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v1.0
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compare-using-meld.desktop
README.md

Compare using meld service menu for Dolphin

This project provides a menu items in Dolphin (when you right click), that allow you to do comparison of files or folders in several ways using Meld application.

Usage

Variant A (two steps)

Click the right mouse button on a file or folder, then select menu item "Mark for use in left column". It will remember that file or folder (it is stored as a temporary file in /tmp directory).

Right click on another file or another folder and choose menu option "Use in right column and compare". The meld application will be launched with 2-way comparison (the file selected at the first step in the left and the file selected at the second step at the right).

Pros:

  • The files/folders can be located in different places. Cons:
  • Only a 2-way comparison.
  • Somewhat more complicated in the input.

Variant B (single step)

Highlight two or three files/folders, then right mouse click them and use menu item "Compare selected (highlighted) files/folders". Meld will open with two/three way comparison.

Pros:

  • A 3-way comparison is possible.
  • Easier to enter. Cons:
  • The files/folders must be in the same folder.

How does it differ from https://www.pling.com/p/998366

Menu is not top leveled, so it does not distarb you all times. It is under Actions.

There are root variants of launching meld.

Another icons are used. Instead of left and right arrows, it use special compare-at-left and compare-at-right arrows.

I think I used more clear titles of actions, so it is obvious without looking to this readme.

Install

Of course it is assumed that meld application is already installed in your system.

Automatically

Go to Dolphin menu Settings -> Configure Dolphin -> Context Menu -> Download New Services -> search for this project, install.

Manually

Download the .desktop file and place it to one of tha pathes that are in kf5-config --path services.

Usually, for the current user the path is: ~/.local/share/kservices5/ServiceMenus/ and for all users the path is: /usr/share/kservices5/ServiceMenus/.

Questions and answers

  • Why use Meld (gnome application) while there is native kde application called Kompare?

  • Because Kompare unfortunately does not have all nice features that Meld has. For example, ability to move some parts of different text from one side to another by just hitting a small arrow button.

  • Why there are some duplicated actions ending with "as root"?

  • Because Meld unfortunately is not requiring a dialog for user to enter password when trying to save files without permissions for normal users, such as configs in /etc. So I decided to make additional menu entries which just launches Meld with root. Fortunately, it is possible.

  • Why such long command to launch instead of just sudo meld?

  • For some reason (I did not explored intensively) such command does not start meld. But I have found this https://store.kde.org/p/1384645/ and there I saw a command for running dolphin as root, which does not work for it (project no more active and non working, and dolphin fails intentionally I beleive), but works as expected for meld. However, I did not explored yet how exacly that command works.

Vote

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