[Trac] Feedback request for the new Trac Diff features

[Christian Boos]

Walter Nicholls wrote:

> Christian Boos wrote:
>
>>
>>   1. you browse the repository in order to locate
>>      the base for the diff (''old''), then you select it
>>   2. you continue browsing, for selecting the target
>>      for the diff (''new''), then you diff
>
>
> If the 'continue browsing' bit makes it clear that you are "selecting 
> the target" rather than just browsing with some remembered state, I'm ok
> ...
> Looks much the same but
> - clearly titled "Search for target"
> - All the browser would have a "Select" or "Diff with this one" link 
> or something, in place of the "View" style links.

I can make it even clearer, the way you suggested...

> with it. As long as it is easy to back out just by clicking the links 
> on the menu.
>
There's a Cancel button that let you revert to normal browsing.

>> One alternative we discussed would be to offer text fields, like:
>> Old Path: _____________________________ Old Revision: _____
>> New Path: _____________________________ New Revision: _____
>> [Diff]
>>
> This just looks clunky but I suspect I would actually use it more!  If 
> the popup browser thing is actually possible then you could have:
>
>  Old Path: [                                        ] Old Rev: 
> [        ]  _Browse_
>  New Path: [                                        ] New Rev: 
> [        ]  _Browse_
>
> This would be very usable and very functional.
> ------------------
>
Agreed.

> While on this topic, I find the Diffing functionality in Trac both 
> very pleasant and very frustrating.  One thing I often want to find 
> out is where a certain change slipped into the system - often without 
> knowing exactly what that change was.
>
> From the revision log of a file I can review successive versions using 
> the "Rev" column below, and I can view diffs intermixed with other 
> parts of the changeset using the "Chgset" links:
> ...
> This is derailing Christian's original comment and deserves its own 
> discussion, but I can see some synergy there. I don't have time to 
> polish off this email any more but I did log a comment against ticket 
> #1662

In TracDiff, I also proposed a way to achieve this:
In the Browser (either for a directory or for a file), there's a 'Latest 
Changes' link.
By clicking on it, you go to what I called the 'restricted' changeset view,
i.e. the changeset restricted to the path you were browsing.
On that restricted changeset view, there's a 'Previous Diff' which leads 
you to the
preceeding changeset for that path, and so on, going back through the 
history
of that path.

With this, you can easily go through all the changes that occurred on a 
file,
and, unlike 'svn blame', you actually have the context of the changes, which
is important for the usage you mentioned.

-- Christian