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Difference between revisions of "The "Compare with" dialog"

(proposal to compare methods)
(Community proposals)
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* it would be great if it was possible to compare not only whole files, but also separate methods (or internal classes)
 
* it would be great if it was possible to compare not only whole files, but also separate methods (or internal classes)
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== Getting the source ==
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Revision as of 12:01, 18 June 2008

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 (by priority)

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): 73923 (ASSIGNED)
  • 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"
  • compare two opened files: 39125 (ASSIGNED)

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

Features (related are grouped together)

"One bug to block them all": 224562 (ASSIGNED)

Invoking the dialog

  • from context menu in Package Manager?
  • from context menu in editors
  • by drag&dropping one file to another in Package Manager

Tasks: ... (related bugs will be listed here)

Adding content to the dialog

  • drag&dropping from Package Manager
  • by "Items selection dialog"
  • from clipboard

Tasks: ...

Layout and navigation within the dialog

  • extendable ancestor section
  • displaying basic info about files chosen for comparison (name, modification date, icon)
  • moving files between left, right and ancestor section

Tasks: ...

Other tasks

...

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.
  • (copied from 73923)
    • I'd really like to drag and drop files from Konqueror or another filesystem-browser.
    • The dialog could be invoked via a rightclick on the editor tab (but as of bug #216710 the normal rightclickmenue will do)
    • I second the request, to paste clipboard contents in a temp-file as another source. It should be possible, to first pass one portion of text, select the next text and create a second temp file before invoking the compare. Therefore the dialog should not be modal (but may or may not hover in front?).
    • It might be worthwhile to rearrange the order of the files. If several files are dragged, it would be nice to sort them for last modification. But a manual reorder without the tedious copying of filenames around should be possible.
    • Last, if there is too much time :-) I envision a feature like the formula-editor in spreadsheet-applications offer. A button to click, that reduces the whole dialog to a single line of textinput, that stays in front, to monitor, where the user clicked / which editor-.tab got the focus last / which entry of the package explorer was clicked.
  • it would be great if it was possible to compare not only whole files, but also separate methods (or internal classes)

Getting the source

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