Git without the command line

I use GitKraken as my preferred graphical user interface (GUI) for version control with git. It’s very intuitive, has nice a visual commit history, and my favorite feature is the drag and drop for merging branches. In this post, I list some of the most used features. I will also constantly update this post with new things I learn about this tool.

Setting the default merge and diff tool

Meld is the tool I use when I want to compare two (or more) files. Recently I learned that Meld can be used for resolving merge conflicts in git. In order for GitKraken to automatically use Meld as the default merge tool, you need to modify your .gitconfig file (which is usually found in your home directory). This Stack Overlflow answer nicely explains the required commands.

Here is what my (the relevant part) .gitconfig file looks like:

[diff]
  tool = meld
[difftool]
  prompt = false
[difftool "meld"]
  cmd = meld \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\"
[merge]
    tool = meld
[mergetool "meld"]
    # Choose one of these 2 lines (not both!).
    cmd = meld \"$LOCAL\" \"$MERGED\" \"$REMOTE\" --output \"$MERGED\"
    #cmd = meld "$LOCAL" "$BASE" "$REMOTE" --output "$MERGED"

When resolving a merge conflict Meld will display 3 panes with $LOCAL and $REMOTE in the left and right panes and either $MERGED or $BASE in the middle pane (depending on which of the two cmd you uncomment above). As state in the SO post:

In BOTH cases the middle pane is the file that you should edit to resolve the merge conflicts. The difference is just in which starting edit position you’d prefer; $MERGED for the file which contains the partially merged file with the merge conflict information or $BASE for the shared commit ancestor of $LOCAL and $REMOTE