GBrowse to another branch with Fugitive.vim
===========================================

July 11, 2024
https://stefan.vanburen.xyz/til/fugitive-objects/


Last week, I watched a coworker bring up a file on a different branch using fugitive.vim's [:GBrowse][GBrowse] and I was floored:
almost daily I find myself using it to open the <abbr title="Uniform Resource Locator">URL</abbr> to a file to share (or a few lines).

However, much of the time I'm working on a different branch than the one I want to share,
and navigating to the same file on a different branch in the GitHub <abbr title="User Interface">UI</abbr> takes too many steps.
First, you realize you're on the wrong branch,
then you change branches,
then you have to navigate back to the file again.

I had always been vaguely aware of [`:h fugitive-object`][fugitive-object],
but had never put them to use.

The object you're looking for is `<branch>:%`, meaning:
bring up this file (`%`) on branch `<branch>`.

For example:

```vim
:GBrowse main:%
```

And of course, this just works with all of the [`:GBrowse` variants][GBrowse-variants].

[GBrowse]: https://github.com/tpope/vim-fugitive/blob/8c8cdf4405cb8bdb70dd9812a33bb52363a87dbc/doc/fugitive.txt#L254
[fugitive-object]: https://github.com/tpope/vim-fugitive/blob/8c8cdf4405cb8bdb70dd9812a33bb52363a87dbc/doc/fugitive.txt#L611
[GBrowse-variants]: https://github.com/tpope/vim-fugitive/blob/8c8cdf4405cb8bdb70dd9812a33bb52363a87dbc/doc/fugitive.txt#L264-L277