03 · Changes & Diff

Status: ✅ Implemented · Scope: v1 · Engineering: ../spec.md

The Source Control view (activity bar) is the multi-repo changes list: one section per repository, all uncommitted work at a glance.

Which repositories appear

• Repositories start all checked: unchecking one in the Repos view hides it from this list. The default is therefore "everything with changes is visible"; the selection is how you cut the view down on a 50+ repo workspace.
• Toolbar actions: "Only selected" (on by default — shows changes only from the repositories you checked in the Repos view), "Select all / none".
• Repositories with an in-progress operation (merge, rebase, cherry-pick, revert, bisect) always appear, with an operation banner at the top of their section: the operation name, a live count of unresolved files, and the actions Git allows for that operation — Continue / Abort for a merge, Continue / Skip / Abort for a rebase, cherry-pick or revert, and Abort only while bisecting (details: page 06).

Groups and toggles

Each repository section groups its changes in this order: Merge Conflicts, Staged Changes, Changes (unstaged), Untracked Files. Group visibility is toggled from the Source Control view's own toolbar menu — e.g. hide Untracked Files if you rarely commit new files. Everything starts visible: nothing is hidden until you hide it.

Each section ends with the commit box (message field, ✨ generate button, Commit / Amend / Stage-all — details: page 04).

Working with file rows

Status letters: M modified · A added · D deleted · R renamed · C copied · T type changed · U untracked · ! unmerged/conflict.

• Hover actions: Stage / Unstage / Discard. Multi-select works (Shift/Ctrl-click); actions apply to the selection.
• Directory granularity: untracked folders appear as a single collapsed row and staging that row stages everything inside it. Tracked changes are listed per file, so there is no folder row for them.
• Hunk-level staging — in the diff view, each hunk has margin actions: stage this hunk (unstaged files) or unstage this hunk (staged files). Each changed line carries a smaller marker that does the same for that line alone (see Diff view).
• Add to .gitignore — available on untracked rows; the pattern is appended to .gitignore and staged immediately.
• Space stages/unstages the selected rows; Enter opens the diff.

Discard semantics (important)

Case	What happens
Modified / renamed file	Restored from the index. Irreversible — a confirmation dialog explains exactly what will be lost.
Untracked file	The file is moved to the OS trash — recoverable from there. No scary dialog needed.
Conflicts	Not discardable; resolve them (page 06).

Diff view

Clicking a changed file opens a diff tab in the editor area.

• Layout: side-by-side ⇄ inline toggle. Whitespace-ignore toggle. Word wrap respects editor settings.
• Renames show old → new path plus the content diff. Binary files show size information; images open as a 2-up before/after preview, and Onion overlays the two versions behind a divider you drag — the older one shows left of it, the newer one right. The slider in the same bar moves that divider without a drag. Onion mode appears only when both sides decode as images; a version that exists on one side alone stays 2-up.
• Margin actions: one click on the marker beside a hunk stages it (unstaged files) or unstages it (staged files); right-clicking the same marker also offers revert hunk and copy patch. A smaller dot beside each changed line does the same for that line alone — stage, unstage or revert it. Where git records a line as replaced, the old line and the new one have no context between them, so the dot applies both together; that pair is git's own smallest splittable unit. Markers appear only where they make sense — a diff between two commits, or a rename diff, is read-only — and the dot of a deleted line sits in the left pane, which inline mode does not show.
• Compare with… — change the comparison base for a file: INDEX, HEAD, any ref / branch. At repository scope the same idea is reached from the branch picker: it compares the repository's HEAD against the ref you choose (the picker lists up to 40 refs). At directory scope it is on the folder rows: Compare Folder with… offers that same base list and compares the changes under the folder against the working tree — the repository's own row does the same for the whole checkout. One result opens its diff directly, none is reported in a toast, several open a list where picking a row opens that file against the same two sides.

File history

• The diff tab's toolbar has a History toggle: a list of commits touching that file; clicking a commit opens that revision's diff for the file.
• The list follows the file across renames (--follow) by default, so commits made before the first rename are included. A row from before a rename says what the file was called there, and opening it compares that old name. The Follow renames chip in the panel switches to the commits under the current name only.

Edge cases

• Pathological untracked counts: the Untracked group lists a capped set with "Show more…" instead of freezing the view.
• Very large diffs: a text diff over 2 MB is not rendered automatically — the tab offers "load full diff anyway", and there is a hard cap at 20 MB beyond which the content is not fetched at all. Files in the editor follow the editor's own rules (page 10).
• External changes while a diff is open: the tab marks itself stale and offers reload.
• CRLF / .gitattributes: diffs are shown raw, exactly as Git produces them — GitTreeDesk never normalizes line endings. The whitespace-ignore toggle helps.