[HN Gopher] Meld for Macs
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Meld for Macs
Author : niedzielski
Score : 142 points
Date : 2022-05-16 19:25 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (yousseb.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (yousseb.github.io)
| butterguns wrote:
| Would love to know how it compares to Beyond Compare, which is
| the tool I've been using for the last decade on the Mac
| unmole wrote:
| Beyond Compare is significantly better.
| kodisha wrote:
| I REALLY love the way merge tool works in IntelliJ IDEA.
|
| Is there some other tool out there that works in a similar way,
| and that good?
|
| (tho, typing idea . and doing a merge fix is not that bad)
| sanirank wrote:
| I wish IntelliJ would sell git-only tool - their three way
| merge tool is the best I've used, and would gladly pay for a
| license.
| kodisha wrote:
| Actually, I think I answered my own question.
|
| That tool is so good because it leverages the entire eco-
| system of IDE it is running in. The resulting merge panel is
| as powerful as any editor window in the IDE. It has code
| inspections, it detects missing imports, it does everything.
|
| It might be the case that ripping the diff/merge tool out of
| the IDE would result in way inferior product than we get when
| we use it within the IDE.
| selykg wrote:
| I really like https://kaleidoscope.app
|
| It has a new release and is the most Mac-like of the various diff
| tools I've used.
| kstrauser wrote:
| It's such a pretty app, but I can't bring myself to drop $150
| for it.
| corn13read wrote:
| msbarnett wrote:
| Eh, for how much use I get out of a merge tool, $150 is
| pretty meaningless for the right tool. We're talking
| fractions of fractions of fractions of a penny per use over
| many years. If it makes my life better those kinds of tooling
| costs aren't even worth thinking about.
|
| That said, I haven't used the new Kaleidoscope (although I
| was a fan of their last version and happily used it for 8
| years or so), and currently use Sublime Merge.
|
| Edit: someone care to explain to me why this completely
| innocuous comment on my personal philosophy of tool value is
| worthy of downvoting to -2?
| kstrauser wrote:
| I get that. I'm sure I've paid for tools over the years
| that would make someone else shake their head. Good on the
| Kaleidoscope gang for making a tool that people are willing
| to shell out for.
|
| It still gives me sticker shock, though.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| 150 would be peanuts if there weren't any other tools out
| there, but there are plenty of alternatives, both free and
| paid, and some of which people might already be paying for
| (IntelliJ/PyCharm has a very good built-in diff tool).
| 40four wrote:
| I'm sure someone as experienced as you knows commenting
| about up/ down votes is explicitly against the guidelines.
| No worries though. No need to fret, just imagine those sad
| souls, and what most be going through their heads, as to
| find your comment offensive :)
|
| Maybe they were pushing back against the idea of paying
| money, for good quality software, that provides value to
| your life?!? Haha, joking of course. But seriously, I agree
| with you. If it is a tool that I use all the time, makes my
| life easier, and is of good quality... I'm happy to pay up
| for a license.
|
| I've spent way more than that on my favorite database GUI
| clients over the years. Money well spent, and the
| developers earned it. Happy to support them!
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| > Maybe they were pushing back against the idea of paying
| money, for good quality software, that provides value to
| your life?!?
|
| Or they realise the hubris you need to have to think 150$
| to be a meaningless amount of money. It's already quite a
| sum at the median American salary and the USA is one of
| the most affluent countries from which HN readers hail.
| msbarnett wrote:
| Ok, but I'm a software developer and this is a
| professional tool with which I do a job that makes me
| several hundred thousand dollars a year. I don't know
| that it's "hubris" to recognize that relative to the
| income this helps me create, its costs are a rounding
| error.
|
| Obviously $150 is a lot of money for a lot of people
| making a much lower income!... but those people likely
| aren't in the market for a 3-way diff & merge tool, so I
| can't imagine why you'd expect a discussion of this tool
| to have to add a disclaimer accounting for them? This is
| a professional tool whose costs exist relative to the
| income they create for the professional who wields them.
| My plumber brother-in-law certainly doesn't refuse to
| spend tens of thousands of dollars on the equipment he
| uses for his job on the basis that this would be too
| expensive for someone working the counter at a fast food
| store. Nor should he - the costs make him money, and
| that's what's important.
| simondotau wrote:
| Especially since you can't even edit text directly in it.
| WinMerge is pretty much the only Windows app I miss now that
| I'm using MacOS full time.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| This has been a great app when I can expense it to my employer.
|
| But for personal use the UI improvements aren't quite enough to
| push me over the edge to buying it. The cheaper or open-source
| tools do just fine.
| alecthomas wrote:
| I agree. The old version was super slow but still great, but
| the new major release a year or so ago is fantastic. Super
| fast, super intuitive. Well worth the $$
| jamesfmilne wrote:
| Beyond Compare is a pretty good diff/merge tool that runs
| natively on macOS. Sure it's UI is slightly non-native too.
|
| https://www.scootersoftware.com/
| zikohh wrote:
| Big fan of beyond compare
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| I love love Beyond Compare. It's been my go to diff tool for
| years.
| donatj wrote:
| I love and highly recommend Beyond Compare. That being said,
| the Mac version could use a little love of late. They're a
| small team so I mean... priorities I guess...
| ibioes wrote:
| there is also diffuse merge tool, it's pretty good, it works on
| mac as well (I personally use it on fedora through flatpak)
| cibyr wrote:
| > If you want to donate, please donate to the original Meld
| project.
|
| Anyone know how to actually do that? I've not been able to find a
| donation link on the Meld website.
| Someone wrote:
| https://discourse.gnome.org/t/support-donate-to-meld/6909:
|
| _"We usually don't receive donations for specific GNOME
| projects, but we collect donations for the whole organization.
| You can donate to GNOME at Donate - GNOME 6
|
| Thanks for your interest in helping!"_
|
| (donation link is https://www.gnome.org/donate/)
| jacobsenscott wrote:
| Shout out to Emacs Ediff - it can compare files, directories,
| buffers (open files), regions within buffers (selected text
| within files, and is version control aware.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| Fun Fact. FileMerge.app has remained essentially unchanged since
| it was introduced in NeXTSTEP (I think 3.2 or earlier) in the
| early 1990s.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| FileMerge is a complete app. There's nothing more that it needs
| to do. It's trivial to understand, there is no learning curve,
| and it is my go-to tool when I need to quickly diff two files
| or folders.
| grishka wrote:
| > FileMerge is a complete app.
|
| As are many other apps. Yet they keep getting redesigned and
| engulfed by endless feature creep because people gotta work
| on something.
| [deleted]
| js2 wrote:
| It's what I use for my diff tool with git. It's available on
| the command line as opendiff.
| user3939382 wrote:
| Copyright on it is 1996
| newaccount74 wrote:
| If you are going through all the trouble to make a nice macOS
| build, why wouldn't you notarize it?
|
| I know that it's mostly security theather, but those scary
| warnings that Apple shows for software they haven't notarized
| must scare a lot of people away.
| WalterGR wrote:
| How does it compare to WinMerge? I haven't found a tool on any
| platform that beats it.
|
| In fact, I use Wine on my Mac specifically so I can use WinMerge.
| gpvos wrote:
| kdiff3 easily beats it, if only for its 3-way merge, manual
| line alignment option and general robustness.
| WalterGR wrote:
| > kdiff3 easily beats it
|
| Gonna have to agree to (vehemently) disagree on that. :)
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| I still use WinMerge under desktop Linux. Has quite some
| features and importantly it's fast (unlike anything Python...).
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| I find Meld's UI more pleasant.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| I've used both and I found Meld fits my needs in Linux in the
| same way that WinMerge did in windows.
| WalterGR wrote:
| Which would you use if you could run WinMerge seamlessly in
| Linux or Meld seamlessly in Windows?
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Meld does support windows. Meld doesn't feel "native" in
| windows, or it didn't 5+ years ago when I used it. It's
| been so long since I've used windows daily that I can't
| even remember any significant difference between the two to
| be honest.
| dummy_physicist wrote:
| I use neovim as mergetool and some ad hoc diff tasks, but I'm
| glad to see meld on Mac. It is the tool I recommend when I see
| someone struggling with git rebase conflicts (and not using using
| vim).
| roydivision wrote:
| I used to use this until I discovered vim has a built in diffing
| mode - vimdiff. I'd still be using Meld if vim wasn't already so
| much part of my workflow.
| destitude wrote:
| Makes me concerned when they still use the phrase "Mac/OSX"
| instead of the correct nomenclature "macOS".
| kelahcim wrote:
| Sublime Merge (when it comes to git integration) is the best
| choice now - at least for me.
|
| Meld, on the other hand, is the best tool for comparing local
| copies and directories.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| Meld is great. It has my favorite clean UI of any 3-way
| diff/merge tool, but the horrendous performance on Mac because of
| GTK3 makes it hard to use sometimes.
| berkut wrote:
| It has fairly bad performance in UI-terms in my experience on
| Linux as well with large files, I think because it's written in
| Python, so things like highlighting take ages...
| ruined wrote:
| yes, it's in homebrew
| difflens wrote:
| Just plugging in my project here:
| https://github.com/marketplace/difflens
|
| If you work primarily with frontend technologies and want a
| syntax aware diff on GitHub PRs, difflens might be right up your
| alley!
| sgarrity wrote:
| I assumed this was a "more native" port of Meld to macOS, as it
| has been available for Mac for a while. I've been using the
| version installed via `brew`.
|
| It appears this is the same version (the page says "Homebrew now
| installs Meld for OSX").
|
| The macOS integration is a bit klunky (really feels like a non-
| native app), but this remains my preferred visual diff app.
| Thanks to those who make it and maintain the macOS port.
| Klonoar wrote:
| At a glance I'd suspect it's a GTK app. Am I correct...?
|
| I recall that there's been a lot of work on GTK4/macOS. Maybe
| that'll come into play some day.
| techwizrd wrote:
| Meld is a Gtk app. I like it enough that I choose to use it
| on Linux (for personal) and on macOS (for work).
| smoldesu wrote:
| Meld is excellent, cool to see a port for Mac too!
| m12k wrote:
| One of the things I like in P4Merge is having 4 panes - the two
| versions, their common ancestor, and the final merge result. Can
| you get all these in Meld as well?
| WalterGR wrote:
| I've always been puzzled by 4-way merge not being more common.
| Support is quite rare.
|
| KDiff3 is another tool that supports it.
| eastbound wrote:
| I've always been puzzled by 3-way merge being remotely
| common. It's almost "Here's your latest file on two branches,
| good luck!" -- There is obviously one leg missing but dare
| pointing it to a developer and he will tell you "But we have
| everything there" and when you draw a graph to explain the
| conceptual problem, "Ok but in general the two ancestors are
| common."
|
| A fortnight later, they wreck a merge and they spend their
| afternoon re-merging conflicts they've already had.
|
| Such people almost always use the git tools provided in
| IntelliJ.
| WalterGR wrote:
| > but dare pointing it to a developer and he will tell you
|
| Sadomasochism runs deep.
|
| If you're not suffering for your craft, you're not a Real
| Programmer.
| pjerem wrote:
| > Such people almost always use the git tools provided in
| IntelliJ.
|
| OTOH, IntelliJ's "Magic wand" is totally worth the hassle.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| KDiff3 is so consistently good and itself. I've been using it
| for ever; i don't expect to stop.
| gpvos wrote:
| Beyond Compare (not free) seems to have all kdiff3's
| features, plus some nice features for comparing tables (CSV
| or Excel) (although you need to tweak the defaults to make
| them actually useful). Also, it has syntax highlighting in
| its diff view, and I find its directory diff nicer than
| kdiff3's. I haven't used it for merging yet though;
| although it has three-way merge, I just am more familiar
| with kdiff3 and trust it since I've been using it for more
| than 20 years now.
| ars wrote:
| This lack in Meld is exactly why I switched to kdiff3 for
| merges. It's just too hard with Meld.
|
| But Meld is great at 2 way merges, and allowing you to
| selectively apply changes.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| P4Merge is one of the few cross-platform apps that I use on the
| Mac because the functionality is so good.
|
| I hate how the UI looks like a half-assed rip-off of Windows
| 95, but it's the only tool I know that shows me everything I
| want to see when merging / rebasing git branches.
|
| I think it also allows comparing 3 or more arbitrary files,
| which seems like a pretty basic task that most diff tools just
| can't do at all.
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