where is the legend to identify branch in sourcetree

[Matthew Wilkinson]

Is there a legend somewhere to clarify what the purple line relates to? I find I get confused knowing which branch is which. I have only been using SourceTree for a few weeks so I am probably missing something.

sourcetree.PNG

[thinsoldier]

I've seen other git clients show a branch name next to each commit. The Bitbucket website does this also. But after you've done a few merges they ALL give up on doing that.

On the rare occassion that I know in advance I will need 10+ branches being worked on simultaneously and will rarely be merged, I get into the habit of prefixing my commit messages with the branch name.

The GitKraken program allows you to show/hide 1 or more branches like you would with layers in a Photoshop document. Sourcetree can only show/hide all local and all remote branches.

So if I have 15 branches, in sourcetree I can see either all 30 local+remote or just all 15 local branches.

But in GitKraken I can set it to only show 1 or 2 or 4 or 5 etc.

[Seth]

You are definitely not the first to ask this question (try searching this site for "branch colors"), and the problem basically boils down to this: even though the name "branch" implies that it refers to a line of commits, on a technical level, a branch only refers to a single commit.

I wrote a rather detailed answer to one of these questions recently, hopefully it helps: https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/44220615

[aphillips801]

When I click your link I get an SSL error - using Chrome Version 77.0.3865.90 (Official Build) (64-bit), but I get similar errors with Opera and FireFox.  (Why does public info even need to be encrypted??)

This site can’t provide a secure connection

answers.atlassian.com uses an unsupported protocol.

ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCHHide detailsUnsupported protocolThe client and server don't support a common SSL protocol version or cipher suite.

[Seth]

Very helpful update, thanks.

[Matthew Wilkinson]

Thanks for the reply Seth, I have updated my initial question.

[Seth]

I do not understand this question.

What do you mean by "to identify branch", and why would you need a legend to do that?