Repositories & Repository Detail

Repositories

In this area of the Welcome window, Kaleidoscope will automatically list Git repositories that you are working with. As you are comparing files or changesets of files that are located in a git working directory, Kaleidoscope will recognize the repository and add it to that recent repository list.

Each repository gets an entry in the Repositories view.

Elements of a repository entry

Icon, Name and Path

Each repository can be identified by an icon, the name of the repository and the local path of the git working directory.

There are 3 ways to customize the look of the entry:

1. In Finder, paste a custom icon onto the folder of the git working directory.

2. Place an image named logo.png on the root level of the git working directory. (You may want to ignore that as part of your repository.)

3. When using a Finder tag, Kaleidoscope will slightly tint the background of the entry using the tag color.

Heads

Kaleidoscope will show the current heads of your working directory. This typically starts with the symbolic HEAD, unless you are working on a detached head. You also see the current branch and potential tags.

Working Copy Changes

Towards the trailing end, you see a bordered number if there are not committed changes in your working directory. The number indicates how many changed items there are. Click that bordered number to open a changeset document for those changes.

Contextual Menu

Right-clicking or control-clicking on an entry brings up a menu with some of the options described above, plus a few more.

Detail View of a Repository

Clicking the entry of a repository in the Repositories view takes you to a detail page with several options to open comparisons for that repository. There are 3 main areas in this view:

Common Comparisons

This section allows opening comparisons that might be useful in your daily work. Examples are changes in your current working copy, with options to see all, just the unstaged or just the staged ones. And there are options to show changes made recently.

Entries also have contextual menus for quick access to all options.

Recent Comparisons

As you open comparisons, either from this view, from other areas inside Kaleidoscope, from other apps, or the git command line tools, they appear automatically in this recent comparisons section. Note that they will also show up in the main Recent Documents, but this area only shows recent documents related to that repository, helping you focus on your task.

Use right-click or control-click to show the contextual menu which offers additional options, such as inverting and opening or editing and opening the changeset, if applicable. There's also the option to remove an entry from the recent comparisons.

Custom Comparison

The bottom area of this view provides you with means to create new comparisons from branches, tags, or commits in your repository.

Use it to compare feature branches before finishing your work on a feature, to explore changes in previous releases, and more. The commit option is mostly useful when pasting commit (short) hashes from other areas of Kaleidoscope or other apps.