add this to your $HOME/.gitconfig

gistfile1.txt

[alias]
        co = checkout
        st = status
        hist = log --pretty=format:\"%C(yellow)%h%Creset %ad | %s%Cgreen%d%Creset [%C(blue)%an%Creset]\" --graph --date=short



Example output (coloured)


$ git hist
* fe928fe 2011-03-16 | GHC7 support (HEAD, v0.2.1, origin/master, origin/HEAD, jpm/master, master) [JP Moresmau]
* a6b9245 2010-03-28 | Split into two packages ghc-syb (instances only) and ghc-syb-utils. (v0.2) [Thomas Schilling]
* b2c29fa 2010-03-28 | Prepare split of instances from utils. [Thomas Schilling]
* acb5d49 2009-12-09 | Fix build for GHC 6.10.4. (v0.1.2.2, origin/devel, jpm/devel, devel) [Thomas Schilling]
* b8fd7c7 2009-11-28 | Fix build with GHC 6.12.1-rc2. (waern/master, waern/HEAD) [David Waern]
* 876b121 2009-05-19 | Fix build with GHC 6.10.1. [Thomas Schilling]
* fe7d383 2009-04-26 | Add support for generic traversals over the Core language [Max Bolingbroke]
* 2288716 2009-04-06 | Make cabal upload happy. [Thomas Schilling]
* d4476d4 2009-04-06 | Fix build with recent GHC HEAD. [Thomas Schilling]
* f7f036e 2008-12-08 | Bump version to 0.1.1 [Thomas Schilling]
* c30493e 2008-11-25 | Add Annotations instances when building with recent enough HEAD. [Thomas Schilling]
* 27f2208 2008-11-14 | Compiles with 6.10.1. [Thomas Schilling]
* 7ae0d20 2008-10-10 | Add .gitignore [Thomas Schilling]
* 85c10be 2008-10-10 | Import GHC API instances from Claus Reinke's syb-utils. [Thomas Schilling]