The git-lfs support I added to git-annex had one small problem: People
expect to be able to clone a git repo and get right to using it, but after
cloning a git-annex repo that's on a server that uses git-lfs, there
was an extra git annex enableremote
step to be able to use it as a git-lfs
special remote. And, you ended up with a "origin" git remote and a git-lfs
special remote with some other name.
Now, it's this simple to set up a git-lfs repo on eg, github:
git annex initremote github type=git-lfs encryption=none url=https://github.com/joeyh/lfstest
git annex sync github
git annex copy --to github ...
And then for others to clone and use it is even simpler:
git clone https://github.com/joeyh/lfstest
cd lfstest
git annex get
The only gotcha is that git-annex has to know the url that's used for
the remote. Cloning any other url any other way (eg http instead of https)
will result in git-annex not using it. This is a consequence of git-lfs
not having any equivilant of a git-annex repository UUID, so git-annex
can't probe for the UUID and has to compare urls. This can be worked
around using initremote --sameas
to tell git-annex about other urls.
Hi Joe,
I have been using git-annex since several years now and am really happy with it.
But the addition of git-lfs support was, in my humble opinion, an extraordinary leap forward! After gitlab ceased support in favour of lfs and with the advent of lfs in github, annex-integration with widespread used collaborative git-platforms was not very straight-forward anymore. And so it became harder to justify or promote it's use in my institute or other organizations I work for. This has change now again for the better!
So thank you very much for all the hard work and regarding the daunting speed with which new developments and features (version 8 already!) arrive here: Please take good care and do not overstrain yourself.
Kind regards,
Jörn