GitHub – Why ‘Closes #XXX’ Does Not Close the Issue

Unfortunately, There's no way to do this through Github.com web/desktop interface

Here's what I have found (some I've tried) and I list in order of BEST to WORST solution:

1. Zapier:

   Does EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT and THEN SOME... it will let you configure:

   • user
   • repo
   • branch
     .

   and then allows you to filter on what looks like all the GitHub API fields (well over 20+) like:

   • committer name
   • commit id
   • commit message
   • commit time
   • tag
   • etc...
     .

   It then creates a custom, private RSS feed that you can consume however you want and set up whatever alerting you need (desktop, mobile, ...whatever). https://zapier.com/zapbook/github/rss/3489/post-github-notifications-rss/
   .

   COST:

   Unfortunately, the Zapier Free Tier allows for only:

   • up to 5 "zaps" (analogous to IFTTT's recipes - [see below]), and
   • up to 100 events/triggers/actions per month.
     .

   Although, this doesn't compare to IFTTT's free and unlimited recipes and events, I think it's still a good backup for those uniques situations that IFTTT just isn't robust enough for.

   In any event, I think you can get full, unlimited funcationality with a 14-day free trial, which you can then downgrade to the Free Tier.

   ---

2. IFTTT:

   If you haven't tried IFTTT yet, you should drop what you're doing, and check it out ASAP.

   Here are some instructions for building a recipe for per-commit email notifications: http://www.warski.org/blog/2013/04/per-commit-e-mail-github-notifications/

   I'm sure you could find even more recipes on the IFTTT.com.
   .

   COST:

   IFTTT is completely free with unlimited recipes and triggers/events/actions

   ---

3. Use a browser RSS extension that allows you to filter on keywords that would trigger on info about major releases.

   Here's a Chrome Extension (the SPOI filter RSS extension) that will do this for Feedly: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/spoi-filter/eepgdapnfglikioooabknaoadejkhini
   .

   COST:

   The SPOI filter RSS extension is completely free

   ---

4. Finally, you can also try http://www.hubnotify.com/.

   This works well, but only notifies by email when there is an update to something you are watching, so no filtering, bells & whistles, or ways to determine if a major commit has occurred.

   On the other hand, it:

   • has a clean interface
   • is simple and easy to use
   • allows you to see all the repos you are watching in one place, and...
   • choose which of those to get alerts for, and...
   • further whether to receive them:
     1. immediately
     2. daily
     3. weekly
     4. monthly

   .

   COST:

   HubNotify is completely free

You can see the commits and changes between tags if you change the URL to the following format:

https://github.com/{username}/{repo}/compare/{older-tag}...{newer-tag}

This will show you the count and changes of up to 250 commits made between the tags.

So from your example it would be:

https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/compare/v2.2beta7...v2.2beta8

Similarly if you wanted to compare commits between branches the URL would be like this:

https://github.com/{username}/{repo}/compare/{branch}...{other-branch}