project config visual diff/sync
Posted: Thu May 23, 2013 4:49 pm
I'm often manually toggling between two project configurations, walking through each tab, playing "spot the difference", cut & paste, repeat.
Configs don't always belong to the same workspace, f.ex. when creating a new application based off an exisiting one (cherry-picking individual settings) or when updating an old project that no longer matches my env vars or just to propagate improved build settings after I learned some new trick.
In VisualStudio this frustrating whack-a-mole is usually to figure out why one config works and another doesn't, sometimes ending with an inconclusive "this drop-down needs to be blank - don't touch anything else or it'll blow up".
I was wondering (aloud) if there'd be a smarter solution borrowing from git or Perforce visual diffs or FreeFileSync.
Quick & dirty would be to diff raw XML configs, taking into account permutable options, but it'd lack context. Better would be a diff with project button that'd colorize differences, using richtext/HTML instead of plain text project setting fields. Nirvana would be colored, side-by-side diffs with a flat sync rect under each difference (target would be read-only so sync is unidirectional).
Colorized settings diff/sync would be a nice CL addition and huge leg up VC.
Discuss
-- p
Configs don't always belong to the same workspace, f.ex. when creating a new application based off an exisiting one (cherry-picking individual settings) or when updating an old project that no longer matches my env vars or just to propagate improved build settings after I learned some new trick.
In VisualStudio this frustrating whack-a-mole is usually to figure out why one config works and another doesn't, sometimes ending with an inconclusive "this drop-down needs to be blank - don't touch anything else or it'll blow up".
I was wondering (aloud) if there'd be a smarter solution borrowing from git or Perforce visual diffs or FreeFileSync.
Quick & dirty would be to diff raw XML configs, taking into account permutable options, but it'd lack context. Better would be a diff with project button that'd colorize differences, using richtext/HTML instead of plain text project setting fields. Nirvana would be colored, side-by-side diffs with a flat sync rect under each difference (target would be read-only so sync is unidirectional).
Colorized settings diff/sync would be a nice CL addition and huge leg up VC.
Discuss
-- p