Clone
Use Repository|Clone to create a clone of another Git repository.
Specify the repository to clone either as a remote URL (e.g. ssh://user@server:port/path), or, if the repository is locally available on your file system, as a file path. In the Selection step you can configure whether submodules should be fetched as well: usually you will have this option selected, because submodules are an integral part of the main repository you are cloning. You should deselect Include Submodules only, if you do not wish to receive certain submodules. For details, refer to Submodules. Similarly, you will want to fetch the entire repository usually, including all heads and tags. If you are only interested in a specific head (branch) or tag, deselect Fetch all Heads and Tags. This allows you to specify a single branch to fetch and optionally to not Fetch all commits but Fetch Only the Latest x commits. Note that a few Git commands do not work properly for such partial repositories (e.g. Pull with Rebase). In the subsequent steps you have to provide the path to the local directory where the clone should be created and a few clone options.
If your server supports “partial clones”, you may select Skip large files and specify the maximum size of files (blobs) which will be fetched for the initial clone (see below).
Partial Clones
Note
Partial Clones are an optimization to limit the size of local clones and by definition give non-complete local clones. SmartGit may require a connection to the repository when performing operations related to the omitted files.
Partial Clones are a great way to reduce the amount of space your clone will require and thus the required time to perform the clone. Partial Clones are especially helpful if your repository contains large (binary) files which are not of significant interest to you. Only certain recent Git servers support partial clones. When trying Skip large files on a server which does not support partial clones, (Smart)Git will simply error out.
Once the clone has finished, (Smart)Git will fetch all required blobs
(regardless of which size) to perform any subsequent Git operation on
this clone. For example, let’s assume that your repository contains a
large file large:
- For the initial clone
(git clone) will not fetch any blobs related tolarge - Immediately after the clone, SmartGit will scan the working tree
(
git status) and therefore will fetch the blob which representslargein the HEAD commit - When selecting a different commit in the Log Graph for which
which
largehas changed, SmartGit will fetch those two blobs representinglargebefore and after the change - When invoking a File Log on
large, SmartGit will fetch all blobs related tolarge