Concern

One thing I’d like to see in Mac OS X is a simple way to do versioning. I’m often editing simple stuff on my Mac, and would really benefit from keeping track of older versions. Ideally, when I change files, new versions should just be committed automatically, with some hysteresis. Short of that, a simple command built into the Finder that would let me check in files would be nice.

Automator does make this possible, to a degree, and it’s easy to save a workflow as a Finder plugin, which makes it available in the contextual menu (Automator is still almost completely useless, though, since it’s such a limited parody of a macro system or programming language).

So, here’s something that will take the selected Finder items and check them into a git repository. If no git repository exists in that folder, or a parent one, it will initialize a new one:

Check Files In.workflow

Installation is approximately:

1. Install git.
2. Open Check Files In.workflow in Automator.
3. Select File > Save as Plug-in…
4. Save as a Finder plug-in, with whatever name you want.
5. Enjoy two-click source control.

(Yes, I know about SCPlugin. That uses subversion, though, so it loses.)