Magit

Last updated
Magit
Original author(s) Marius Vollmer
Developer(s) Jonas Bernoulli, Kyle Meyer, and Noam Postavsky
Stable release
3.3.0. [1] / October 4, 2021;2 years ago (2021-10-04)
Repository github.com/magit/magit
Written in Emacs Lisp
Type
  • Git client
  • Text editor plugin
License GPL-3.0-or-later
Website magit.vc

Magit is an interface to the Git version control system (a Git Client), implemented as a GNU Emacs package [2] [3] written in Elisp. It is made available through the MELPA package repository, [4] on which it is the most-downloaded non-library package, with over 3.7 million downloads as of February 2023. [5]

Contents

Like many graphical user interfaces, Magit provides a visual interface to represent version control actions; however, it uses a keyboard-centric model, and also functions as a text-based user interface. [lower-alpha 1] The issue of key-memorization is mitigated through use of a popup menu which displays the actions available to the user [6] — serving as a mnemonic aid. [7]

History

Magit was created by Marius Vollmer in 2008, [8] with Jonas Bernoulli assuming the role of maintainer in 2013. [9] Since its release, Magit has seen a high degree of community involvement, with 350 individuals [10] having contributed code to this free software project as of September 2020.

In 2018 Magit underwent a Kickstarter funding campaign [11] which aimed to fund the maintainer for a year of work. The fundraising was successful and resulted in the project being the 27th most funded software project on Kickstarter. [12] Since the Kickstarter funded period expired donations are encouraged to support the authors development via direct payments, GitHub's sponsorship program and various other crowdfunding services. [13]

Functionality

Magit aims to encapsulate the entire functionality of Git. [1] As such, Magit includes interfaces for [14]

Forges

Magit's Forge provides integration with a number of forges, [15] namely GitHub and GitLab. [16]

Partial support is also listed for: Gitea, Gogs, Bitbucket, Gitweb, Cgit, StGit and SourceHut.

Forge currently allows for [17]

Reception

There has been interest in including Magit in Emacs, but there are issues with obtaining FSF copyright assignment from all contributors to the project. [18]

Magit is favourably covered in a number of blog posts and tutorials and a talk delivered by former Emacs' maintainer John Wiegley. [19] [20] [21]

Magit is included by default in the Emacs configuration frameworks Spacemacs and Doom Emacs. [22] [23]

As of February 2023, Magit is the most starred Emacs package on GitHub. [24]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ In part this is a consequence of being designed for GNU Emacs, which itself can operate as a TUI.

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References

  1. 1 2 Bernoulli, Jonas. "It's Magit! A Git Porcelain inside Emacs". magit.vc. Retrieved 2022-01-02.
  2. ↑ Corbet, Jonathan (July 12, 2017). "Emacs and Magit". LWN.net.
  3. ↑ "EmacsWiki: Magit" . Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  4. ↑ "magit". Milkypostman's Emacs Lisp Package Archive. Retrieved 2020-09-20.
  5. ↑ "Current List of Packages". Milkypostman's Emacs Lisp Package Archive. Retrieved 2020-09-20.
  6. ↑ "Transient commands". GitHub . Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  7. ↑ Bernoulli, Jonas (2017-09-01). "Magit, the magical Git interface". EmacsAir.
  8. ↑ "magit/magit.el". GitHub . Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  9. ↑ "Magit 1.4.0 Release Notes". GitHub . 2015-07-01. Retrieved 2020-09-20.
  10. ↑ "GitStats - magit". magit.vc. Retrieved 2022-03-08.
  11. ↑ "It's Magit! The magical Git client". Kickstarter .
  12. ↑ "Discover » Technology / Software » Most Funded — Kickstarter" . Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  13. ↑ "Please help making it better".
  14. ↑ "Top (Magit User Manual)". magit.vc.
  15. ↑ Heartman, Thomas (16 March 2020). "Improve your workflow with Forge".
  16. ↑ "Forge User and Developer Manual". magit.vc.
  17. ↑ "Usage (Forge User and Developer Manual)". magit.vc.
  18. ↑ Stallman, Richard (5 July 2017). "Re: In support of Jonas Bernoulli's Magit". emacs-devel (Mailing list). Retrieved 2020-09-19.
  19. ↑ Patil, Sachin. "How to use Magit to manage Git projects". opensource.com.
  20. ↑ Bachmann, Gunther. "Magit – A textual git interface". itemis.
  21. ↑ Wiegley, John. "It's Magit!". YouTube.
  22. ↑ "Spacemacs - source control layer". GitHub. Retrieved 2020-09-19.
  23. ↑ "Doom Emacs - default modules file". GitHub. Retrieved 2020-09-19.
  24. ↑ "GitHub Search for "stars:>1000", Emacs lisp, sorted by most stars". GitHub. Retrieved 2020-09-19.
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