Git Gallery is tool for creating a visual gallery from Git commits. It’s originally intended for those creating visual art with code, but it will work in any situation where you want to associate images with commits outside the repository. The result is a visual record of the commit history that can then be displayed on any webserver.
To add images for a commit you first create a ‘page’ for that commit. The page lives in a directory on the filesystem named after the commit id. The directory contains the images and a ‘page.json’ file with additional metadata (title, comments, etc.). The web interface makes it easy to create and edit pages, so most of the time you won’t need to touch the filesystem.
The motivation for creating Git Gallery comes from creating algorithmic art. In the process of creation a work can go through many iterations that are worth preserving. Sometimes new ideas and directions to explore emerge that one wishes to follow up on later. The Git approach to this workflow is to commit interesting versions and create branches for new ideas to work on them in parallel. Unfortunately, most Git tools present interfaces with a more singular software development model in mind, where branches mostly exist to be merged into master and older commits are quickly buried. Git Gallery is intended to make it easy to keep track of versions of a work, relate them back to their Git commits and to publish them onto the web for others to view.
