sourcetree usabality

Question

I've found the new version of SourceTree to be less efficient to use because the new design hides things I use a lot (context line count, ignore white space).  I used the new one for several weeks but because of bugs and decreased usability, I went back to 1.5.2!

Mike P_7a3jzv · Answer

I had found all that; it was too inconvenient to use regularly.  The scroll bars made it harder to see items requiring scrolling because I had to scroll to see th scroll bar.

Supposing you have a large number of lines of changes in a few places.  Near the top of one of them, you need to scroll to the right to see something.  Oops, the horizontal scroll bar is not visible because it's a long change.  Scroll down to get to the horizontal scroll bar and move it.  Now go back up and you can see what you need to see.  The earlier SourceTree did this much better because the scroll bar is always available.  Admittedly, source shouldn't have long lines but my monitors are temporarily in portrait mode...

The constantly changing buttons ("stage selected lines" vs "stage hunk") had me thinking about the tool instead of the work.

Also, too many bugs related to showing differences.  The list of changed files changed frequently & often in surprising and unpredictable ways.  Files that should be shown weren't.  Very strange and also distracting as the diffing engine changed its mind sometimes every few seconds adding/removing files.

I worked with the new SourceTree about 3 weeks before I finally gave up & went back to the old version.

Mike Corsaro · Answer

Hello! Context line count, and ignore white space are under the "gear" icon on the diff display -- which was a change made a few years ago. If you're having difficulty finding it, here's a picture.