Re: New feature: add comparison to GUI

[Kai Willadsen <kai willadsen gmail com>]

On 30 October 2013 21:13, Mondane Woodworker
<mondane woodworker gmail com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Originally I had this feature request:
>
> I like Meld, but one feature I miss (it's available in WinMerge but I use
> linux), is the possibility to have the left and/or right document being a
> blank sheet. On this blank sheet, I want to paste whatever text I have in
> the clipboard.
>
> The workaround now, is creating temp files and open those in Meld. These
> extra steps are annoying.

Sure, and this is why the 'Blank Comparison' button was added. It's
actually always been possible to do this by just not selecting a file
in one of the selectors (and this still works), but the button makes
the simple case clearer.

> But I just tried v1.8.1 and accidentilly found out one can start a 'File
> comparison' and immediately can click 'Blank Comparison' or 'Compare'. This
> GUI can be improved;
>
> - when choosing file comparison, have file selectors for both the left and
> right pane (or middle in a 3-way comparison). Now there is just one file
> selector

We always show three file selectors when creating a file comparison,
so I'm not sure what you're referring to here.

> - add, besides 'File comparison', 'Directory comparison' and 'Version
> control view', a new option 'Blank comparison' (promote this button to big
> button and always active).

The problem with this is that Meld needs to know what type of
comparison page to create, so you *need* to select File Comparison
first. At the moment you can't actually create blank comparisons for
the other types, but that may change in the future. Either way, there
are only two action buttons on that tab, and 'Blank Comparison' is
one, which seems fairly prominent to me.

I've thought about adding better clipboard integration such as a 'Copy
my clipboard' checkbox for file selection, but every time I prototyped
something like this, it was just way harder than hitting Ctrl+V, so
not very useful.

cheers,
Kai