Your comments

In addition to a view/edit dialog, I suggest also adding the branch description to the tool tip.

Displaying in the Branches view may be difficult to display well, so I do not expect it there.

Wondering if this feature is anywhere on the implementation planning radar?  It's one of the key usability features we encounter on a daily basis.

I suggest adding a "Commit Message Preview" box showing the resulting commit message.

Thank you!  However, it's capped at 20.  Please increase the cap to above 30, such as 40 or 50.

That already happens if you configure git.

git config --global user.name my name

git config --global user.email my@email.com

No need to do so in SmartGit.