Active forks highlighter

[ProLoser]

Quite often a repo appears inactive when there is actually active development going on that isn't plainly visible on the front page. I ALWAYS tell people that the single most valuable feature for dealing with old repos is the network graph: https://github.com/isaacs/github/network

This graph enables me to immediately grok if there is perhaps a far more active and up-to-date fork, if perhaps a bug or feature that seems to have been open forever is actually resolved by someone else, if a repo has potential to merge pull-requests, yet people who fork are neglecting to open them, or even if the repo is in fact under active development for a new release and you just want to find out which branch is most active (their dev branch) in case the master branch or front-page branch gets little activity.

For this reason, I've wanted to see a feature that suggests or brings attention to alternative forks, that coincides with the network graph. It would have to be designed appropriately so as not to detract from the primary repo, but at the very least provide a self-updating hint towards alternative resources people could use when they come up short on inactive projects.

I believe this would be a better alternative to #144

[Prinzhorn]

I just randomly came across this and the first repo I wanted to check the network graph of presented me with

Too many forks to display.

It doesn't even give you an option to filter or to display something. You're just lost. So this basically +1 your issue because the network graph is not working when a repo becomes popular.

Example repo: https://github.com/cubiq/iscroll/network

[musically-ut]

I wrote Lovely Forks, a Chrome/Firefox extension, after writing one too many pull requests for projects which had an active fork.

This doesn't solve the complete problem, but it has already helped me (and others) save a lot of time.

[TPS]

@musically-ut Sadly, as awesome as Lovely Forks is, it requires some rather specific software (e.g., not compatible with Pale Moon), & it'd be better/more flexible as part of the native platform, anyhow.

Also, this may duplicate #24.

[dblock]

If this helps anyone, I wrote a little tool, https://github.com/dblock/faf to show forks sorted by pushed_at date.

$ gem install faf

$ faf forks slack-ruby/slack-ruby-client
https://github.com/nhosoya/slack-ruby-client (16 days and 2 hours ago)
https://github.com/Thrillberg/slack-ruby-client (16 days and 2 hours ago)
https://github.com/walkersumida/slack-ruby-client (16 days and 2 hours ago)
https://github.com/dicksonlabs/slack-ruby-client (16 days and 5 hours ago)
https://github.com/artfuldodger/slack-ruby-client (20 days and 23 hours ago)
https://github.com/dblock/slack-ruby-client (22 days and 23 hours ago)

[andriyor]

I also wrote tiny CLI forkwork that partially solves this problem. It has many options.

Usage: forkwork top [OPTIONS]

Options:
  --n INTEGER           Numbers of rows
  -S, --star            Sort by stargazers count
  -F, --forks           Sort by forks count
  -I, --open_issues     Sort by open issues count
  -D, --updated_at      Sort by updated at
  -P, --pushed_at       Sort by pushed at
  -W, --watchers_count  Sort by watchers count (Slow because requires an
                        additional request per fork)
  -C, --commits         Sort by number of commits (Slow because requires an
                        additional requests per fork)
  -B, --branches        Sort by number of branches (Slow because requires an
                        additional request per fork)
  --help                Show this message and exit.

As result you receive table with information about forks

forkwork https://github.com/mattdiamond/Recorderjs top -S --n=5
+-----------------------------------------------+---------+---------+---------------+---------------+--------------+
| URL                                           |   Stars |   Forks |   Open Issues | Last update   | Pushed At    |
+===============================================+=========+=========+===============+===============+==============+
| https://github.com/chris-rudmin/opus-recorder |     599 |     110 |             6 | 5 days ago    | 3 months ago |
+-----------------------------------------------+---------+---------+---------------+---------------+--------------+
| https://github.com/remusnegrota/Recorderjs    |      45 |      15 |             0 | 3 months ago  | 5 years ago  |
+-----------------------------------------------+---------+---------+---------------+---------------+--------------+
| https://github.com/rokgregoric/html5record    |      41 |       7 |             0 | 9 months ago  | 7 years ago  |
+-----------------------------------------------+---------+---------+---------------+---------------+--------------+
| https://github.com/mayppong/Recorderjs        |      11 |       2 |             0 | 1 year ago    | 5 years ago  |
+-----------------------------------------------+---------+---------+---------------+---------------+--------------+
| https://github.com/jergason/Recorderjs        |      11 |      12 |             3 | 3 months ago  | 2 years ago  |
+-----------------------------------------------+---------+---------+---------------+---------------+--------------+

[mroeling]

I've stumbled upon https://techgaun.github.io/active-forks/index.html which seems to do the job very well.