, instead of a "red ?" at the end of the branch name?


I couple of other ideas, but I think my fav is a red branch name; these two following ideas change the consistency of the list beginnings between the branches sections, making Local Branches slightly different:


Perhaps the triangle sometimes present to the left of the branch name could be red when missing the tracked remote branch, in addition to the ? or as a replacement for?  (I'm still trying to learn when it appears and when it doesn't; seems only with remote branch existing or when is the current branch, but can't determine the other times, is it branched from sometimes? and there is no correlation in the tooltip for the triangle telling the state, which would be nice! :-)


Perhaps a small circle at the front of the branch name representing status (which could replace the ? and n> statuses at end of branch name)?  If this is irritating to some users, can have a config "Display 'Local Branches' status in Branches view" to display it or not.  Statuses such as:

  • hollow for no remote
  • solid for tracked remote (white or black, based on theme, as the triangle)
  • solid red for tracked remote but no remote exists
  • solid yellow for commits ahead of tracked remote (doesn't match Repos view status of red tho); doesn't have commit count tho
  • solid green for commits behind tracked remote (matches Repos view status of green); doesn't have commit count tho