[TxMt] Req: Compare docs-Diff

[Fred B.]

On 18 févr. 05, at 15:35, Allan Odgaard wrote:

> I must confess that I do not fully understand why a diff tool needs to 
> be built into a text editor.

I must confess I don't fully understand how you can work without it ;)

And why in a text-editor? It's text and I want to edit it. I don't want 
to sound sarcastic, but it's as simple as that. It's a way to edit text 
I use really often.
How could I do? Open the docs in another app, compare docs, note the 
line where I want to apply changes, switch back to the editor, find the 
line, make the change, re-compare, and again? And if I want to "save 
as" , I have to reopen them in TM after... Wow.

I can hardly see how this could be somewhere else that in a text 
editor, in fact.

Maybe I'm missing something:
Don't you use diff at all?
Don't you want to edit the docs you're comparing?

I'm sorry to even write this, but did you try TextWrangler's "compare 
two front docs"?
And if you did, don't you see the advantages over other alternatives?

> Was it the missing ability to edit the merged file in File Merge that 
> made this tool unusable?

Yes. And in Filemerge, you can only apply edit to one file.
Plus FileMerge is far from being polished: It doesn't remember window 
position, you have to reopen the 3rd panel each time.
Scroll wheel just scroll horizontally, etc.

> At present time I have no plans of adding this feature mainly because 
> a) I haven't fully understood the need to have it built in (i.e. a 
> third party could write the tool if e.g. File Merge isn't sufficient) 
> and b) there are many pending things that needs to built in (i.e. a 
> third party cannot supply these things), so these have higher 
> priority.

The problem is the best tool I found to compare two docs in OS X is the 
free product of one of your direct competitor, the exact one I tried to 
escape by buying TM. You make me used to all the nice feature of TM, 
understand that I'm unhappy when I have to go back to another editor. 
;) I would be ok to buy a good diff tool ( it doesn't exists, AFAIK) 
but it's editing capabilities will surely suck compared to TM, or even 
to TW, which is free. As you can see in the list, people who used BB/TW 
before really liked this feature.

>
> But I do see several people mention the diff thing, so it's not out of 
> the question that I may see the advantages of having it built in, but 
> then we're talking 1.3.
>

Common' several people, stand up! ;)
Seriously, I understand you have to make choices to avoid TM being 
bloated, but I really hope you'll consider this one.
As I said, except for a better language/bundle integration, which I 
know you're working on, this is the last big thing missing in TM, for 
me.
SFTP could be nice too, but 99% of the time a 3rd party SFTP client can 
do the job.

Thanks for your time.

--
Fred