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Ask HN: Why no one has ever build a better GitHub client?

2 points by impsy_fr 2y ago

Everything is in the title. We have 50+ client to replace ChatGPT but no one ever build a better Github UI And I know and love refined-github but I would love to try a something more radical

benoau 2y ago
VSCode has become my favorite Git client, very simple but covers almost everything you'd want to do.
neximo64 2y ago
There are so many? Sublime Merge, Tower, etc..
andregit 2y ago
Have you tried Tower?
davydm 2y ago
Are you asking for a Github client in particular, or a git client? if the latter, there are several to choose from, some paid, some free (personally, I like lazygit, but I've used Tower (meh), Git Kraken (quite good, but heavy and not completely free), the built-ins in Jetbrains products, and, ofc the git cli. If you're asking about the former - something to provide a new view on all the GitHub things like PR, then I don't know of one (though some of the GUI git clients have PR functionality built-in). I used Refined Github for a while, but ended up stopping as most of the useful stuff (for me, at least) in there appears to be natively available on github.com.
- brunobrito 2y ago
  Would love to know what you found disappointing in Tower!
- impsy_fr 2y ago
  Yeah, I'm mostly asking about a Github client Something that would help with PR and Issue discussions,but my biggest beef is really with Actions and associated the UI/UX I feel like they are really good at doing the job but not very good at showing it (and when somethings goes wrong it's really painful)
  - solardev 2y ago
    Can't you use the actions API to send the error somewhere else, to a logging/reporting platform of your choice?
leejoramo 2y ago
I find the GitHub Desktop tool to be rather clunky. I use git in various ways; * CLI for most small tasks * GUI for big tasks and getting an overview * Editor UI for small things if I am currently in the editor. * GitHub’s website for collaboration and GH specific tasks The GUI’s I use are: Git-Fork on macOS, Windows. Visually my favorite UI of all. https://git-fork.com https://git-fork.com Sublime Merge on macOS, Windows and Linux. I use this the most since my main development system is Linux. It is more powerful. https://www.sublimemerge.com https://www.sublimemerge.com I prefer those two to Tower, but Tower is much better than GitHub’s tools. Tower is probably the most powerful tool out there. Many editors have good Git support. I tend to use these tools first smaller git tasks. VSCode had a wealth of built-in and add on tools that can do nearly anything. I generally find these to be rather inelegant UI designs. But again better than GitHub’s own client. I have been VERY pleased with the Zed Editor’s current git integration and expect it will improve. I have only recently started to use Zed as my primary editor on an experimental basis. Finally, I haven’t really reviewed all of this in a few years. Always interested in learning new ways.

2 points by impsy_fr 2y ago

Everything is in the title. We have 50+ client to replace ChatGPT but no one ever build a better Github UI And I know and love refined-github but I would love to try a something more radical

benoau 2y ago

VSCode has become my favorite Git client, very simple but covers almost everything you'd want to do.

neximo64 2y ago

There are so many? Sublime Merge, Tower, etc..

andregit 2y ago

Have you tried Tower?

davydm 2y ago

Are you asking for a Github client in particular, or a git client? if the latter, there are several to choose from, some paid, some free (personally, I like lazygit, but I've used Tower (meh), Git Kraken (quite good, but heavy and not completely free), the built-ins in Jetbrains products, and, ofc the git cli. If you're asking about the former - something to provide a new view on all the GitHub things like PR, then I don't know of one (though some of the GUI git clients have PR functionality built-in). I used Refined Github for a while, but ended up stopping as most of the useful stuff (for me, at least) in there appears to be natively available on github.com.

brunobrito 2y ago
Would love to know what you found disappointing in Tower!
impsy_fr 2y ago
Yeah, I'm mostly asking about a Github client Something that would help with PR and Issue discussions,but my biggest beef is really with Actions and associated the UI/UX I feel like they are really good at doing the job but not very good at showing it (and when somethings goes wrong it's really painful)
- solardev 2y ago
  Can't you use the actions API to send the error somewhere else, to a logging/reporting platform of your choice?

leejoramo 2y ago

I find the GitHub Desktop tool to be rather clunky. I use git in various ways; * CLI for most small tasks * GUI for big tasks and getting an overview * Editor UI for small things if I am currently in the editor. * GitHub’s website for collaboration and GH specific tasks The GUI’s I use are: Git-Fork on macOS, Windows. Visually my favorite UI of all. https://git-fork.com https://git-fork.com Sublime Merge on macOS, Windows and Linux. I use this the most since my main development system is Linux. It is more powerful. https://www.sublimemerge.com https://www.sublimemerge.com I prefer those two to Tower, but Tower is much better than GitHub’s tools. Tower is probably the most powerful tool out there. Many editors have good Git support. I tend to use these tools first smaller git tasks. VSCode had a wealth of built-in and add on tools that can do nearly anything. I generally find these to be rather inelegant UI designs. But again better than GitHub’s own client. I have been VERY pleased with the Zed Editor’s current git integration and expect it will improve. I have only recently started to use Zed as my primary editor on an experimental basis. Finally, I haven’t really reviewed all of this in a few years. Always interested in learning new ways.