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Preferences

Commands

This page shows options which influence the executed Git (and Hg) commands.

With Detect Renames enabled, SmartGit will detect renames of added/removed and optionally also untracked/missing file pairs.

Push

Only select the Allow modifying pushed commits (e.g. forced-push) if you are sure you know Git well enough to understand the consequences of forced push.

Log and Working Tree window

Select Automatically save stash on common commands to have SmartGit retry the execution of a Git command, if this failed and the working tree contains local changes.

Select Distinguish between content and EOL-only changes to have SmartGit distinguish between content and EOL-only changes, in addition to the plain modified state which Git reports (in either case, files which Git considers as modified will be reported). The EOL-change information will be displayed in the Files table State If you do not want Git to care about EOLs at all (that’s usually the case if you are on Windows), you might want to use core.autocrlf or text and eol attributes.

Info

If you encounter problems with auto-stashing, because SmartGit does not ask anymore, you may try to Restore all confirmation dialogs in section User Interface.

Git Executable

You can specify which Git Executable should be used by SmartGit. Usually, the default executable which comes bundled with SmartGit is the appropriate choice.

Version requirements

SmartGit is using the Git executable in many different ways, with various options. Some of these options can easily be implemented as “optional”, others will be required for a decent implementation. Given the required options, every new SmartGit version may come with an increased minimum required version for the Git executable. Here is a list of features witch are supported by SmartGit and partially contribute to the minimum required version:

  • 2.29: partial clone support
  • 2.25: “–path-spec-from-file” support, for efficient operations on many files (affects all operations and thus is required!)
  • 2.21: “–rebase-merges” option
  • 2.14: stashing file selection

Authentication

The Authentication page shows all credentials which SmartGit has collected. Credentials can be selectively removed to force SmartGit requesting new credentials when connecting to the repository again.

SSH

SmartGit supports your system SSH client but also comes with a built-in SSH client, in case you do not have an existing configuration.

  • System SSH client: if you already have a working SSH configuration, it’s recommended to stick with this configuration, because this way changes to keys or passwords outside of SmartGit will automatically be picked up by SmartGit.

    Note

    When using the system SSH client, it’s necessary that the system is configured in a way that it won’t have to prompt for any additional user input on console: such prompts won’t be processed by SmartGit and thus the Git operation will fail.

  • Built-in SSH client: if you do not have SSH set up and don’t plan to have a shared SSH configuration between SmartGit and other tools, like Git command line client, using the built-in SSH client may be easier to configure and handle.

    Note

    The built-in SSH client requires the private key file in the PEM-format. Please see also the SSH-How-To.

Password store

All passwords needed to access repositories can optionally be stored in SmartGit’s password store. This password store is located in the password file, which can be found in SmartGit’s settings directory (see Installation and Files).

The password store can be protected by a master password, and each time you start SmartGit, this master password has to be entered as soon as SmartGit tries to access the password store for the first time. The entered password is kept in memory while the program runs, so you don’t have to enter it again for the rest of the current session. You may choose Don’t use a master password if you don’t want the password store to be protected with a master password. However, this option is only recommended if you can make sure the master password file itself is protected against unauthorized access.

Master Password

By clicking on the Change Master Password button on the Authentication page in the Preferences, you can set, reset or change the master password. Use Change master password to change the current password; this will preserve the stored passwords, but requires that you supply the Current Master Password. Note that you don’t need to enter the Current Master Password if you are currently working without a master password.

If you have forgotten the master password, select Set new master password. In that case all previously stored passwords will be discarded. Enter the New Master Password and Retype New Master Password. When leaving both fields blank, you will continue to work without a master password, i.e. as if having selected the option Don’t use a master password when you were asked to set the master password.

Background Commands

Options on this page define what operations SmartGit might perform automatically when it is in background.

Local and Remote Changes

If Detect Remote Changes is selected, SmartGit will poll the remote repositories of the favorite Git repositories in regular intervals for changes. To avoid excessive overhead, by default only the lightweight git ls-remote command is invoked, so you only get a notification about changes. Note that this command will not notice if, for example, the currently checked out feature branch has been merged and removed.

If Fetch closed ‘favorite’ repositories or Fetch open repositories when idle is selected, SmartGit also will perform fetch-operations which actually will fetch the changes from the remote repositories, but can be more resource-hungry.

Tools

Refer to the Tools for more details.

Diff Tools

Info

Diff tools are (GUI) viewers of diff results. Diff tools are not related to the internal diff machinery of Git. If you want to customize the diff machinery itself, have a look at Git’s ‘diff.external’ config option.

SmartGit comes with a built-in diff tool which will be used by default to display results of various operations, like Show Changes. If you prefer, you can configure external diff tools which should be used instead. Following notable Arguments are available for an External diff tool:

  • ${leftFile} represents the left (or usually “old”) version of the file
  • ${rightFile} represents the right (or usually “new”) version of the file
  • ${baseFile} represents the common base version of the file; depending on the context from which the diff tool is invoked, the common base is defined as:
    • the Index version, for a working-tree vs. Index comparison
    • the HEAD version, for a working-tree vs. HEAD or a Index vs. HEAD comparison
    • the version before the commit, for a single-commit comparison
    • the merge base version of the two commits, when comparing two commits; this is similar to what SmartGit would display in case of conflicts

For certain files, like graphic files, there may be no appropriate left-right diff tool available. In this case you can configure an External viewer which has only a single ${file} argument and which will be launched by SmartGit two times: once for the old and once for the new file.

By default, the list of tools is searched from top to bottom and the first matching tool will be used. Alternatively, you can select Show chooser dialog if multiple entries match.

Conflict Solvers

SmartGit comes with a built-in conflict solver (three-way-merge) which will be used by default when invoking Query|Conflict Solver. If you prefer, you can configure external three-way-merge tools which should be used instead. Following notable Arguments are available for an External Conflict Solver:

  • ${mergeFile} represents the resulting conflicting file, as it’s present in the working tree
  • ${leftFile} represents Git’s “ours” version of the file
  • ${rightFile} represents Git’s “theirs” version of the file
  • ${baseFile} represents Git’s “common” version of the file

For details on how Git is managing these file versions, refer to the Git manual.

Note, if the launched external conflict solver does not return until it is closed, it will block SmartGit. To avoid this (on Windows), use the bin\open.exe helper, e.g.:

  • Command: C:\Program Files\SmartGit\bin\open.exe
  • Arguments: --no-wait "C:\Program Files\MyCompare\mycompare.exe" ${leftFile} ${rightFile} ${mergedFile}

Example: VSCode

To configure VSCode 1.70 or higher as conflict solver, use --wait --merge ${leftFile} ${rightFile} ${baseFile} ${mergedFile} as Arguments.

Example: Unity Smart Merge Tool

To configure the UnityYAMLMerge, use merge -p ${baseFile} ${rightFile} ${leftFile} ${mergedFile} as Arguments. An example configuration could look like:

Note, that a compatible 3-way merge tool has to be configured as “fallback” for the Unity merge tool in order to complete the merge if the automatic merging is not successful.

Proxy

On this page you can configure the proxy to be used by SmartGit. The proxy will be used exactly as configured for the check for new versions. It will also be used for Git HTTP and HTTPs under certain conditions:

  • Use following proxy has been selected and
  • there is no http.proxy and no https.proxy configuration found in your .gitconfig and Git’s system config and
  • the neither of following system environment variables is set: HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, NO_PROXY

Privacy

When Contact gravatar.com to show images for the users is selected, a hash of the email address is generated and then gravatar.com is contacted to request the belonging graphic which the user first has to configure there.