EGit/New and Noteworthy/6.2

EGit

Commit Messages

EGit 6.1 had introduced support for git config commit.cleanup, including syntax coloring comment lines in commit messages, and a preview of the final commit message after cleaning.

EGit 6.2 adds support for git config core.commentChar. It enables users to change the default comment character # to some other ASCII character. EGit 6.2 takes this setting into account and determines comment lines in commit messages accordingly, for instance with core.commentChar = ; as:

Git Staging View

The Git Staging View has a new "Push Settings" button with a cogwheel icon, providing a way to customize some settings for the push part of the Commit & Push operation.

There are options to perform a force push, or to open a push dialog instead of just pushing automatically. If the "Force Push" option is active, the button's icon shows a little green plus sign top-right.

Settings made here are persisted; they are stored separately per repository, and they will be in effect for any Commit & Push operation on a particular repository until changed again via this "Push Settings" button.

Commit & Push performs the equivalent of

 git push <remote> HEAD:<upstream branch>

The remote is determined via git configs branch.<name>.pushRemote, remote.pushDefault, branch.<name>.remote, "origin". The upstream branch is determined from the branch.<name>.merge git configuration of the currently checked out branch; if none is set, the upstream branch is assumed to have the same name as the current local branch.

Activating the "Force Push" option changes this to

 git push <remote> +HEAD:<upstream branch>

Note: if the repository is configured for Gerrit and the Commit & Push operation will attempt pushing to Gerrit, then the "Push Settings" button is not available. First, the command will in that case always use a dialog, and second, force pushing a commit as a new change or patch set to Gerrit makes no sense.

Support for External Diff and Merge Tools

EGit 6.2 supports the use of external diff and merge tools. An external tool can be configured via a new preference page, potentially combined with git repository configuration, as well as per product customization.

To configure an external diff or merge tool via the preference page:

1. Navigate to the preference page: Main menu -> Window -> Preferences -> Version Control (Team) -> Git -> Diff/Merge
2. In the diff or merge section, select the radio button for an external tool and select a tool from the combo box. Only tools available on your system are listed.

Alternatively, you can select using the available git configuration and configure a tool via git config:

[merge]
       tool = customMergeTool
[mergetool "customMergeTool"]
       cmd = kdiff3 "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE" "$MERGED" "$BASE"
       path = /usr/bin/kdiff3
       prompt = false
       trustExitCode = false

[diff]
	  tool = customDiffTool
[difftool "customDiffTool"]
       cmd = kdiff3 "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE"

To use a tool available on your system as default, specify e.g. the following via git config:

[merge]
       tool = kdiff3

You can override the default tool per folder and per file type, using the .gitattributes file in a folder. The override will apply for subfolders, as long as a subfolder does not override the tool via .gitattributes:

attributes:
*	mergetool=kdiff3
*.txt	difftool=kompare

To configure an external diff or merge tool via product customization, specify the following in your customization file (passed to Eclipse via the command line argument, e.g. -pluginCustomization /some/path/my_customization.ini):

org.eclipse.egit.ui/diff_tool_custom=kdiff3
org.eclipse.egit.ui/diff_tool_mode=3

You can also configure a external tools per-extension. The value of the preference is comma separated pairs of extension and invocation command:

org.eclipse.egit.ui/external_diff_tool_per_extension=txt,/usr/bin/kdiff3 "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE"
org.eclipse.egit.ui/diff_tool_mode=1

Other Changes

The complete list of new features and bug fixes is available in the release notes.

Contributors

The following 7 developers worked on this release:

Andre Bossert, Andrey Loskutov, Matthias Sohn, Michael Keppler, Mykola Zakharchuk, Simeon Andreev, Thomas Wolf

Video

You can see the UI changes in action in the Eclipse 2022-06 Java IDE Improvements video.

See Also

See also the new features in JGit for additional information.