Inline Comparison on Commit seems to be forced in XCode 15 Beta 3

Anyone know how to set Side By Side Comparison in the new commit UI? New UI seems to missing a lot of features like multi-select of files to discard/stage...

Post not yet marked as solved Up vote post of MB-IUGO Down vote post of MB-IUGO
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  • I have been using Xcode for more than 5 years and this change is sadly the first change that is so bad that I am motivated to post in the Developer Forums for the first time. I've lived through buggy code and missing features but this is the first time where, through lack of design consideration and user experience, they've managed to cripple a key feature. These problem should have been flagged early in the dev cycle and is a problem of technical leadership rather than programming.

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Hear hear with this terrible change. You absolutely cannot make a change of this impact without consultation AND an ability to opt-out of the new interface!

Here's the feedback I just sent via Xcode>Help>Provide Feedback...

My workflow absolutely needs the side-by-side commit comparisons back!

Missing features that make my workflow drastically more difficult:

  1. Missing side-by-side change viewer in the commit interface. This is absolutely essential for my workflow. I know I can view these changes OUTSIDE the commit interface, but that doesn't help

  2. Missing dedicated window with different sizing from my editor windows. I edit code on a monitor, with three editors side-by-side. The commit interface now appears in one of these windows, which is much too narrow. I have to create a new tab group with a window large enough, but that tab group gets randomly closed or moved and I have to search for it or recreate it each time I go to commit. Definitely less convenient than one menu item away.

  3. Missing way to quickly navigate to each change in the file. For a large file with many changes, I used the button to jump to the next change in the file ALL THE TIME.

  4. Missing visibility of whether or not to commit individual changes. The checkboxes for the files and the per-line dropdowns were exceedingly quick, and easy to come back and review all the changes about to be committed before actually performing it. Now the difference in highlighting is much less clear, especially when you have to scroll the entire contents of EVERY changed file to find the individual staged/unstaged items.

  5. Missing persistent commit message when going in/out of the commit interface. I'm not sure exactly what caused it to happen, probably a bug, but I wrote a commit message, but before I made any commits I went in and out of the interface, staged/unstaged a few things, tried to commit without staging, then continued playing, and then I noticed the commit message was gone. Previously that commit message would remain no matter what I did, until a commit was made.

Edit: I after I pushed my commit with the new commit message, there are no more unstaged/uncommitted changes, but now in the Commit interface the original commit message is back. This seems like a strange bug.

I'm sorry, this UI change is absolutely broken. Terrible decision to make without extensive feedback AND the ability to choose which interface to use.

Agree with everyone. New commit UI is unusable. This is a VERY big problem!

How would anyone like this? It's a disaster. I like to review all my changes when I select "Commit" but it's impossible. Scrolling down suddenly gets you in a new file. Sorry, Apple, your new Integrate workflow sucks. I'm going to use SmartGit for ALL my source code changes until it's changed back, which, knowing Apple's legendary intransigence, will probably be forever.

Post not yet marked as solved Up vote reply of owen Down vote reply of owen

Please bring back Side By Side comparison and File hierarchy view for modified files in Integrate feature. For now it's unusable - need to use external diff tool.

I utterly loathe this new "integrate" system, but loved the old simple system. I've given up committing changes and I'm gonna wait (and hope, and pray) that Apple sees sense and goes back to the old way, and until then just cross my fingers that I don't introduce any bugs without being able to double check my work on checking in.

Unbelievably bad from Apple.

I also vote for reverting this change - the new "compare view" is definitely not as easy to use as the old one. My workaround is to use SourceTree right now for this purpose - but also this compare view has some downsides. I really can't get why the Xcode engineers thought the new UI is a step forward :(

i know this thread is supposedly about "beta 3", but i hope someone is still looking at it, because i don't see a newer one. i can't believe i haven't heard more people freaking out about this, and also that there seems to be no way to at the very least select side-by-side comparison. generally agree that the new system is a huge regression. nothing new to add really, except to be another small ignored voice crying out in the darkness: HEY APPLE, QUIT BREAKING SHIT.

The navigation of the files is impossible. Everything is listed under "Uncommitted Changes". I have no idea where files belong to. I use a very big project where I structure my code within a complex hierarchy of folders. Many files have the same name because I handle them by different targets and shemes. The way the changed files are listed right now, it is impossible to work with.

One example - I made a pod update of 23 pods and have 468 files changed. Can not handle this.

I don't want to write code in Xcode 15, I'm just frustrated.

This change has been horrible, it has caused multiple push errors because its hard to control the things I'm pushing now with an unorganized UI like this, why does APPLE need to BREAK SUCH IMPORTANT FUNCTIONS

Agree with all comments! Apple, please bring back Side By Side Comparison!

Same problem here. Commit in Xcode 15 is unusable. Apple please give us the side by side comparison back!

This is really terrible. I want the old way!

I'm switching to Github Desktop for commits - this is terrible. For large files and large numbers of changes, it's utterly unusable from not only a interaction usability perspective, but even more so from a performance perspective - it freezes any time I try to look at changes (I'm running a well-equipped 2023 16 inch Macbook Pro, shouldn't have issues)

Another new Github Desktop user here.

I've battled with Xcode 15 long enough and I'm fed up with commits which take twice as long as they should (because it's so hard to review changes) and then seem to leave half the committed files behind. And that's if it doesn't freeze.

Am not sure what was driving these changes and why Apple thought adding steps, complexity and poor UX to this process was necessary but it needs a fast re-think. This isn't something we'll learn to love given time. We will just switch away.