I use tig for my git tree browser. My normal
usage is to look at the the commit tree (normally viewing all branches with
tig --all) but it’s a powerful tool with a lot of features, some of which
I’m starting to integrate into my daily work.
Today I learned how check out a branch directly from tig.
The first
step is to switch into ‘refs’ mode with r - this shows a view of all the
local branches, remote branches and tags:
tig’s ‘refs’ view
From any of these you can check out that branch or tag by putting the cursor
on that line and pressing C.
On my team we use long branch names which reference a story ID, so checking out with tig is much quicker than typing out eg:
git checkout -b branchname origin/branchname
It’s also possible to check out individual commits (without creating a branch)
from the normal tig view by putting the cursor over that commit and pressing
O.