(Tap tap. Oh, this devblog is still on?)

View branches are a neat corner of git-annex that have remained kind of
obscure since I implemented them back in 2014. Not many improvements
have been made from back then until recently.

Today I implemented a longstanding todo, unifying view branches with
adjusted branches. The result is that you can enter an adjusted branch from
a view branch, or a view branch from an adjusted branch, and get what you
would probably expect.

For example, to sort your annexed files into directories by author and
year, and have all annexed files in the view be unlocked:

    git-annex adjust --unlock
    git-annex view author=* year=*

Earlier this month, I addressed probably the main missing feature of view
branches, by making `git-annex sync` work in a view branch, updating it
with metadata and files pulled in from remotes. Although 
it there is room to make it 
[[faster|faster_incremental_update_of_view_branch_by_git-annex_sync]]
still.

Also, view branches can be made that include files that lack metadata.
Such files are put in a directory named `"_"`. And can be moved out of
there to other directories to set their metadata. For example:

    git-annex view author?=*

Views combine nicely with graphical file managers, and Yann Büchau
has recently built an 
[integration with Thunar](https://pypi.org/project/thunar-plugins/)
that supports most of these new features and can be seen in action in
[this screencast](https://fosstodon.org/@nobodyinperson/109836827575976439).

This work was sponsored by Lawrence Brogan, Erik Bjäreholt, and unqueued
[on Patreon](https://patreon.com/joeyh)
