Version 2.6.3
Goal: Find an alternative to SourceTree, which is really starting to aggravate me with its incredibly poor performance and constant crashing.
Unfortunately Tower has too many shortcomings to work for me.
- Much better performance than SourceTree
- It doesn't display a diff when a folder is selected (which is good…I don't need to view multiple diffs at once). SourceTree does, and there's no option to disable it, so when it selects the first item in the working tree by default (which is inevitably a folder), I'm always waiting for some slow-ass diff to display.
- The diff doesn't keep flickering as the app refreshes the file status (another thing that drives me nuts in ST).
- Sidebar font is too large
- I'd rather see more items and have names truncated less
- Can't hide the sidebar
- Tree view folders are collapsed by default every time
- Some folders are expanded, but only if they only contain folders. But not every folder that only contains folders is expanded.
- There's no "Expand All" button (no "Collapse All" either). For every top-level folder, I have to option-click the triangle, and option-click it again to fully expand it.
- Changing a list filter resets the expanded state of folders.
- Tree view shows full paths for files that were moved (I don't see the point of this)
- There's no split view for staging
- Files that are partially staged have a [–] checkbox instead of [✓]
- There's no way to review only staged or unstaged files. They're always mixed together in one list. You have to scan the entire list looking for [–] checkboxes
- Staging/unstaging specific lines is a chore
- You can drag to select a range, but if you go too far, moving back in the other direction (before releasing the mouse button) doesn't deselect them. You have to do a separate drag-deselect to fix it (which has the same possibility of making a mistake and requiring yet another click+drag). Contrast this with selecting files in a list-view Finder window.
- There's no way to deselect all currently selected lines (I really can't believe this kind of oversight exists in version 2.6.3 of an app)
- Workaround: select a different file, then the current one again. You'll lose your scroll position in the process.
- Click + drag often does nothing, for no discernable reason
- Once you do manage to select the lines you want, you have to click the "(Un)stage Lines" all the way up in the top right corner of the view. There's no context-menu action for it.
- Activating "Show Assume-Unchanged Items" freezes the app