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I recently had the painful experience of helping a novice Eclipse user use EGit over an audio call where he was sharing his screen, and it made it obvious that initial experience for novice Eclipse users using EGit has the potential to be pretty bad. Even for experienced users, it's problematic but at least we know how to work around it. Part of the problem is with Eclipse UI metaphors rather than EGit specifically, but I wanted to report it to EGit since it is directly affected. I was trying to help the user get out of a bad state and needed to see if he had any uncommitted files before resetting. The conversation went something like this: Me: Open the staging view Novice: ??? Me: Ctrl+3, type staging <the staging view opens as a fast view> Me: Now click the button with the yellow arrows to link the view to the selection. No, the _other_ button with yellow arrows. Ok, now select the project in the package explorer. <the staging view disappears> Me: You need to open the view again and pin it so it registers the selection. Click the restore button. It's the button with the 2 rectangles. <user maximizes the view, hiding the package explorer> Me: Ok, go back to the package explorer and select the project again... I have a few suggestions to make this work more smoothly: * when the staging view is a fast view, it should update based on the current (i.e. most recent) selection every time you click the icon in the trim to reveal the view * The staging view should have "Link with Editor and Selection" enabled by default, every time the view is opened, and it should update as soon as it's opened. Otherwise there is no way to populate the view and it is useless. The only reason to even allow users to disable this setting is so they can pin the content of the view _after_ it is populated, and I'm not sure that is worth a toolbar button that users may accidentally click. * The link with editor and refresh buttons look too similar (this is an Eclipse problem) * Fast views should have a "pin" button that looks like a push pin (also an Eclipse problem). This is common in other tools so it's likely to be understood by users.
Which egit version?
He was using Mars.
But I think this behaviour has always been the same.
(In reply to Sam Davis from comment #0) > I recently had the painful experience of helping a novice Eclipse user use > EGit over an audio call where he was sharing his screen, and it made it > obvious that initial experience for novice Eclipse users using EGit has the > potential to be pretty bad. Even for experienced users, it's problematic but > at least we know how to work around it. Part of the problem is with Eclipse > UI metaphors rather than EGit specifically, but I wanted to report it to > EGit since it is directly affected. I was trying to help the user get out of > a bad state and needed to see if he had any uncommitted files before > resetting. The conversation went something like this: > > Me: Open the staging view > Novice: ??? > Me: Ctrl+3, type staging > <the staging view opens as a fast view> > Me: Now click the button with the yellow arrows to link the view to the > selection. No, the _other_ button with yellow arrows. Ok, now select the > project in the package explorer. > <the staging view disappears> > Me: You need to open the view again and pin it so it registers the > selection. Click the restore button. It's the button with the 2 rectangles. > <user maximizes the view, hiding the package explorer> > Me: Ok, go back to the package explorer and select the project again... > > I have a few suggestions to make this work more smoothly: > > * when the staging view is a fast view, it should update based on the > current (i.e. most recent) selection every time you click the icon in the > trim to reveal the view > * The staging view should have "Link with Editor and Selection" enabled by > default, every time the view is opened, and it should update as soon as it's > opened. Otherwise there is no way to populate the view and it is useless. > The only reason to even allow users to disable this setting is so they can > pin the content of the view _after_ it is populated, and I'm not sure that > is worth a toolbar button that users may accidentally click. The "link with editor and selection" is enabled by default. Users with very large repositories or limited hardware may want to unset this option for performance reasons. Hence I think it's not a good idea to change this preference automatically. > * The link with editor and refresh buttons look too similar (this is an > Eclipse problem) > * Fast views should have a "pin" button that looks like a push pin (also an > Eclipse problem). This is common in other tools so it's likely to be > understood by users. these issues should be raised for Eclipse platform so please file separate bugs for them
