It’s been a tremendous ride since we first introduced Stash, our on-premises Git repository manager. We started the journey toward that initial launch by asking our customers questions: Why is Git critical to the success of their business? Where are the bottlenecks in their developers’ workflow? When do devs need their tools to get out of the way? These are questions that still guide us, two years and 18 releases later.

It’s fitting, then, that our third major release of Stash touches each of those three questions. With international language support, new ways to diff branches, and a slick navigation bar, Stash 3 delivers more of what teams need (and less of what they don’t).

Distributed version control for distributed teams

atlassian stash japaneseTeams move to Git to exploit the power of branch-and-merge workflows, and take advantage of the ability to do most work with local operations that complete instantly. For teams located in non-English speaking countries, or spread across continents, the challenge of switching version control systems is compounded by having to use tools in an unfamiliar language. We set out to change that.

Now members of international teams can collaborate on their code even more effectively by using Stash in English, French, German, or Japanese. It’s a great way to ease the transition into Git, and keep distributed teams performing at top speed.

Branch diffs you’ll use every day

Users are always keen to tell us what they love about Stash – and what would make them love it more. In Stash 3, we added one of the top-voted enhancement requests: comparing branches. Diff’ing files and commits between branches has always been a central part of pull requests in Stash, but users (including our own devs!) told us they want to compare their work against master while it’s still in progress.

compare git branches

By making branch diffs available at any time, we’ve removed one more speed bump in the everyday developer workflow. Developers can easily anticipate what commits they’ll pick up when considering whether to rebase their branch, and diff their changes file-by-file before creating a pull request. When it’s time to release, teams that use stable version branches can get a comprehensive view of what has changed, and get a jump start on the release notes, before they ship.

More seeing, less scrolling

There’s a reason developers favor gigantic monitors (two of them, whenever possible): The more code you can fit on the screen, the easier it is to work with. That’s why we moved the navigation links and repository actions to a collapsible bar on the left side. Even when collapsed, the bar displays icons so developers can jump from viewing commits, to managing branches, to creating pull requests with ease. And a keyboard shortcut ( “[” ) lets them quickly expand or collapse the bar, depending on how much content they want to see on each screen.

collapsible sidebar stash

Not only does the new navigation allow more real estate for viewing code, it remains visible all the way down the page. Common actions like creating pull requests and browsing commits are instantly available, no matter how deep into a file you’ve scrolled.

The new navigation bar is also available on Bitbucket, our hosted Git repo offering. Whether you use Stash at work and Bitbucket for personal projects, or start exploring Git in the cloud with Bitbucket then move to terra firma with Stash, you’ll get the same easy navigation experience. (Look for an upcoming blog on how the two dev teams joined forces to deliver it!)

We included a few extras too, like Java 8 support and keyboard shortcuts for jumping through hunk maps. Full details can be found in the release notes.

Whether you’re a global team looking to get started with Git, or a seasoned Git-ster with a penchant for diff’ing, Stash 3 delivers the goods. Download your installer of choice today and “git” going!

Download Stash 3

Parlez vous Git? Stash 3 ist hier!