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Together view

Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 8:21 am
by MarkJ
Can we have a "combined file" view? One single pane, where changed lines appear first one file then another file. Here's a picture from MKS Visual Difference to show what I mean.

Image

To me, this view makes the best use of screenspace when looking at one or two line changes, because unchanged lines are only shown once and also I don't have to move my eyes much to move from "before" to "after". Here's a StackOverflow discussion http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1299 ... ew-feature

Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 11:16 am
by TonHu
That would be a nice alternative to the "Lines view" at the bottom of the CI screen, but I wouldn't like to give up that view in favor of this one though... a toggle-button in the toolbar could be an option.

Thnx
Ton

Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 11:25 am
by MarkJ
A toggle button would be perfect. I'd like to switch on together mode when I'm looking at a stream of 1-line changes, but then back to normal horizontal or vertical view when someone's completely rewritten a block of code.

lines view vs combined file view

Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 11:57 am
by MarkJ
This "combined file" view would be a bit different from "Lines view". Lines view only shows 1 line at a time. "Combined file" would be like this - for each block it would first list all the changed lines in file 1, then all the changed lines in file 2. This is a nice way to view small changes to a couple of lines in a big block of code. You need to see the full context to fully understand the changes.

You'd need to be able to toggle back into normal horizontal or vertical view when you were looking at major rewrites. You would often switch from one to another in the same file.

Full disclosure: one of my colleagues still prefers MKS Visual Difference to CompareIt and I'm trying to persuade him to switch! Plus I like the feature myself.

Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 7:35 am
by grigsoft
I can add this, but only in read-only mode, at least for some time. Or allowing editing only on by-block basis, like in changes-only mode.

Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 8:44 am
by MarkJ
That would be great!