BranchGraph is a tool for visualizing the branches and events in a multi-branch software development environment.
Working as one of the two software architects and international technical lead for a code base with 5 project managers, >35 developers and numerous testers, I was faced with the situation that we had a number of development branches (12 and more) of relevance with at least project scope. I could have drawn the graphs with a tool like Microsoft Visio, but this would quickly turn into a pile of very time consuming, stupid work. So I grew the idea to, rather than drawing the graphs myself, instead just describe the branches and events and have a simple layout algorithm draw the graphs for me.
I prototyped the first version on the evening of 2011-07-25 in XSLT. On the evening of 2011-07-26, I did a Java implementation instead because for some of the aspects of the layout algorithm a reasonable implementation in XSLT 1.0 woudln't be possible, and also because I have plans to add a graphical editor. On 2011-07-27 I used it at work for the first time, and on 2011-07-28, I already held a presentation using the drawings created by BranchGraph.
BranchGraph of course is inspired by the ↗GraphViz tool suite. However, none of the GraphViz components suited my special needs for this use case.
I plan to release a version of BranchGraph on GitHub somewhen in August 2011.