A great Git UI: Lazygit
Marie-Hélène Burle
October 29, 2024
Git interfaces
There are 3 main ways to use Git:
- Through a Git GUI
- From the command line
- Integrated within IDE
Git interfaces
They all have downsides:
- Through a Git GUI ➔ Slow and buggy
- From the command line ➔ Austere and unintuitive
- Integrated within IDE ➔ Limited
On the beauty of TUIs
Terminal user interfaces (TUIs) were precursors to graphical user interfaces (GUIs), but they did not disappear
People continue to build TUIs because they uniquely provide the speed of the command line and the easy of use of GUIs
GitHub is full of sleek, modern, open source TUIs for all sorts of applications
Several of them provide an interface to Git
My personal TUIs of choice are ranger as file manager and lazygit for Git
lazygit
With over 52k stars on GitHub, lazygit, created and maintained by Jesse Duffield is probably the most polished Git TUI
I followed it as it grew and developed over the past 5 years. It was great from the start, but by now, it is a truly beautiful mature tool
It is cross-platform. You can find installation instructions in the README
lazygit
Get command options:
Print default configurations with:
lazygit is fully customizable
Resources
Time for a demo!
I will spend the rest of this webinar showing you how to use Git through lazygit
