Request: Apply changes from both Left and Right

[scottbessler]

Many merge tools have some method to add from both left and right, and it would be awfully nice to have a button/kb shortcut to do that instead of being forced to copy and paste one of the two sides into the middle.

[lbauer]

If you're working with the results of a "show merge" you're merging a local working copy with the repository version. It's not possible to use the merge tool to update the repository version directly. That's why you merge changes into a third pane.

If you're trying to diff two files on disk, then you could use just the Diff, whic will allow you to apply changes to both left and write.

[scottbessler]

Actually I'm using a 3-way merge where the left is my local copy, the right is the other change, and the middle is the output. Further I'm specifying a base which is the changeset which is the parent to both the left and right panes.

To clarify further, this is for use with a dvcs, namely Hg. Also, for an example of how this function could work you can reference KDiff3 which has buttons for Left and Right (they call it A and B) which are toggles to include the changes from A,B, or both. I like everything else about DiffMerge better than KDiff3 except for this feature.

[jeffhostetler]

If you right-click on a conflict-type change, the context menu has options for
append/prepend/replace from the left and/or right and etc. And if you CTRL-right-click
you can do it on a line-by-line basis.

Hope this helps (and let me know if this doesn't get you what you need and we can talk
about a feature request),

jeff

[scottbessler]

If I right click:

On the left pane in the area of the conflict I get "Insert This"
On the right pane in the area of the conflict I get "Insert This"
On the middle pane in the area of the conclict I get 2 entries, "Insert from Left" and "Insert from Right"

As soon as I pick any one of those options it removes the conclict and I am unable to pick the other. (At which point I am able to copy and paste from the one I didn't pick, but this is more cumbersome than a single kb shortcut and/or button click)

If when I right clicked on the middle pane I had an option to "Insert Both" that would solve my issue.

[jeffhostetler]

OK, now I understand. You're looking at a blank/void in the center and
an added line on the left and a different added line on the right.
I was looking at the other types of conflicts when I made my previous post.

Yeah, I'll add "Insert both left then right" and "Insert both right then left"
menu options.

BTW, you should be able to right click on the middle and do the "Insert From Left"
and then right click on the middle again and do an "Append/Prepend from Right".
Granted, it is 2 clicks, but it beats copy-n-paste.

jeff

15166

[scottbessler]

First I wanted to say thank you and let you know how much I appreciate your effort on supporting this free application.


And yeah, I see the append now, but it actually won't work for me, I've shown why below:

before:

step1.png (163.02 KiB) Viewed 11434 times

then i insert from one side

step2.png (147.3 KiB) Viewed 11434 times

then i try appending, but it is in the middle of the results from the first side I chose instead of after

step3.png (150.72 KiB) Viewed 11434 times

as seen here:

step4.png (143.7 KiB) Viewed 11434 times

[jeffhostetler]

Yeah, when DiffMerge re-diffs after the insert, it cuts the original conflict
region into smaller chunks. So yeah, that'll make a mess when you do the
second step.

FWIW, you might turn on the "Inter-Line Smoothing" on the "Detail Level" page of
the preferences dialog. It defaults to 0. Set it to 1 or 2 and see if that helps.
This treats adjacent changes separated by n or fewer 3-way-equal lines as one
larger/combined change. This may help on this particular case. But try it and see.

This option may cause some false positives; in that changes that are near each
other will get globbed together and reported as a conflict more often than not.
But sometimes that's a good thing.

jeff