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From another PR: Having used the quick diff with 'version on disk' and the new 'cvs provider' for a little while now, I have some questions and comments: 1. Currently, it is very hard to find out that your file has changes without scrolling. I didn't find which hot keys to use to 'select next/previous change'. I understand that you want to show line changes but there is no way to find them. For example, in compare editors the overview ruler shows were the changes are and the select next/previous are used to navigate. Maybe we need an editor decoration to hint that it's changed based on the reference document? A hint that you should look for changes? 2. The bar is so narrow that I can't hover my mouse over it. What is the hotkey for showing the change? Also what are the hotkeys for replacing the changes? 3. Have you thought of providing 3-way diff support? With the CVS quick diff provider it will be really useful to see the direction of the change to understand if you made the change or if it was made remotely. ------- Additional Comment #6 From Tom Eicher 2003-08-10 17:57 ------- 1. I agree - we would need a toggable indication on the overview ruler similar to the one provided by the compare editor. Whether we will want shortcuts or not, I am not sure - go to previous / next is usually assigned to something else already (e.g. next problem in Java Editor), so we would have to introduce new shortcuts. 2. There are no hotkeys so far - as a workaround for the narrow ruler, if line numbers are turned on, the ruler gets wider. Instead of using hotkeys for undoing a change, the related actions can be acessed via the ruler's context menu (Ctrl+W). 3. The quick diff indication was really thought as a lightweight change indication, and I am also considering a shortcutto open the full-fledged compare editor from a change. Note that the current diff information might not even be correct (i.e. the shortest edit script from reference document to actual) because it is computed incrementally. Try moving around lines for a demonstration of the current algorithm's limitations.
Don't get me wrong. I actually think that this feature could be really cool. But it needs some tweaks. I would be happy if we could solve points 1 and 2 above.
I see that 2) is a valid point - you wan't to be able to use the normal editor to merge and track changes. 1) will hopefully make it for M4. 3) - not sure yet how to visualize three-way compare... Well actually, we could indicate on a change whether it is incoming / outgoing... Ok. I'll look into this. Have you thought about revision tracking, i.e. now when I have integrated incoming changes, I hit "mark as merged" so the revision number gets updated to HEAD. Once merging is more of a continuous process than a update procedure with a clearly defined start and end, this might be more complicated...?
1) has been fixed - quick diff can be shown in the overview ruler and selected as "Go to Next / Previous" targets. 2) Still no way to see the reference using the keyboard. There are also other concerns. Summarizing from other PRs: - the reference hover covers up the current text, making it very hard to see side by side - use quick merging, a specific keyboard shortcut would be needed, instead of going over the ruler context menu - the full merge process would require several other issues: - set "mark as merged" - select the compare version, instead of only using head, one would really have all the options from the compare menu If all these problems get solved, one would probably end up with today's compare editor... I am still not convinced of whether one can get all the needed functionality in one editor. I see, though, that the current compare editor looks like a normal editor but really isn't one, which is suboptimal. Of course, if someone implements a fine split-pane editor that would allow to see the changes side by side...
*** Bug 46170 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Note that there are commands to replace the current line or block with the reference contents. The commands are not bound by default, but I usually assign "Revert Block/Selection" to to Alt+Ctrl+Left. The remaining issues are: - key shortcut to show the change hover (currently only available by hovering) - allow to move from the quick diff ruler to two/three way compare in a smooth, integrated way. - 3-way diff - probably won't happen; I am reluctant to add incremental (live) 3-way diffing, as this adds another document into memory and increases the typing overhead even more.
Moving back to inbox.
Currently no plans to work on this.
Get rid of deprecated state.
This bug hasn't had any activity in quite some time. Maybe the problem got resolved, was a duplicate of something else, or became less pressing for some reason - or maybe it's still relevant but just hasn't been looked at yet. If you have further information on the current state of the bug, please add it. The information can be, for example, that the problem still occurs, that you still want the feature, that more information is needed, or that the bug is (for whatever reason) no longer relevant.
