Passing a single directory or file to meld

[Angel Ezquerra <angel ezquerra gmail com>]

Hi,

currently if you pass a single directory to meld it tries to open it
in "version control mode". Personally I can see the value of that mode
but I do not use it myself. Instead what I often want to do (on
Windows) is to use the meld shortcut that Kai's installer creates on
the "Send to" context menu to start a diff between two directories or
files.

For example, if you want to compare two folders that happen to be on
the same location (i.e. on the same directory) you can just select the
two folders on Windows Explorer, right click, select "Send To / Meld"
and voila, meld opens and diffs the two directories. You can do the
same with two files which are on the same directory.

The problem comes when you try to compare two directories of files
that are on different locations on your hard drive. In that case you
cannot use the meld "send to" shortcut, because if you use it with the
first directory, meld will just try to open it in VCS mode!

If you try to do the same with a single file (rather than a directory)
it does not work either. In fact the file that you pass to meld seems
to be ignored, and meld just opens with the default "startup window"
that lets you choose the mode.

So I'd like to ask if there is some way around this. If not it would
be nice to be able to tell meld not to start in VCS mode, and just
take the input file or directory name that you pass to it and put it
on the left panel.

For the record, this is the way it works with several other diff
tools, such as KDiff3, WinMerge and Araxis Merge.

Cheers,

Angel