What is Branch Summary?
Branch Summary is a new screen on the Activity tab in Versions that displays the final state of the proposed design and design component updates in the selected branch.
The option to see all of the numerous changes combined as one is useful because a single design could be modified in multiple commits and you're usually only interested in its final version, not any intermediate work-in-progress ones.
Previously, if you wanted to review changes made in a certain branch, you'd go to the Commits tab of that branch and iterate all of the commits there one by one, trying to keep track of what was modified, reverted, modified again, deleted, re-added and so on in your head. Now with Branch Summary, all of those commits are combined into a single preview with everything that made it to the final cut of the branch.
How does it help with design collaboration?
While the Branch Summary screen may come in handy when you want to take a quick look at your own changes in your own branch, it's most powerful when combined with a design review process and sharing your progress with your teammates.
For an illustration, check out our blog post on the new collaboration flow in Versions that involves Discussions and Branch Summary.
What happens with Branch Summary when a branch is merged?
We're collecting updates to display on the Branch Summary screen starting from the very first commit in a branch OR from its latest merge into Main (if it was merged at least once). So if you merge a branch and go back to see its Branch Summary, it's going to be empty, inviting you to either continue working in this branch and making a new set of changes or to remove this branch and create a new one to work on something else.
Do I need to do anything to make my latest changes appear in Branch Summary?
No, the Branch Summary screen is automatically updated every time you make new commits in a branch, so it always contains the most up-to-date version of your changes.
I've updated Versions to the latest revision but I still don't see Branch Summary for some of my branches. Why?
There are a few reasons why the Branch Summary screen might be unavailable for a branch:
This branch is actually the main branch of your project. Branch Summary doesn't make sense for the main branch since it shouldn't contain any work in progress and design review should happen in other branches.
You're looking at a project you haven't downloaded yet. Press the "Download" button in the top right corner of the Versions window, wait until the project is downloaded, and go back to that branch you'd like to see the summary for.