Note that I no longer use this particular piece of software as I've resulted in using standard Gists.

One of the tools that I’ve been using more and more each day is GistBox. As the website states:

The Beautiful Way to Organize Code Snippets GistBox is the shared code library your team needs.

This isn’t a bad explanation by any means, but if you’re a single developer and/or you’re looking for quick reasons as to how this may be useful in your day-to-day workflow, this particular sentence leaves something to be desired, right?

Personally, I was skeptical until I gave it a try, but now I can’t really imagine not using.

All About GistBox

Before I go on about the reasons I’m a fan of the application, it may help to layout the reasons that I’m glad to have an application like this.

What I use the standard Gist site as provided by GitHub, my general workflow was something like this:

  • Prefix all of the descriptions with a string that serves as a label for the gist I was creating. For example, my descriptions may start with [WordPress] or with [JavaScript].
  • Go back and search for related gists using the prefixed terms.
  • Scan the list (read: pages) of gists that I need for a certain piece of code that I need.

Granted, on the last point, I know that there is a search feature for the gists that we have stored, but it still leaves something to be desired in terms of the results that are returned.

In short, I believe that GistBox provides the UI for managing GitHub gists that’s otherwise been missing.

The main GistBox screen.

The main GistBox screen.

It’s far easier to list off the features of GistBox and why I enjoy it rather than to write paragraph after paragraph as to why I recommend it:

  • Custom color-coded labels for each of the type of gists that you have created.
  • The ability to filter your gists by said labels.
  • The ability to mark gists as public or private from within the user interface.
  • The ability to collect gists from multiple team members (as seen in the second column).
  • A powerful search feature built into the core application
  • The ability to easily edit a gist, add more falls, and toggle its public or private nature.
  • …and more

The only catch is that it’s a Chrome app, so if you’re not using Chrome, that’ll be something you’ll need to install.

Anyway, these are but a portion of the features that I really enjoy (and I’m a single person rather than a team using it). But if you’re an individual developer – or part of a team – and you’re looking for a way to more easily manage your gists, I highly recommend GistBox.