Re: [RFC PATCH] mergetools: support difftool.tabbed setting

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 12, 2021, 22:21 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqmtw9udue.fsf@gitster.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAJDDKr4zM1ZuNc+JpQnAtqwa5Ljv7_5bL3X-cC3e5Xg3z2Cbcw@mail.gmail.com>

David Aguilar <davvid@gmail.com> writes:

> I'm not really sure if "tabbed" is the best name for what's going on,
> though.  It's really more of a "diff everything in one shot" mode, and
> it just so happens that the tools in question use tabs.

This statement matches my reaction to this new feature exactly.

The way the external commands are triggered via GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF mechanism makes it "easy" to show changes for one path at a time and "hard" to do so for all paths at once, but the resulting end-user experience that is forced to view one path at a time may be awkward.

> That said, I wonder whether we need this new feature, or whether we
> should instead improve an existing one.  I'm leaning towards improving
> the existing dir-diff feature as a better alternative. ...

As a non-user, I have no strong opinion on the "new feature"; other than that I trust your judgement on the "difftool" design issues, that is.

Thanks.