GitDock ⚓️

GitDock is a MacOS/Windows/Linux app that displays all your GitLab activities in one place. Instead of the GitLab typical project- or group-centric approach, it collects all your information from a user-centric perspective.

You can either have a look at this walkthrough video I recorded, or just try it out yourself by downloading it from the releases.

Installation

As GitDock hasn’t been digitally signed and verified (yet), the installation requires a few more steps than usual.

MacOS

Installation options

Currently GitDock can be installed in 2 ways. Both currently require a workaround (explained right below the two options) in order for them to work:

Option 1: Homebrew

1. brew install gitdock

Option 2: Manual

1. Grab the dmg file from the newest release on the Releases page.
2. Move the app to your Applications folder and open it. You will see a notification informing you that this app hasn’t been vetted and download from the App Store. Click “Cancel” at this point.

Installation warning workaround

1. Open “Settings -> Security & Privacy” in your MacOS System Preferences, and make sure you are on the “General” tab.
2. You should now see a message about GitDock in the lower part. After clicking “Open anyway”, it should work as expected 🎉

Windows

1. Grab the GitDock.exe file from the newest release on the Releases page.

2. After the download has finished, Downloads will show a warning symbol, and will show a message “Make sure you trust GitDock.exe”.

3. Click the “…” next to the download item, and then choose “Keep”.

4. Click “Show more”, and then choose “Keep anyway”.

5. You will now have a “GitDock.exe” in your Downloads folder.
6. Click the “GitDock.exe” to open it. You will see a Windows Defender popup: “Windows protected your PC”

7. Click More Info, then Run anyway.

How to use GitDock ⚓️

Authentication

Depending on whether you use GitLab.com or a self-managed instance, you can either log in directly with your username and password, or create a personal access token.

GitLab.com

Just click the “Login with GitLab” button, and then enter your username and password. Afterwards, you might be seeing the GitLab homepage, but should very quickly and automatically be redirected to your GitDock overview page.

Start	Login

Self-managed installation

To log in with an account from a self-managed instance, you first have to create a personal access token:

Go to the Access Tokens page by first opening the user dropdown, clicking “Preferences” and then navigating to “Access tokens” in the left sidebar.

User dropdown	Access tokens

Enter a token name, mark the read_api checkbox and then click “Create personal access token”. On the following screen, copy the newly created access token and paste it into the GitDock application, together with the URL of your self-managed instance.

Notifications

Pipelines

Whenever you start a new pipeline, a system notification shows up and the GitDock icon in the menu bar changes to a running pipeline icon. Once the pipeline completes, you will receive another notification with the final pipeline status.

Running	Completed

To-Dos

Whenever a new To-Do gets created for you, the system notification will show you the message, project and object where it’s coming from.

Configure notifications

Notifications can be configured and turned off through the notification settings in your operating system.

• Windows: Microsoft: Change notification settings in Windows
• macOS: Use notifications on your Mac
• Linux (GNOME): Notifications and the notification list
  Other desktop environments might have a similar menu in their settings. Check out the documentation of your’s for details.

My Issues, MRs & To-Do list

At the top of the app, you will see the typical sections of issues, MRs and the To-Do list.

You might be used to this layout already from our GitLab UI. The only difference is that on the detail pages, you can more easily switch directly to the objects you care about by using the filters to e.g. see the last MRs you have approved and that have already been merged.

Issues	MRs	To-Do list

My commits

The first piece of content on the overview page is a list of your most recent commits. They show the commit title, project, and (if applicable) the current pipeline status for that commit. You can also navigate to each of these areas from that overview.

Recently viewed

GitDock uses your browser history to display the GitLab pages you most recently visited. Due to how it parses that information, it currently only works on Windows and MacOS with the following browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Brave, Seamonkey.

On the detail page, you can go over all pages you visited over the last 10 days, and also search for specific links, if you happen to remember a certain keyword.

Favorite projects

The list of your favorite projects initially are the projects you have starred and where you have at least developer permissions.

After navigating to a project in this overview, you will be able to see the commits, issues and merge requests of that project.

You can add/remove projects from this list on the Settings page.

Your comments

A list of all your recent comments is also visible on the overview page. Due

The loading time for comments is significantly longer than for other objects, as each comment requires 3 API calls to collect all necessary information.

Bookmarks

If you have a specific issue or merge request you care about and know you will have to access multiple times over the next days, you can add it to you Bookmarks list.

Settings

Theme

To make Gitdock as accessible and usable as possible, you can switch between dark and light theme.

Dark	Light

Analytics

Analytics is disabled by default, you have the chance to opt in on the Settings page.

How to contribute

The most important part of contributing right now is helping us gain better insights into how users would like to navigate GitLab in this user-centric approach. That’s why it would be amazing to have as many people as possible enable Analytics. As stated in the Settings, it’s 100% anonymous and we only track which objects are being used to navigate around, now which specific content (e.g. issues, MRs) users are interacting with.

If you do find any bugs, feel free to open an issue or directly create a merge request if you happen to know the fix.