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Meld is a visual diff and merge tool targeted at developers

meldmerge.org

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Re: Meld is a visual diff and merge tool targeted at developers

#121

Post by nhoughto »

Haven't tried Meld and i'm always up for an enhanced workflow but merge/diff is all about context, the more context you can add about where something came from / is going to, its history etc the better. In this regard it is almost impossible (never say never) to beat your IDE for the possibility of a good merge/diff, it has all the context plus syntax highlighting, compiler errors / build scripts etc. I can merge two files, plus git blame where the changes came from, plus syntax highlight and see likely compile errors, remove unused imports and apply consistent formatting all in one step.

This is why I always use IntelliJ merge/diff for supported languages, it just has so much more information about the merge/diff already available.

Re: Meld is a visual diff and merge tool targeted at developers

#124

Post by a-dub »

codedokode wrote: post #43

Meld might be useful for comparison, but in my opinion it is inconvenient as a git merge tool. For git merge I need four panels: original file, version A, version B, merged result. Meld has only three panels. Currently I am using KDiff3. It is a little buggy and doesn't have a nice UI but it is the best open source merging tool that I am aware of. It allows choosing lines from original file, from A, B and manual edit…

i've used kdiff3 for some hairy merges with good results.

back in the days when i was responsible for regular merges for a pretty big project (weekly or so, 10-30 devs on both sides, n*1e7 LoC), i took the time to learn ediff and did my merges in lucid/xemacs.

i had colleagues at the time who had nice things to say about beyondcompare.

more recently i have seen this meld thing and it has piqued my curiosity.

favorite tool for quick no-frills out-of-practice-with-real-tools visual diff is fldiff built on fltk.

Re: Meld is a visual diff and merge tool targeted at developers

#126

Post by cecilpl2 »

memsom wrote: post #115
dataflow wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually don't understand what people love about BC. The only thing I find it extremely useful for is the occasional files where inline diffs are practically mandatory, like CSVs. Other than that, I generally find it frustrating compared to TortoiseGitMerge, except perhaps for some very specific/unusual scenarios. In particular the line highlighting is annoying - instead of coloring the lines that were added vs. re…

I’ve been using BC since the early 2000’s, so probably more than 15 years. I know it backwards and forwards. If you set it up right, it is pretty powerful. It allows a lot of the stuff that other tools fail on to be overcome. Manual alignment is a dream. The rules based comparison is very nice. Ignoring unimportant differences removes pretty much all the white space differences. The ease of selecting arbitrary blocks…

I'll add the ability to specify and tag regexes ("comment", "timestamp", etc) on a file-type by file-type basis, and then specify various tags as "unimportant" for the current diff is super powerful.

It means you can do things like compare two system logs from different times and have it highlight you exactly the differences you care about.

Re: Meld is a visual diff and merge tool targeted at developers

#127

Post by Shorn »

diego_moita wrote: post #16

IMHO, Meld is the second best open source tool for doing this. On Windows, WinMerge[1] is a better alternative. Too bad is Windows only. For a non-FOSS and cross platform solution I recommend BeyondCompare (U$30.00)[2]. It replicates most of WinMerge UI. [1] https://winmerge.org/ [2] https://scootersoftware.com/

WinMerge for comparing two individual files. BeyondCompare for comparing deep nested directory structures.

Re: Meld is a visual diff and merge tool targeted at developers

#128

Post by black_puppydog »

arcticbull wrote: post #119

Am I the only person who opens the whole conflicted project in VSCode and project-wide searches for ">>>>>>"

This is often the only reason for me to open vscode on a project. I hate everything about their git flows, except the merge UI

Re: Meld is a visual diff and merge tool targeted at developers

#129

Post by da39a3ee »

LeicaLatte wrote: post #112
brunno wrote: post #40

As a long time Sublime Text[1] user, I've been using Sublime Merge[2] since the day it's been launched and it brings me the same speed and minimalism I get with Sublime Text and has evolved quite a lot to be able to do most things I need in a merge tool. Not affiliated with them in any way by the way. [1] https://www.sublimetext.com/ [2] https://www.sublimemerge.com/

I don't understand the comparison. Isn't meld free?

Not sure what you're trying to say. Free vs not free is not the most important axis to consider when evaluating software.

Re: Meld is a visual diff and merge tool targeted at developers

#130

Post by gumby »

mackrevinack wrote: post #71
brunno wrote: post #40

As a long time Sublime Text[1] user, I've been using Sublime Merge[2] since the day it's been launched and it brings me the same speed and minimalism I get with Sublime Text and has evolved quite a lot to be able to do most things I need in a merge tool. Not affiliated with them in any way by the way. [1] https://www.sublimetext.com/ [2] https://www.sublimemerge.com/

a nice feature of sublime merge that i haven't seen in other programs is actually showing you the git commands that will run when you press whatever button

Magit does this
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