Diff for "Meld"

This is a subjective evaluation of Meld. Please add your opinion.

Description

Meld is a tool for making manual merges. It is a 3-way editor with visualization and propagation of differences.

Meld is a GPL Python GTK Gnome tool, and thus unix only - no Windows version.

Usage notes and tips

• "Arrows" for propagation mode are toggled somehow with shift and control and alt
• All 3 panes can be edited individually and must be saved individually
• One way of working with Meld is to work towards making all 3 files equal - that forces you to review and rethink your merges in both contexts
• Mercurial by default puts "file" is to the left, then "file~base", and finally "file~other"
• By default then the left pane is the merge result
• Enjoy that it is easy to see how the base version has diverged into two different versions
• Changes from the new parent in "file~other" (to the right) can be propagated to "file" (to the left) through "file~base"
• You could (and should?) start by copying everything from "file~other" to "file~base" in order to work with the two parents side-by-side - but then it is just a two-way merge...
• Or, to change the order and which panes are displayed add a section "[merge-tools]" with "meld.args = $base $local $other" to your ~/.hgrc, specifying the order you prefer (since Meld's default order is different from some other diff tools)
• To not see base at all set it to "meld.args = $local $other". You merge to the local copy, which is this arrangement is still the left pane

Issues

• Left- and right-most pane can't be directly compared with each other like they can with the middle pane, and similarly changes can't propagate directly
• No help for merging

Conclusion

A good visualization tool and editor. A strong tool if you know what you are doing. But is lacking merge features and it is not sufficiently stable...