This is a subjective evaluation of Meld. Please add your opinion.
Description
[http://meld.sourceforge.net/ 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"
- Remember that 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...
Issues
- Meld often looses track of what is going on, and prints assertion warnings and crashes - a workaround is to save and then reloading ...
- 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...