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Re: Re: Merge dialog

From: Simon Large <simon.tortoisesvn_at_googlemail.com>
Date: 2007-10-19 11:30:01 CEST

On 19/10/2007, Stefan Küng <tortoisesvn@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/19/07, Kari Granö <kari.grano@elisanet.fi> wrote:
> > >> [ Show log button for WC ]
> > > I never really understood the need for the "show log for wc" button.
> > > Is this really necessary?
> >
> > Maybe to check whether some revision has been merged to WC? With merge
> > tracking, that should become unnecessary.
>
> Ok, understood.
>
> > The reason I suggested 'auto merge' on page 1 was that it does not need any
> > revision range inputs. If you place it as a checkbox on page 2, it
> > effectively needs to disable all other revision selection controls there.
> >
> > In my opinion, there is also some value in having a single merge command. A
> > separate 'auto merge' adds yet another entry to the crowded context menu.
> > Besides, if you want to make it fast, just place it one page 1 and provide a
> > 'finish' button right there; then the operation requires two user actions.
> >
> > The name 'auto merge' is a bit unintuitive to me. Am I correct to assume
> > that it actually finds the copyfrom source of the WC and merges with it? If
> > so, I think that 'merge all changes from branch origin' would be more
> > informative.
>
> Not exactly: it can find multiple source urls for a merge target. The
> 'svn merge -g' then just uses the first one found.
> And those source urls are determined by looking at the branch creation
> url and the urls that already got merged to the branch.
> In case of the TSVN trunk, the source urls are the 1.4.x branch and
> the logcacheimprovement branch.
>
> The reason I don't like the "merge all" or "auto merge" in the
> soon-to-be merge wizard is that it indicates the easiest way to do the
> merge, but in many (if not most) cases can lead to very wrong merges.
> Which means many, many users will on their first merge try get
> something they didn't wanted and decide that merging in SVN is pure
> crap.
> That's why I would like to have this only available through
> shift-right-click - you need to know exactly what you're doing.

Agreed. Also, having it on shift-right-click adds no clutter to the
context menu.

> > >> [ ] Checkbox for reverse merge ???
> > > Not sure about that one yet. Maybe this could be done by the user
> > > specifying the revision range in reverse?
> >
> > Agreed. However, this is sort of subtle, so maybe the UI should indicate
> > with e.g. an icon that the merge will be backwards?
>
> Agreed. If we don't use the checkbox, we have to add some other indication.

One thing we don't want in a wizard is subtle methods. If we use
ranges I suggest we force them always to be forward unless the box is
checked, so even if you enter something like:

2, 5, 9-7, 25-16

we do not do two forward and two backward merges.

Reverse merge is relatively rare (we have a log dialog function to
access this more easily) so if that option is selected by whatever
means, I think there should be a warning dialog "You have selected
reverse merge. This will merge the selected changes *out* of your
working copy" [ Continue ] [ Cancel ].

Simon

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Received on Fri Oct 19 11:30:29 2007

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