GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 649763
VcView: Add support for not using tabs for diffs
Last modified: 2017-12-13 18:56:05 UTC
Created attachment 187484 [details] [review] Patch adding non-tabbed VcView For people with wide screen monitors it may be useful to allow VcView diffs to be displayed in a pane next to the file tree view instead of in a new tab. Being able to see a list of all files that have differences at all times can be useful in some circumstances, such as reviewing modifications to a source tree prior to committing them. A patch, screenshot illustrating the idea, and some feedback from Kai can be found at: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/meld-list/2011-April/msg00008.html
So I've just spent some time playing with this. I have several minor comments and a big caveat. Minor issues: - the pane's position needs to be saved across sessions - the placement of the "use wide screen view" option in the main (i.e., non-VC) interface is inconsistent with other option placement; it should either be in the VC view only menu, or in a preference pane. However, this might not be relevant (see below) - when first opened, there is only the VC file list which takes up the whole area. While it won't look particularly good, I think it would be better to have a blank space (or a dummy set of comparisons, or placeholder text) on the right, rather than having the first file comparison resize the panes - I'm torn between having the list work as it does now (double-click) and having it work more like a tab-replacement (single click to open comparisons). There are other implications with making switching instant here, but I won't go in to them now. And here's the big caveat: This interface is only better for browsing through changes. All of the nice helpers, controls, etc. that we have for a full file comparison tab don't work as they should, and keyboard operation barely works at all (next/prev diff works, and I think that's it). This is fine if you're using it as a reviewing tool, but not otherwise. Basically, what we've got here is a nice, streamlined reviewing interface. I think that's a *good* thing to have, but I don't know how to expose this in the UI. I don't think that "Use widescreen VC view" is appropriate, because this *isn't* a replacement for the normal view at the moment. So, should we: (a) try to make it a great interface for reviewing changes, and provide a way to switch to a normal VC view for everything else (b) try to enhance it so that it's a viable replacement I'm thinking that we could do (a) by providing a way to open up a file comparison in a full file comparison view (like a 'break out this comparison' button) and then try and figure out what we can adjust/get rid of in order to improve the change reviewing experience. Sorry for the length of this comment, and the criticisms. I do like the feature; I just need to figure out exactly what the feature is.
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