Possibility to show the "Log" from left to right

What's the advantage of a left-to-right Log? Do you have suggestions on how to show the various details which we are currently showing in the Log, with approximately the same amount of information/pixel as we currently do?

For me, sometimes, the top-down log shows too much information on the screen. I can get all data out of it, but I need some time to do so.

We branch a lot (using gitflow full) and do not make use of rebase. So, the more we go back in history, the more branches are visible. For me, it takes a lot of time, scrolling and clicks to get an overview:

Sometimes, I'd like to get a quick overview about the branches / merges. I think of something like shown below.

Maybe both logs are shown side by side and if you select a commit in the detail log, you can see the position of the commit in the overview log.

Horizontal alignment has the advantage, that we can see a much longer time range and more branches at once.

Why do you think you would see more in horizontal alignment? I don't see any reason for this claim.

Why do lots of GIT branching papers use a horizontal layout? I think because it's more intuitive and compact (because text is naturally drawn horizontally).

Look at this one:

This is also a great overview. But I think this requires more space and therefore also more scrolling and less overview.

Why do lots of GIT branching papers use a horizontal layout? I think because it's more intuitive and compact (because text is naturally drawn horizontally).

Because in a text document a horizontal graphic needs less space and because the commit message information is not shown.

I think we should rename the Idea. It's not only about horizontal-vertical, but more about the presentation of the information.

What subject and description are you suggesting?

Branching-Graph - Description of my 2nd post.

I think what people may be look for here is something akin to the Perforce Revision Graph.

IMO that tool is the gold standard for understanding branching history.

It's possible that git may present some unique branching situations that Perforce did not have to handle (e.g. there was no 'rebase' in Perforce last time I used it). But since Perforce now lets you run on top of git, there must be some way of representing git revision history using their Revision Graph.

It avoids cluttering the graph with commit message information by only showing the selected revision's information in a separate pane (and tooltip, IIRC)

This is 100% what I have in mind.

Thank you for this link.

Plastic SCM Branch Explorer also could be considered as good example: https://www.plasticscm.com/branch-explorer/index.html

Thanks for the link. Just curious, why do you think it to be a good example? Taking the topmost screenshot, I only see 14 commits though it uses nearly the full screen width. When I would think that for our repository, I would miss the forest for the trees (a German saying).

Looking at: https://www.plasticscm.com/assets/img/gallery/large/02branchexplorerwithmergeinprogress.png and https://www.plasticscm.com/features/index.html and hoping that they have a zoom in graph pane I'm almost convinced that it's a good example. :) Moreover: https://www.plasticscm.com/features/plasticscm-for-git-users.html

Are you using Plastic SCM? In that case, could you please create a screenshot of Plastic SCM for Git's repository (https://github.com/git/git) and compare with the one from SmartGit? Thanks in advance.

No, sorry. I found Plastic about 3 years ago when we decided to replace subversion by something more flexible. But then I found SmartGit with its good svn support which allowed me evaluate it with svn first and then when we was forced to move to VSO choice of good Git client was very easy. :)