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The "Compare with" dialog
Abstract
The goal of this project is to provide a more flexible and user-friendly way to compare files inside the Eclipse environment. Currently, the Eclipse's "Compare With" feature has a few problems:
- There is no easy way to compare files located outside the workspace with ones located inside (see bug 73923 for details).
- To compare two or three files in the current workspace the user has to select them (using a ctrl-click) and choose the "Compare With"->"Each Other" option from a pop-up menu.
Both these issues can be solved by providing an UI element (possibly a dialog or a view) to which user can add two or three files and than invoke a compare editor from it.
This project is part of 2008 Google Summer of Code.
Participants:
- Student: Aleksandra Woźniak
- Mentor: Tomasz Zarna
Features
Must have
- adding files for comparison by drag'n'dropping them from the Package Manager
- adding files for comparison by "Open Resource"/"Open Type" dialogs
- adding files for comparison by "Open file" dialog (for choosing files located outside the current workspace)
- adding clipboard content for comparison
Should have
- invoking folder compares from the dialog
- clipboard content preview
- basic info about files selected for comparison, eg. filename, modification date, icon
- moving files/content between left, right and ancestor (either d'n'd or buttons)
- extension mechanism to support other "Items selection dialogs" like "Open Type"
Nice to have
- invoking a compare editor by drag'n'dropping one file to another in the Package Manager
- ancestor is an optional part of comparison so this section of the dialog could be expandable (should be hidden when no needed, and expanded/shown when the user would like to use ancestor in the comparison)
- don't make the dialog too busy, limit number of widgets to minimum
Community proposals
Feel free to add your comments and ideas.
- Please also have a look at the "AnyEdit tools" plugin: http://andrei.gmxhome.de/anyedit/index.html
It also adds several enhancement to the selection of to be compared artifacts (like clipboard, opened editor...), so maybe you can benefit from the ideas or work over there.