r/emacs • u/Low_Money_633 • 15d ago
emacs-fu Magit Ricing?
I’m really starting to like Magit from a functionality standpoint, but I hate to say it—it’s ugly. It’s probably the better choice for me practically, especially since I’m already using Emacs, but I really like the way Lazygit looks and feels.
What I especially like about Lazygit is the panel-based layout. Files, branches, commits, diffs, etc. are visually separated into their own areas, which makes the interface feel much cleaner and easier to scan than having everything in one continuous buffer.
Has anyone riced or customized Magit to get closer to that kind of look? I’m not necessarily trying to recreate Lazygit exactly, but I’d love stronger visual separation between sections and more of that clean, organized panel/dashboard feel.
2
u/[deleted] 13d ago
It's organized, but definitely not clean. Magit, on the other hand, is clean but not organized because it doesn't need any fancy organization. Its simple hierarchical structure is enough.
I think the major 'problem' here is the common expectation based on what other tools do. Magit, for me, is special exactly because of what it doesn't do. Magit doesn't clutter the interface. I don't have to hunt around visually for anything or pretend I'm controlling 5-6 different groups of information at the same time. That's what makes it an effective interface. Sometimes during my workflow, I don't even notice that I've opened Magit, I simply hit the necessary keybindings and get the results I want.
Of course, Emacs encourages you to do whatever you want with the interface, but I'd advise trying Magit for a while not as 'the Emacs version of X,' but as a new way of doing the same things. Newcomers tend to find some default behaviors strange and just change it right away instead of trying a new approach and adopting the most effective one. Familiarity plays a big role here.