GIT SCOPE (Intellij Plugin)

Story

I think every developer loves to check their changes with version control before committing. But there is a big problem with the current IntelliJ-based IDEs after committing the code: All changes in version control and also the line status disappear completely. Usually a branch contains more than one commit. This plugin helps you to make these commits visible again in an intuitive way!

To make changes visible you can create custom "scopes" for any target branch, tag or any valid git reference. Each of the defined scopes will be selectable as a tab in the GIT SCOPE tool window. The current selected "scope" is displayed as a:

• Overall project tree diff in the GIT SCOPE tool window
• Editor "line status" in the "line gutter" for each opened file (if file gutter is enabled)
• Custom "scope" that can be used for example when searching and finally as a
• Status bar widget

Plugin Features

New Scope:

To add a new scope, click the "+" tab on the Git Scope panel:

In the "New*" tab you get a few different options to define the scope:

1. Select either a local or remote branch in the current repo. If the repo contains sub-repos, all repos will be listed with the main repo being the first repo in the list.
2. Alternatively, you can manually type the branch, tag or git reference and press Enter. A git reference can be any valid git reference such as HEAD~2, <long hash>, <short hash>, ...
3. If you want to bind the scope to the common ancestor for HEAD and the current selected scope reference, you can check the common ancestor checkbox. This makes it possible to for example select master and your scope will be compared to the common ancestor of master and HEAD. And you are free to pull new changes onto master without affecting the scope.
4. If the list of branches is long, it can be filtered using the search box.

Change Browser:

Whenever the scope selection is done, the tab will turn into a "change browser" (similar to version control) that displays the current diff of the GIT SCOPE.

Right click on any file will present a number of actions:

• Show Diff: Opens a diff window showing the diff of the selected file(s) <selected-scope>..HEAD
• Show in Project: Highlight this file in the Project tool window
• Rollback...: Rollback the selected files(s) to <selected-scope> version. Note that this will checkout the selected scope version of the file(s), and will in many cases leave you with a modified file that no longer show up in the Git Scope window since it is identical to the version pointed to by the scope. Commit the files using the standard Commit tool window.

Line Status Gutter:

Adjusts the line status according to your GIT SCOPE. Normally this built-in feature shows only the current "HEAD" changes

READ: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/phpstorm/file-status-highlights.html

HEAD	"main"-Branch

Scope:

Adds a custom Scope (used to do inspections, search/replace, etc), i.e. search results are filtered by GIT SCOPE.

READ: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/phpstorm/scopes.html

Status Bar Widget

To see the current selection of the Git Scope even when the tool window is not open, you can look at the status bar widget.

Rename Tab

The tab name is per default set to the selected scope reference. If the selected scope is a git hash, you can rename the scope tab name by right clicking on the tab and selecting "Rename Tab". Any renamed tab will show the original Git Scope reference as a tooltip. You can rest the tab name to the original Git Scope scope reference by right clicking on the tab and selecting "Reset Tab Name".

Use Commit as Git Scope

In the Git panel, you can right-click on any commit and select "Use Commit as Git Scope" to automatically add the commit as a new Git Scope.

Project Panel Filter

The Project tool window can be filtered to show only files that are part of the current Git scope. When this filter is enabled, the IDE controls the Project view’s lifecycle and updates. As a result, the Project tool window might not immediately reflect changes to the Git scope.

Select In

Git Scope appears in the Select In dialog, so you can locate any file directly in the Git Scope tool window from Select In.

The Git Scope window itself also has the "Select Opened File" action button, so you can highlight any file directly in the Git Scope tool window (if the file is part of the current selected scope):

Shortcuts (Added by this Plugin)

Shortcut	Description
Alt+H	Toggle between HEAD and last Git Scope selection

More Useful Shortcuts

Shortcut	Description
Ctrl+D (on any file in a changes browser)	Open diff window
F7	step forward (in diff window)
Shift+F7	step backward (in diff window)

Notes

The examples above relies on the gutter highlighting feature in Jetbrains IDEs. Make sure that this feature is enabled via Tools -> Diff & Merge -> Highlight modified lines in gutter (IntelliJ).

Previous versions of the plugin disabled this setting, while current versions rely on this setting being enabled to show changes in gutter.

Howto build and debug

Build (build/distributions)

./gradlew buildPlugin

Run/debug plugin

./gradlew runIde

Verify

./gradlew verifyPlugin