SourceTree 1.4 is here!
By Jeff Park on May 1, 2012SourceTree just took another step forward today with SourceTree 1.4. In this release, we have:
- Changed the UI of the Bookmarks window to improve navigation
- Implemented a clone button in Bitbucket and Stash for instant access to your source
- Created a setup wizard to help connect users with their repositories
- Listened to customer input and added advanced Mercurial support
- Implemented commit message drafting to save you time.
- And a whole lot more!
Please note: as at the time of writing 1.4 is still awaiting Mac App Store approval, therefore the only way to get the new version today is via the direct link above.
What’s new?
Bookmarks window: reloaded
The bookmarks window has been completely redesigned to improve its visual style and usability. Search your bookmarks in real time, quickly navigating to the projects you want to find regardless of where they are in the tree. Easily re-sort the contents by name or repository type, and get access to common functions without having to open the full repository window first. You can even invoke Custom Actions directly from the list.
Bitbucket and Atlassian Stash support
Enjoy instant access to your source code by cloning with SourceTree from any repository. Click the ‘SourceTree’ clone option in Bitbucket and Stash, Atlassian’s new enterprise Git repository management system. Your clone details will automatically be configured in SourceTree for you to instantly download source.
Setup Wizard
To welcome new users to SourceTree and get them up to speed, we now include a setup wizard which packages the steps most people want to perform the first time they open SourceTree. In one short swoop, SourceTree can:
- gather your user details
- configure your accounts on Bitbucket, GitHub, and Kiln
- search your local drive for repositories that you might want to bookmark.
Commit message drafts
Now you can start drafting your next commit message long before you’re actually ready to commit. Just click the commit drafting button at the lower-left side of the repository window — or press Cmd-Shift-D, to pop up the drafting pane — and start typing.
Draft commonly used commits and create templates that you can use later to save time. This feature also allows you to refine your commit messages until they are ready for your team to see.
Mercurial bookmarks support
You’ve asked for more Mercurial support, and we have listened. Not to be confused with the bookmarks window, Mercurial has its own concept of bookmarks within a given repository. They behave somewhat like local branches in Git, and they can be used to more easily keep tabs on multiple local streams of development.
Plenty more!
There are plenty of other small improvements and tweaks in 1.4, and we’ll go into more details in follow-up posts in the coming weeks. In the mean time, we hope you enjoy the new release!
6 Comments
Fantastic! The new features are super useful, my only concern is the bookmark window design – I liked the previous design better, but it may be only my taste 🙂
Regardless it’s a worthy update, thank you for your hard work!
You’re the first person to say they preferred the old bookmarks design, but I guess you can’t please everyone 🙂 At least you get a bunch of new features as well as the visual change.
The features definitely worth the update and the design is fine, I just found the previous one slicker, but SourceTree is still the best Git/Mercurial client, it’s not that much of a problem 🙂 Thank you for this great tool!
I agree with Viktor about the Bookmarks window. The one thing I noticed is the lack of an Open button, which made it more obvious how to navigate. Double-clicking is OK but less obvious (I was watching a new user’s actions and she seemed tentative).
My other complaint is much more serious. If you select Add repository->Clone, and your URL contains a colon, as mine always does, the colon is reproduced below, in the Destination Path. That’s very bad form on a Mac, and in my case at least, I always have to erase the reproduced characters and type my own name. I much prefer the old style.
There is an arrow rather than an open button now, all the trials I’d done previously people found that less cluttered. It’s very hard to please everyone.
The clone behaviour hasn’t changed since 1.3, although the direct version is the only one which defaults the clone destination, because the App Store doesn’t allow it; but lots of users love this, because they can oftentimes just press Return and not fill in a clone destination manually (you can specify the default projects folder in Preferences). SourceTree should be picking just the end of your clone URL as the base for that, if you have a URL which doesn’t behave well, please provide an example, because I test with lots of HTTPS and SSH URLs (which have colons) and this is not an issue. Here’s the place to report it: https://jira.atlassian.com.
When is a Windows version coming?