Re: [Kdiff3-user] feature request show/hide identical files

[Joachim E. <joa...@gm...>]

Hi John,

I'm late in answering because of my holiday.
I agree with the usefulness of your suggestions and have them on my todo-list.

Cheers,
Joachim


Am Mittwoch, 7. September 2005 14:46 schrieb John Mullin:
> Hi,
>
> I just started using Kdiff3 and it is a fabulous tool. It has most
> of the features I use in a diff tool, it's very fast by comparison
> to others I've used and I like its interface too. Good work.
>
> After using it for a short time, I do have a couple of suggestions,
> some of which I've seen in other programs, some of which I haven't...
>
> 1) A feature to dynamically customise what files are shown in the
>    directory tree (without a rescan) would help to reduce clutter.
>    I'll try to describe what I mean...
>    I would suggest categorising or adding attributes to each line
>    in the view (both files and subdirectories containing files) for
>
>    "Identical",
>    "Exists in A only",
>    "Exists in B only",
>    "Exists in C only",
>    "differences - A is newer",
>    "differences - B is newer",
>    "differences - C is newer",
>    "different in whitespace only"
>    "Selected" (*see below)
>
>    and then allowing the user to select which items to show
>    maybe using a menu or dialog box with toggle option for
>    each attribute (some options override others, e.g.
>    "Any Differences" obviously overrides "Difference (A is newer)")
>
>    [Show/Hide/Ignore] Identical Files
>    [Show/Hide/Ignore] Files in A only
>    [Show/Hide/Ignore] Files in B only
>    [Show/Hide/Ignore] Files in C only
>    [Show/Hide/Ignore] Any Differences
>    [Show/Hide/Ignore] Differences (A is newer)
>    [Show/Hide/Ignore] Differences (B is newer)
>    [Show/Hide/Ignore] Differences (C is newer)
>    [Show/Hide/Ignore] Selected Files
>    [Show/Hide/Ignore] Files different in whitespace only
>    [Show/Hide/Ignore] Files with conflicts (might be tricky???)
>
>    This would then allow the program to traverse its directory
>    tree and remove files and entire subdirectories from its view
>    if they don't contain files that the user currently cares about.
>
> 2) Related to the above suggestion of dynamically hiding entries
>    is the idea of "selecting" interesting or uninteresting files.
>    This could be done by addng a column with a tick box to the
>    tree view and adding an attribute to each line (file or directory).
>    A menu/dialog could be used to manage selections
>    (Select all, unselect all, toggle selection, select by regular
> expression...).
>    This would allow users to concentrate on particular files without
>    a potentially lenghty rescan.
>
> 3) A feature to use an external editor (or indeed any external program).
>    This has been described before but it's a useful feature. A slight
>    extension of this feature is the ability to pass information from
>    Kdiff to the program using substitution. Substition like the following
>    mightbe useful (in A, B, C varities)...
>    $FULLNAME_A (/my/path/myfile.txt)
>    $PATH_A (/my/path)
>    $FILENAME_A (myfile.txt)
>    $BASENAME_A (myfile)
>    $EXT_A (.txt)
>    $LINENUMBER_A (123)
>    $DRIVE_A (c:)  (this might be useful in MSWindows)
>
> 4) Find files
>    A method for finding files and automatically expanding the tree to
>    highlight it would be useful.
>
>    A simple "Find File" dialog is one way to go, however,
>    if you've ever used the music player foobar2000, their
>    "playlist search" works for very well for finding single files in
>    huge playlists. It works by opening a dialog box containing a huge list
>    of all files and it prunes out irrelevalnt files in the dialog box
>    dynamically as you type the string you're searching for.
>    You can then click the particular file you're looking for from a
>    small list.
>
>
> Well that's my two cents, if you've any thoughts on those ideas or if I
> haven't been clear enough, let me know. Don't get me wrong, KDiff3 is a
> great
> tool and these are just a few suggestions...
>
> Regards,
> John Mullin
>
>
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