git comes with `gitk` and `git instaweb` out of the box; both of these are point-and-click graphical tools that show you branches, merges, and specific commit hashes.

I think what you're looking for here

you click a commit and the repo shows up on the desktop as a mounted drive. We could use ordinary tools to edit the image and when it's unmounted it becomes a new commit

is basically `git checkout -b newbranch 80238ec` followed by `git commit -a`.