Re: [OT] FileMerge as a vacuum (Re: What are your top desired improvements in Xcode ?)
Re: [OT] FileMerge as a vacuum (Re: What are your top desired improvements in Xcode ?)
- Subject: Re: [OT] FileMerge as a vacuum (Re: What are your top desired improvements in Xcode ?)
- From: Laurence Harris <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2007 20:54:31 -0500
On Feb 17, 2007, at 5:31 PM, Greg Guerin wrote:
Alex Curylo wrote:
Now, to get back to the main thread, I can't believe no one's
mentioned
CodeWarrior's awesome file/folder comparison windows. You all
actually think
FileMerge _doesn't_ suck compared (heh) to it, or do you use
something
currently supported that I don't know about?
You'd have to be more specific about how FileMerge sucks.
I just used FileMerge 2.2.1 to compare two HTML files. It sucks because:
- It says there's only one difference even though there are dozens of
differences. The one line it says is different is not.
- There's a popup button that behaves like a bevel button with a menu
instead of a popup button.
- The commands in said popup button should be buttons in the window
so I can apply one simply by clicking it instead of having to click
to open a menu and then selecting something from it -- time after
time. Well, assuming FileMerge could actually find the differences in
the two files.
- The names of the commands in that menu are misleading. They have
names like "Choose left" even though they don't actually "choose"
anything.
- Using the scroll wheel on my mouse while it's positioned over the
vertical scroll bar on the right side of the window has no effect.
Scrolling over text scrolls the text horizontally.
- There's a cosmetic bug in which making the window wider leaves
artifacts from the right path above the area separating the two sets
of text.
- There's an empty space separating the two panes at the top from the
text at the bottom. It's 40 pixels high. Looks like a big waste of
space to me.
- If you use the grow box to repeatedly make the window taller and
shorter, the top section continually shrinks until it disappears.
This is a bug in Cocoa, but still, it sucks in any application that
manifests it.
For example, some people don't know you can expand FileMerge's
"Compare
Files" window to get Ancestor and Merge boxes.
- Those must be people who can't read, because it says that right in
the window. However, as an interface, that sucks. That's why they
have text right there in the window to explain how to expose that
part of the window. There should be some kind of disclosure button to
do that instead.
- If you drag a file into one of the path fields in that window,
FileMerge inserts the full path into any existing path at the point
where the mouse is release. Is that ever what anyone would want?
Just so you know, I never use FileMerge. I just used it now and found
all these problems about as fast as I could type them into this
message. That pretty much qualifies FileMerge for a rating of "It
Sucks" in my book.
Others don't know you can
change how directories are compared or presented in the Options
pane of
Preferences, or that you can filter files under the Filter pane.
Ah yes. There are two sets of preferences. Instead of using tabs or a
toolbar to select between them the way most applications do,
FileMerge uses a popup button.
Other people don't use FileMerge because they prefer BBEdit.
I've heard that a lot of Apple's engineers use BBEdit. So much for
eating your own dog food. ;-)
Larry
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