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Finding revisions in Log Messages

Press Command-F in a Log Messages window to open Find. Pressing it again focuses the same Find window. Find is modeless, so the Log stays available while you enter a query. Closing the Log also closes its Find window.

Full text search

Find is available from the revision context menu as well as Command-F. The menu retains the clicked selection mark through popup closure, including a working-tree selection. Its captured action runs once and refuses a replaced selection or reload. Opening another revision command does not reset the Find cursor. See popup variants for source comparison and acceptance.

Enter text in Search for, then press Return or click Find. The result is selected and scrolled into view. Find searches the displayed rows, independently of the Log's history filter. It includes subjects and message bodies, authors and committers, both email addresses, revision hashes, notes, configured issue IDs, reference names, annotated-tag details and changed paths.

The working-tree row can also match its message or changed paths. Uncached commit paths include root commits and changes against every merge parent. Cached file lists retain both the new and old names for renames.

Match case controls case-sensitive matching. Regular Expression uses the same bundled ECMAScript UTF-16 matcher as the other history searches. Plain-text queries retain TortoiseGit's quoted terms, exclusions and alternatives.

Each Find starts after the parent's retained numeric row position and stops as soon as it finds a match. A new Log starts with position zero, so its first text search starts at the second displayed row. Successful text or reference searches update that position even when Shift preserves selection. Closing and reopening Find, changing its query or reloading the displayed history retains the numeric position. Ordinary selection does not change it; opening a revision context menu sets it to the selected row, matching TortoiseGit's selection-mark route. The search wraps once through the displayed rows and excludes the retained row. A status message reports wrapping or no further match. Shift-Return, or Shift while clicking Find, scrolls to the next match without changing the selected revision. Search text and the two checkbox preferences are shared with Revision Graph Find.

Reference navigation

The reference list uses full reference names and the original colored tag, local-branch and remote-branch icons. It uses native Finder-style natural ordering, so branch2 precedes branch10. Upstream CGit::GetRefList sorts with LogicalComparePredicate / StrCmpLogicalW by default. The macOS replacement is Foundation's localized standard comparison, which follows Finder and the current locale. Both native shell comparators can vary by OS/locale; Microsoft documents that limitation for its API too. Names and the case-sensitive filter retain their exact spelling; Windows-specific punctuation ties and its NoStrCmpLogical system policy are not certified on macOS. Enter a literal, case-sensitive name fragment in Filter to narrow the list. The filter applies after a short typing pause. The filter compares literal UTF-16 text, following CString::Find: it is case-sensitive and does not merge composed and decomposed Unicode spellings. The native search uses Foundation's literal comparison option.

Click a reference to resolve its peeled commit and navigate to that displayed row. References outside the displayed history produce a no-match status.

Refreshing Log also rebuilds an open Find reference list, following CGitLogListBase::Refresh and CFindDlg::RefreshList. The name filter, query and parent search position are retained while the old rows and reference selection are cleared. Loading disables Find until the new list is ready. A refresh supersedes any older reference read or active Find search, so its delayed reply cannot navigate or replace the new list. If a critical Find error is awaiting acknowledgment, refresh waits until that sheet is dismissed. Closing either window cancels the owned reads.

Find waits for its initial reference read before enabling search. A failed read or resolution opens a critical sheet. Acknowledge it with OK or Return before continuing. Cancel closes Find; it does not change the history filter.

Port status

This adapts the shared upstream IDD_FIND / CFindDlg and GitLogListBase::OnFindDialogMessage, rather than replacing the history filter. The source full-text corpus is defined by LogDlgFilter::operator() with LOGFILTER_ALL; the uncached path list follows GitRevLoglist::SafeGetSimpleList. The native window shares the existing Revision Graph Find layout and reference artwork. See Revision Graph parity for those source controls and the Log parity audit for remaining Log work.

Physical keyboard/mouse, accessibility, localization, very large histories, individual Log mutation-to-refresh routes, metadata changes during a search and signed sandbox acceptance still require verification. This does not certify complete Log dialog parity.

Local verification is recorded in the Find evidence.

The numeric owner follows GitLogListBase.h's m_nSearchIndex = 0, GitLogListBase::OnContextMenu and OnFindDialogMessage at the pinned upstream commit. Revision Graph uses the same ownership, starting value and successful match update from RevisionGraphDlg.h/.cpp. If a reload leaves the retained index outside the new rows, the native search scans the displayed rows once instead of entering the source's potentially unbounded wrap loop.

The added cursor lifecycle and context-menu checks are recorded in Find position evidence.

The accepted Log reload route and reference-read replacement checks are recorded in reference refresh evidence. Graph keeps its source initialization-only reference refresh route.

The Rebase history tools family reuses this native consumer with captured replay occurrences, inherited preferences and parent/read ownership. Its focused evidence does not certify every Log route.