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EMF DiffMerge/Default GUI
Contents
Overview
In addition to an engine, EMF Diff/Merge also provides simple GUI components for visualizing comparisons, testing comparison methods, and letting end-users merge models manually.
A default mechanism provides a comparison action (pop-up menu) which allows end-users to open a comparison in an editor. This mechanism can be customized to support different kinds of comparison. Alternatively, a comparison can be displayed in other graphical contexts.
Default comparison action
The default comparison action is applicable on workspace files. Select 2 or 3 model files in the Eclipse workspace, right-click, then select Compare with, Each Other as models. Note that the corresponding metamodel(s) must be registered in the platform.
A dialog pops up for configuring the comparison. You may specify what model is on what side and, in the case of a 3-way comparison (3 files selected), which model is the common ancestor of the other 2. If you have defined different comparison methods, you may select which one to use and you may configure it.
A progress dialog is then being displayed. Computing the differences between models takes time according to the size of the models and the number of differences between them. Click the Run in background button in order to keep working with Eclipse while the differences are being computed in parallel.
The comparison editor opens as soon as the computation is finished.
GUI structure
The default GUI is composed of 3 vertical sections and 2 horizontal sections.
Vertical sections
The middle section represents the contents of the left model while the section on the right-hand side represents the contents of the right model. When hovering on the top of any section, the complete path to the model is displayed as a tooltip if the window is too narrow. Each side is associated to a colour: by default, dark red for the left model and blue for the right model. This colour code is also used in other dialogs of the diff/merge tool in order to prevent any ambiguity.
User actions
TBD