Create new branch from Projects/Branches page

[mbrevoort]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe

As a user, I find it frustrating that I can't easily create a new branch from the Gitpod web UI.

Describe the behaviour you'd like

1. Navigate to Projects -> Branches page
2. Obvious call to action "Create Branch" or "New Branch"
3. Click "Create Branch" and a new git branch is created and appears in the list of branches.
4. I can the click existing "New Workspace" button.

Describe alternatives you've considered

Alternatively I can:

• Go to the Github UI to create a new branch, come back to Gitpod UI branches page...
• Create a workspace and open on main branch, use the terminal to create a new git branch, stop workspace, go to Gitpod UI branches page...
• Git on my machine terminal

Additional context

[mbrevoort]

Additionally, and this may be true already, but when branching from main, the prebuild could just be copied rather than built anew.

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[mbrevoort]

No stale bot, no.

[mbrevoort]

It would be great if there was a way to do this via the deep link URL as well something like https://gitpod.io/?action=create-branch#https://github.com/mbrevoort/my-repo

[gtsiolis]

@mbrevoort Alternatively, we could offer users more control on the workspace start page so that even if the branch does not exist they could ad-hoc create the branch and start a workspace in one click as long as they have permissions to create branches on the repository.

Currently, we show an error page with a nudge which is not so useful and an action button that throws the users back to square one, see screenshot below.

Opening a new workspace for a branch that does not exist

[loujaybee]

Note: Currently, I do this by going to GitHub, making a branch in the UI, then using the browser extension to open that branch (granted, you have to leave Gitpod) and it's probably not well known to many users.

Aside: I also wonder where we draw the line when re-implementing GitHub UX into Gitpod.