Git Journey

A gitk-style repository browser and commit helper built on the Saudade toolkit.

gitj            # browse the repository containing the current directory
gitj /path/repo # browse the repository at (or above) a given path
gitj -c         # open straight onto the commit (staging) screen
gitj -r         # open the branch-review screen on the checked-out branch
gitj -r feat/x  # open the branch-review screen with feat/x selected
gitj --version  # print the version and exit
gitj --help     # print usage and exit

Git Journey has three screens — the gitk-style browse (history) screen, the git gui-style commit (staging) screen, and the review screen, which shows everything a branch would bring in. Switch between them from the View menu (Ctrl+1 / Ctrl+2 / Ctrl+3), by double-clicking a working-tree entry in the log, or automatically: committing drops you back to the log.

Screenshots

Browse screen — gitk-style history with the DAG graph, ref badges and a git show-style detail/diff pane:

Commit screen — git gui-style staging with unstaged/staged lists, a per-file diff and the message editor:

Installation

cargo install gitj

On Linux, the build links against Wayland and xkbcommon, so install their development packages first (libwayland-dev libxkbcommon-dev pkg-config on Debian / Ubuntu). X11 is loaded at runtime and needs nothing extra.

Graphical SVG diffs are built in by default; cargo install gitj --no-default-features leaves them out, and SVG files then get a plain text diff.

Features

Browse

• Commit history of the checked-out branch (like plain gitk) with a colored DAG graph column, branch / tag / HEAD ref badges, and author + date columns.
• git show-style detail: selecting a commit shows its SHA, refs, author, date, message and full diff; selecting a file narrows the diff to that file.
• Diff view with the usual coloring — green additions, red deletions, blue hunk headers, gray file headers.
• Graphical image diff: selecting a changed image (PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, BMP, TIFF, …) shows the two versions visually instead of a "binary files differ" line. Compare them side by side (2-up), with a swipe split, an onion-skin cross-fade, or a per-pixel difference heatmap — switched from the row of mode buttons or the View menu (Switch Mode, Ctrl+M), with a slider driving the swipe / onion position. Before / After Image (Ctrl+Left / Ctrl+Right) show just the old / new side full size, and Next / Previous Image (Ctrl+N / Ctrl+P) step between the image files in the active list. SVG files are rasterized into the same comparison, each side drawn crisply at the size it occupies, with bundled fonts so text renders the same on every machine. Works in the browse, commit and review diff panes.
• Working-tree entries: when there are local changes, the log leads with "Uncommitted changes" / "Staged changes" rows (connected into the graph at HEAD). Selecting one previews its files and diff; double-clicking it (or pressing Enter) opens the commit screen.
• Search / filter the history live by message, author, ref or SHA. Edit ▸ Find (Ctrl+F) jumps to the search field, selecting the query already there so typing replaces it.

Commit

• Unstaged and Staged file lists (à la git gui), each file marked with its git status (added, modified, deleted, …). Double-click a file (or press Enter) to stage / unstage it, or use the Stage / Unstage buttons. Afterwards the next file in the list is selected, so you can work through the changes one by one.
• Multi-selection: Ctrl+click (⌘+click on macOS) adds or removes a file, Shift+click or Shift+Arrow selects a range, and the Stage / Unstage buttons, their shortcuts and Enter then act on every selected file at once.
• The diff pane shows the selected file's change — working-tree-vs-index for unstaged files, index-vs-HEAD for staged ones.
• Partial staging: highlight lines in the diff and a floating Stage / Unstage button applies just those lines to the index; clicking a hunk header selects the whole hunk.
• Revert / discard an unstaged change (git gui's Revert Changes, Ctrl+J): a tracked file is reset to its index copy, while an untracked file — having nothing to revert to — is offered up for deletion instead. Either way a confirm dialog guards the irreversible discard.
• A multi-line message editor and a Commit button; Sign Off appends a Signed-off-by trailer.
• Amend last commit: ticking the box pre-fills the editor with HEAD's message and re-bases the staging view on HEAD's parent, so the changes already in the last commit show up as staged. Unstage any of them to drop them from the amended commit; committing then rewrites HEAD rather than adding a new commit.
• Rescan re-reads the working tree. Committing returns to the log view, which now shows the new commit.

Review

• Branch list: every local and remote-tracking branch — the checked-out one first, and a remote folded into its local's row when both point at the same commit — each with its tip commit's summary, author and date.
• Branch diff: selecting a branch shows everything it contains — the combined diff from its merge base with the repository's default branch (the remote's declared default when known, otherwise main / master) to its tip, so commits the default branch gained since the branch point don't show up as noise. The file list narrows the diff to a single file.
• gitj -r opens straight onto this screen; gitj -r <branch> pre-selects that branch.

Throughout

• Menu bar (File ▸ Reload / Exit; Edit ▸ Find, on the browse and review screens; Commit ▸ the staging actions, on the commit screen; View ▸ the screen switches and image-diff actions; Help ▸ About) with Alt-accelerators, each item's shortcut shown next to it, and a modal About / error dialog.
• Keyboard navigation: Tab cycles the panes, arrows/PageUp/Down drive the focused list or scroll the diff.
• Mouse-wheel and trackpad scrolling in every list and diff pane, under the pointer, without touching the selection.
• Dark mode, following the system's light / dark appearance and switching over live when it changes. The diff, the history graph and the ref badges each have a dark palette of their own. SAUDADE_THEME=dark (or light) overrides the system.

Keyboard shortcuts

The commit-screen shortcuts mirror git gui. On macOS, use ⌘ instead of Ctrl.

Shortcut	Action	Screen
Ctrl+1 / Ctrl+2 / Ctrl+3	Switch to Browse History / Commit Changes / Review Branches	all
Ctrl+N / Ctrl+P	Jump to the next / previous image file in the list	all
Ctrl+M	Switch the image comparison mode	all
Ctrl+Left / Ctrl+Right	Show only the before / after image	all
Ctrl+Q	Quit	all
Ctrl+F	Focus the search field	browse
Ctrl+T	Stage the selected file(s)	commit
Ctrl+I	Stage all changes	commit
Ctrl+U	Unstage the selected file(s)	commit
Ctrl+J	Revert the selected unstaged file (or delete it, if untracked)	commit
Ctrl+S	Append a Signed-off-by trailer	commit
Ctrl+Enter	Commit	commit
Ctrl+R	Rescan the working tree	commit

The commit message editor takes the usual copy / cut / paste / select-all shortcuts.

Architecture

The UI never touches git2 directly — it goes through a small backend abstraction, which keeps everything testable without a live repository.

Module	Contents
backend	RepoBackend trait + data types (CommitInfo, BranchInfo, FileChange, Diff/DiffLine, BlobPair, RefLabel, WorkingStatus). Browse reads history/diffs; review mode lists branches and diffs each against its merge base with the default branch (branches, branch_files, branch_diff, branch_file_diff); commit mode adds working-tree status, per-file diffs, stage/unstage, revert/delete_untracked, commit (with amend), and partial staging via apply_to_index fed by the patch module's line-range patches; image diffs read the two sides' raw blobs (commit_file_blobs/working_file_blobs/branch_file_blobs). Implementations: Git2Backend (live, libgit2) and FixtureBackend (deterministic, in-memory, with a simulated working tree).
imagediff	Decodes image blobs (via the image crate) and composes the two sides into a comparison canvas for the 2-up / swipe / onion-skin / difference modes — the toolkit-independent half of the graphical diff.
svg	Sniffs SVG blobs and rasterizes them (via resvg, with bundled Public Sans and IBM Plex Mono fonts) so they flow through the same comparison as raster images. Gated behind the default svg feature.
widgets	git-specific widgets — CommitList (graph + badges + columns), DiffView (colored diff), ImageDiffView (graphical image diff) wrapped by DiffPane (shows whichever the file calls for), SearchBar, Heading, graph (DAG lane assignment); Shell, a generic flat-focus container, plus a layout module giving the browse, commit and review screens their rectangles; generic Shared<W> adapter.
ui	GitClient, the top-level widget. It owns all three screens (a Shell each), switches between them, and — since saudade widgets are callback-free — polls selections and a small command queue after each event to rebuild dependent panes.

Testing

• Pixel snapshots (tests/snapshots.rs) render the real UI through saudade's offscreen MockBackend at 1.0× against the in-memory FixtureBackend and bundled DejaVu fonts, comparing PNG bytes with insta. The *_dark snapshots paint the same screens with the dark theme. Regenerate with INSTA_UPDATE=always cargo test --test snapshots, then review with cargo insta review.
• tests/git2_backend.rs builds a throwaway repository with fixed signatures/timestamps and reads it back through Git2Backend, so the live backend is covered deterministically.
• tests/image_blobs.rs commits and edits a PNG in a throwaway repository and asserts Git2Backend returns the exact blob bytes for each side of a commit and working-tree image change.
• tests/commit_backend.rs exercises commit mode end to end: it stages, unstages, reverts, commits and amends in a throwaway repository (and against the fixture), asserting the working-tree status at each step.
• tests/partial_stage.rs builds a patch covering part of a file's changes, applies it to the index of a throwaway repository through Git2Backend, and confirms only the selected lines moved.
• tests/shortcuts.rs drives a real GitClient through synthetic key events (Ctrl+T / I / U / J / Enter / 1 / 2 / Q, plus Ctrl+click multi-selection) and asserts the resulting working-tree and commit state — the runtime path minus the windowing. It also checks that the Mac scheme binds the same actions to ⌘.
• Unit tests cover the graph lane algorithm, date formatting, argument parsing, partial-patch building, image composition, SVG rasterization and wheel scrolling.

cargo test          # everything
cargo build         # the binary