Everything proposed would be a great improvement to the current branch tooltip. 👍

Is this a worthwhile undertaking when proposals like #556 exist?

A concern @kuychaco mentioned: If we would do first this RFC, and then later move branch management to a panel #556, some people might prefer to keep using the command palette and get 😖.

Something I like about the command palette UI: Once you're done, the dialog closes automatically and the rest of the UI is still the same. With a panel/dock item, you have to manually switch back to, for example, the tree-view. Seeing the list of branches isn't that beneficial while you code.

On the other hand, having a panel/dock item gives us the freedom to add any custom UI we want. So maybe the question is: When does the command palette UI reach its limits? And does that happen anytime soon-ish?

What kind of warnings should branch deletion trigger?

Maybe a branch with merged commits can be deleted without confirmation? Since nothing is lost. And also have an icon or different color, so it's easy to see which branches aren't really needed anymore.

Some more open questions:

1. Sorting of the branch list

Should the list of local branches be sorted in a special way (other than alphabetically)?

• Show master (default branch) first. Since it's the branch you most likely want to create a new branch from.
• Then show the branches chronologically so that most recent branches are at the top. Usually only a few branches are "active", the rest are stale and might never get worked on again.

2. "All in one" UI

Another thing I wonder, should there be an additional github:branch command that shows the command palette where all other commands are possible. Maybe the other commands wouldn't even be needed. Somewhere I think we talked already about it, but it would work like this:

checkout-branch

• Once github:branch is ran, it shows a list of your local branches. Just like github:checkout-branch.
• Now you can use your arrow keys and press enter to do a checkout.
• Or first start typing to filter the branch list.

create-new-branch

• Once you start to type in the input, the first item in the list says something like: branchname "Press enter to create new branch"
• It wouldn't show when you type an already existing branch name.

delete-branch

• Once a branch is selected in the list, pressing [backspace/delete] would delete the branch.

rename-branch

• Once a branch is selected in the list, pressing [f2] would allow to rename the branch.

Some benefits:

• There is only one command/keybinding to remember.
• No need to switch commands. You probably realize to clean up your branch list while you try to checkout another branch. "Damn, this list is getting long, I should clean it up!" But instead of having to run another command, you can just start to press backspace/delete and do it right then when it comes to mind.
• When you try to create a new branch, you might see that it already exists, so it's easy to just slightly change the name without getting a "branch name already exists" warning.

Concerns:

Harder to discover. So it probably would need some extra hints, maybe at the bottom of the list. Like

Type name + [enter] to create a new branch, [backspace] to delete, [f2] to rename.

Each list item could also have a context menu with [Delete] and [Rename] as an extra option.

Thanks for the feedback so far, folks, that's great input. I like the idea of having only one branch list and then ways to execute all possible actions based on that.
As you say, it has both the benefit of only having to remember (and "reserving") one keyboard shortcut, and it encourages low-friction branch cleanup while one is noticing how long the branch list gets.

I would also consider showing remote branches in that list, but probably below all local branches. I think combining that with @simurai's suggestion of sorting branches by master, then recency, then remote branches, would make sense. Together with the icons proposed above (and a slightly different one for remote branches), this should make it easy to visually filter even a long list.

@mattmattmatt I would also consider showing remote branches in that list

💯 That would be awesome. I'll make some mockups to explore how it could look. Maybe have some divider between local + remote.

Here some mockups:

Remote default branch

A repo's default branch always shows up at the top (minus when filtering). Note that this is the default branch on the remote (origin). This makes it possible to quickly switch to the default branch and get the latest changes without having to fetch + pull.

In the above example, you can switch to the local master branch if you need to, but that's mostly to go back in history and test a certain commit. Otherwise always having an up-to-date master is probably preferred.

Local vs remote

The list has "gaps" to divide local and remote branches. In addition, remote branches show the remote name (e.g. origin).

Branches are sorted by most recent changes and shown in these groups:

origin/master
----
local branches
----
remote origin branches
----
remote A branches
----
remote B branches

Open question: Should local branches show the remote tracking branch? Maybe when you select a local branch it could show it like:

Or something a bit more subtle like showing a tooltip on hover. In the future we might can let users switch the remote tracking branch as well.

Current branch

The current branch has a border on the left.

Filtering

To filter the list, you can start typing.

Create a branch

If you type long enough, the "Create branch" option will probably be the only one left and thus selected. Pressing now enter creates the new branch.

This behavior might be a bit harder to to discover than having a dedicated "Create branch" button. We can add a hint at the bottom. Also, .com already uses it, so it wouldn't be completely new.

Open question: Should there be an option to directly create a new branch from origin/master? Similar to Desktop:

Sometimes having to do an extra step might be ok because you don't have to read a dialog every time and make a choice.

Exact match

If you type a name that matches a local branch, the "Create branch" won't be shown.

Rename

When selecting a branch and pressing f2, the branch can be renamed:

If the name already exists, the message changes to:

Delete

When selecting a branch and pressing delete, the branch gets deleted and removed from the list.

In case the branch contains un-merged commits, a confirmation dialog will be shown:

Open question: Should the confirmation dialog have a "don't show this dialog again" option?

Also, about showing the merge status of a branch. Feedback from a recent design review was that having a different icon and greyed out branch name isn't very obvious what it means. Even when adding a label/badge saying merged, it might still be confusing. "Merged with what?", "Is this a PR?".

I'll post some more ideas in the next comment.

"Is this a PR?"

The branches overview on .com shows some additional information, like if a branch has an associated PR and that PR's state.

Here a possible mockup:

It adds:

• CI status
  • Gives you a hint what to expect before checking out a branch.
• PR with #, status icon and avatar.
  • Makes it easier to find a certain branch. If someone says: "I just opened a PR for it". You can guess it is at the top of the remote, still green and has the person's avatar. You can also search/filter for a PR #, the author's name or maybe even with state, like is:open.
  • If a local branch has a merged PR, you probably don't need to keep it anymore and can delete it. If the PR is closed, but not merged, you might want to keep it locally to cherry pick from.

The above additions could be added as "nice to have" with less priority.

Oh wow, really love the direction this is heading towards, @simurai + @mattmattmatt! 😍Had a couple of thoughts 💭:

• Really like the separation between each remote and deemphasizing the remote name. 👍 It made the list really easy to parse and I might consider adopting this grouping method to GitHub Desktop 😉
• If space permits, it might make sense to try to incorporate the full status of the pull request in words (i.e., Open, Merge, Closed, etc.)
• I wonder how obvious is it that the avatar shown is the author of the pull request. Since there really isn't a label, I could also assume it represents the current contributors for the branch, assignee, reviewers, etc. I would consider testing this with other people to see if it's clear what the avatar represents.

Should local branches show the remote tracking branch?
...
Or something a bit more subtle like showing a tooltip on hover. In the future we might can let users switch the remote tracking branch as well.

I would find it helpful to understand which remote branch is a local branch tracking. A tooltip or something would make more sense here, given that there isn't a lot of space with both the local and remote branch name.

If space permits, it might make sense to try to incorporate the full status of the pull request in words (i.e., Open, Merge, Closed, etc.)

Space is a bit unpredictable. The One themes have a width of 600px, the classic Atom themes 500px. Other themes may be different. It also depends a bit on a theme's font-size. But yeah, having the PR state written out, might still be fine. 👍

I wonder how obvious is it that the avatar shown is the author of the pull request. Since there really isn't a label, I could also assume it represents the current contributors for the branch, assignee, reviewers, etc.

I was wondering about that too. Also because .com shows who is the last committer of a branch. Like Updated 2 weeks ago by username. One way to make it more clear is to also show the PR title after the avatar. But then it kinda needs it's own line.

Or maybe [PR state] #PR-nr by [avatar]? "by" would hint that it's the author? Would look like: