Description David Michonneau 2008-04-11 10:32:36 EDT

Currently the Compare Action class hardcodes the implementation of CompareEditorInput to be ResourceCompareInput (see below -1). This prevents to create a custom implementation of CompareEditorInput that could be pluggable for certain content types, using the existing compare action.

The compare framework already allows to open the compare editor programmatically with a custom CompareEditorInput (see below -2).

So it would be nice to have a new extension point that allows to register a CompareEditorInput for specific content types, extension which would be used by the existing Compare Action. Even better if there was a way to extend the Compare Action to do some custom logic based on the selection (in that case use the CompareEditorInput or even open the diff result in a dialog or a view rather than an editor)


Appendix
1- Hardcoded input in compare action

	protected boolean isEnabled(ISelection selection) {
		if (fInput == null) {
			CompareConfiguration cc= new CompareConfiguration();
			// buffered merge mode: don't ask for confirmation
			// when switching between modified resources
			cc.setProperty(CompareEditor.CONFIRM_SAVE_PROPERTY, new Boolean(false));
			
			// uncomment following line to have separate outline view
			//cc.setProperty(CompareConfiguration.USE_OUTLINE_VIEW, new Boolean(true));
						
			fInput= new ResourceCompareInput(cc);
		}
		return fInput.isEnabled(selection);
	}

2- calling the editor with a custom input:

	/**
	 * Performs the comparison described by the given input and opens a
	 * compare editor on the result in the currently active workbench page.
	 *
	 * @param input the input on which to open the compare editor
	 */
	public static void openCompareEditor(CompareEditorInput input) {
		openCompareEditorOnPage(input, null);
	}