Re: [PATCH] Experimental patch view mode

[Kai <kai willadsen gmail com>]

2011/3/3 Piotr Piastucki <leech miranda gmail com>:
> Attached is a set of patches that add an experimental patch view mode which
> shows changes included in the given patch file.
> To start patch view mode run meld as follows: meld patchfile.patch
> The first patch in the set, which adds proper editable states handling may
> be applied regardless of the rest as it may come in handy any way.

I'll try and extract the relevant pieces of this. The problem with
using the whole thing is that I'm currently finishing up a patch that
pulls the LinkMap out of FileDiff, and should solve the problem in a
more general way. I'll post this soon for people to beat on for a bit.

> Here is a screenshot showing what the patch view window looks like:
> http://piastucki.bdl.pl/meld/patchmode.png
>
> This is a kind of proof of concept at this point so any
> comments/ideas/critique are welcome.

While I'm not certain, this isn't how I've previously envisaged a
patch mode, and existing bugs have also put forward a different view.
Most of the discussion I've seen around 'patch mode' has been based on
the idea of:
  source tree + patch = version-control view
or directory instead of version-control or similar. See for instance:
  https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=517902
  https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=572565

Your take is different, in that it's purely a mode for viewing a patch
file, without a source directory as context. I have to admit that I've
never wanted to do this, so I don't really see the benefit, but...
maybe people would find it useful?

I'm also worried because Meld already has three very different view
modes, and this is a fourth mode, adding to our already-fragmented UI.
The benefit to the other patch-view approaches is that they're just
different ways to get at our existing UI.

cheers,
Kai