Enhancement request

Support for our DiffMerge utility.

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ferrad
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu May 21, 2009 2:57 am

Enhancement request

Post by ferrad » Thu May 21, 2009 4:27 am

Hi, I have been using CompareIT for many years, and have just stumbled upon DiffMerge which appears to be superior, so I am keen to move (along with my colleagues). One thing that would be useful is to have a central direction pointer (see attached CompareIT screenshot with green highlights), which allows copying from left to right or vice versa. It is useful to have it here rather than the tollbar at the top, as it is clear to the user exactly what difference on the page is being copied across, as it is right next to the difference block.

Secondly a side bar on the extreme left which shows the location of the differences in view relative to the whole file. Yes, this is similar to the regular scrollbars, but it is right next to the difference color code on the left, and this makes it easier to see where I am with regards to the differences.

And as has been pointed out by others:
- reduce size of toolbar icons to get more screen real estate
- allow copying from right to left as well as left to right
Snap4.jpg
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jeffhostetler
Posts: 534
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2007 11:37 am
Location: SourceGear
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Re: Enhancement request

Post by jeffhostetler » Thu May 21, 2009 8:21 am

Thanks for the suggestions.

WRT the triangles in center: You can Shift-Right-Click anywhere on a change and it
will automatically apply the default action. (The one labeled "Default" in the Right-Mouse
Context Menu.) I'm not sure if this is better/worse than the triangles (but it's certainly
a better hidden feature). :-)

WRT the color bar on the left. We have a similar scoll-position indicator. A black line is
drawn on each side of the color bars; mine are a little thinner than theirs. Also, if you
drag the mouse over there, the corresponding line numbers are shown in the status bar.
If you click on it, the windows will warp scroll to that point.

WRT the toolbars, yeah, I'd like to either redo them or do a full-screen mode. (it's on
my TODO list.)

WRT copying both ways. yeah, this is probably our most requested feature. (It too is
on my TODO list, but I'm not sure when I'll get to this. It's a big change.)

thanks for the questions and suggestions.
jeff

ferrad
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu May 21, 2009 2:57 am

Re: Enhancement request

Post by ferrad » Fri May 22, 2009 4:24 am

I tried the Shift Right Click, for which I noted:
- it is very slow at making the change (6 seconds for a small mid line change to one line)
- the whole line on the right gets bolded and underlined which, apart from throwing out my spacing, also hides what actually changed (just a few chars in the middle): maybe just show the bit that was actually changed, rather than the whole line?

WRT the color bar on the left, the black line on the side stretches all the way from the top to the bottom of the display, as opposed to just the proportion of the file in the display (see screenshot), so I can't use it to see where I am in the file.

jeffhostetler
Posts: 534
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2007 11:37 am
Location: SourceGear
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Re: Enhancement request

Post by jeffhostetler » Fri May 22, 2009 7:51 am

WRT to speed, yeah, there are times when it is a bit sluggish, but it
shouldn't take 6 seconds to apply a change. The speed (or lack thereof)
is usually a function of the size of the files and how much they differ.

There are some things you can do to speed it up a bit:
(1) in the Options Dialog, on the "Detail Level" page, disable the "Multi-Line..."
This will probably be the biggest win, but looking at your data in the screenshot,
it may cause those large sections of rows of numbers to line-up a little differently.

(2) on the same dialog page, set the "Analysis Detail Level" to "Lines Only".
This will get rid of the intra-line highlight and speed things up a lot. But
you probably won't like that because you won't be able to see what changed
within the lines.

(3) create a Ruleset for your .RSM files and in the "Line Handling" page of the
Create Ruleset Dialog, turn off the "Ignore/Fold Case..." and "Ignore/Strip Whitespace..."
options. This won't do much, but sometimes every little bit helps.


WRT to the whole line being bolded and underlined. Yes, the "apply change" command
replace the entire content of the version on the right with the entire content of the
version on the left. Rather than just replacing the few characters that are different.
So, the entire line/chunk is bolded/underlined. Sorry. I'll log a feature request to
have it do it the other way.

WRT to the bold messing up column alignment. You might try a different font.
See the "File Windows" page of the Options Dialog. Be sure that a fixed-width
font is selected. If that doesn't help, select the bold version of the font; then everything
will show up bolded and it should line up right. (This is not the greatest solution, but it
might be helpful until I can get another release out.) I'll log a feature request to make
bold/underline optional.


WRT the color bar on the left. The thin black lines should track the visible portion only.
If you click and drag in the color bar, do the windows scroll and the black bars move with
the mouse? Perhaps a screen shot of what you're seeing would help.

jeff

ferrad
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu May 21, 2009 2:57 am

Re: Enhancement request

Post by ferrad » Fri May 22, 2009 8:24 am

>> There are some things you can do to speed it up a bit:
>> (1) in the Options Dialog, on the "Detail Level" page, disable the "Multi-Line..."
>> This will probably be the biggest win, but looking at your data in the screenshot,
>> it may cause those large sections of rows of numbers to line-up a little differently.

The main advantage of DiffMerge over CompareIT the the intelligence in matching and comparing multiple lines, so this is one I will keep.

>> (2) on the same dialog page, set the "Analysis Detail Level" to "Lines Only".
>> This will get rid of the intra-line highlight and speed things up a lot. But
>> you probably won't like that because you won't be able to see what changed
>> within the lines.

Then I might as well go back 10 years to WinDiff :( ... no, this is definitiely not an option.

>> (3) create a Ruleset for your .RSM files and in the "Line Handling" page of the
>> Create Ruleset Dialog, turn off the "Ignore/Fold Case..." and "Ignore/Strip Whitespace..."
>> options. This won't do much, but sometimes every little bit helps.

I'll look into that.

>> WRT to the whole line being bolded and underlined. Yes, the "apply change" command
>> replace the entire content of the version on the right with the entire content of the
>> version on the left. Rather than just replacing the few characters that are different.
>> So, the entire line/chunk is bolded/underlined. Sorry. I'll log a feature request to
>> have it do it the other way.

Yes, just seeing the few characters would be easier to see what I've done to the line, at the moment I can't see what I've done.

>> WRT to the bold messing up column alignment. You might try a different font.
>> See the "File Windows" page of the Options Dialog. Be sure that a fixed-width
>> font is selected. If that doesn't help, select the bold version of the font; then everything
>> will show up bolded and it should line up right. (This is not the greatest solution, but it
>> might be helpful until I can get another release out.) I'll log a feature request to make
>> bold/underline optional.

I always use Lucida Console which is fixed width, but annoyingly the bold version doesn't keep the same fixed width as the unbold version. Do you know of another fixed font that does?

>> WRT the color bar on the left. The thin black lines should track the visible portion only.
>> If you click and drag in the color bar, do the windows scroll and the black bars move with
>> the mouse? Perhaps a screen shot of what you're seeing would help.

See attached. The file is very big (see scroll bar on the right). But the black lines on the left on either side of the red difference bar are continuous from the top of the display to bottom.
Attachments
Snap1.jpg
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jeffhostetler
Posts: 534
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2007 11:37 am
Location: SourceGear
Contact:

Re: Enhancement request

Post by jeffhostetler » Fri May 22, 2009 9:10 am

WRT the color bar. It looks like the custom colors you have chosen (black for the overall
window background) conflicts with the black I'm using to draw the scroll indicators. I'll
have to add another color to the "other colors" section of the Options Dialog or make
sure that they are drawn in XOR so that they always show up. I'll log this. Meanwhile,
if you brighten the background colors, you should see them.

WRT fonts, I use "Courier New". Both plain and bold seem to have the same metrics.

Thanks for all the questions/suggestions. I think I have added/updated 6 bug/features
during our conversation on these 2 threads.


jeff

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