Easy to use Git client for non-technical people?

Question

My team consists of both software developers, business analysts, tech writers, and other non-technical people. We've started storing non-code artifacts (e.g. user manuals, technical documentation, reports, charts) in our Git repository. Our non-technical team members are having some trouble getting used to Git and its command line interface.

Our team uses OS X. I've tried different graphical Git clients, but they all focus on displaying project history instead of facilitating the overall work-commit-update workflow. (GitX has been the best so far.)

Does anyone know of any decent clients or tools to help non-technical people use Git?

Answer 1

you may create 'desktop shortcuts' for them with names like "Update repo", "Commit changes". It can be easily done on all platforms (including OS X). I bet there is no git client for "nontechnical people"

Answer 2

Unfortunately, a good GUI for git has not shown its face yet, at least not to my knowledge. GitX is probably as good as it gets for now. I assume you've already tried Gitnub, which really is only helpful for showing history, as you said.

If someone can come up with a truly intuitive interface for DVCS, I will be delighted.

Answer 3

If you are in windows environment I'd suggest using tortoise git - http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/

This doesn't give a comprehensive tree with branches, but this is the most intuitive GUI for non-technical people, who just need to revision control their work.

Answer 4

Thanks for the tips, everyone. Unfortunately (at least for this problem), we're using OS X so I can't use Tortoise Git. It turns out that there's a Tcl GUI built into the standard Git tools suite that's not too bad ("git gui"). It looks like it'll do for now.

Answer 5

I'd recommend QGit, there's a darwin port : QGit-mac.

Answer 6

try SmartGit for OSX:

http://www.syntevo.com/smartgit/index.html

Answer 7

You should be using GitHub , not just rolling your own Git server. GitHub has most of what a BA would need (i.e. most everything but commit. and blame I think).

I find the best graphical interface on Mac to be the Git bundle on TextMate

Answer 8

I've never seen a good VCS which is accessible to non-technical people, apart from Perforce (perhaps).

Even SVN through Tortoise confuses people, they tend to commit everything in their working dir, mess up deletes, etc. You can train them but some central concepts of VCS are hard to grasp for normal non techy folk.

Answer 9

I've tried different graphical Git clients, but they all focus on displaying project history instead of facilitating the overall work-commit-update workflow.

In my experience, showing the log window as primary interface helped developers to understand what they were doing. Branching, merging and tagging become obviously clear as you see the log lines change. You'll also have all members of the team speaking the same language - they can discuss the branch lines to use, which to integrate, etc.. (see http://nvie.com/git-model for an example)

In fact, the single developer who used SmartGit (which still follows the SVN workflow of commit-and-forget) got in the most trouble understanding git. SmartGit hides all the branching flow deep inside the interface.

The MacOS clients I would therefore consider are:

• GitX - http://gitx.frim.nl/
• Gitty - http://www.gittiapp.com/