Opened 16 years ago

Last modified 3 years ago

#2837 new Feature request

Compare file contents with external program (File Diff)

Reported by: korneel Owned by:
Priority: normal Component: FileZilla Client
Keywords: File Diff Cc: korneel, Tim Kosse, Alexander Schuch, PhoneixSegovia@…, igitur@…
Component version: Operating system type:
Operating system version:

Description

I just thought of it, it would come rather handy in some occasions, to be able to compare online and local files, throu WinMerge or similar.
On downloading, the 'overwrite?' popup could give the option to compare, merge or the current options.

If compared, the online version could be stored in a temporary file for comparison.

Change History (23)

in reply to:  description comment:1 by EagleOneRaptor, 14 years ago

Replying to korneel:

I just thought of it, it would come rather handy in some occasions, to be able to compare online and local files, throu WinMerge or similar.
On downloading, the 'overwrite?' popup could give the option to compare, merge or the current options.

If compared, the online version could be stored in a temporary file for comparison.

I'm favor on this feature provide dynamism at work time, also, this option can be appear in the selected file menu if an online/local file with same name exists, and open for editing the selected file.

comment:2 by jerone, 14 years ago

I really like to see this feature too.
When I'm returning to an old project and find differences between the online and local version, I'm always wondering what's the difference. Now I have to download the files and compare manually. If support is added for WinMerge it could make things really easy.

comment:3 by Javier Alfonso, 13 years ago

It would be a very nice improvement.
It could be as the edit option but with two files selected. And I think the external program must be configurable (don't bind to one).

comment:4 by Scott Richardson, 13 years ago

Operating system type: Windows

Ideally the feature would allow you to define a default diffing program to use, but it would be nice if you could define a different program based on file extension. You might want a different differ for txt, PDF, binary, XML, etc.

in reply to:  4 comment:5 by Javier Alfonso, 13 years ago

Replying to scottri:

Ideally the feature would allow you to define a default diffing program to use, but it would be nice if you could define a different program based on file extension. You might want a different differ for txt, PDF, binary, XML, etc.

But don't bind it to windows only, I use it on mac os and linux.

comment:6 by Javier Alfonso, 13 years ago

Cc: PhoneixSegovia@… added
Operating system type: Windows

comment:7 by Francois Botha, 13 years ago

Cc: igitur@… added

It might be worth looking at how Total Commander (Windows client) does it. IMO, it is exactly the functionality that we'd want in FileZilla too.

It allows comparison of files in an external program.

Also, if the external program modifies the remote version of the file (which is kept in a temp directory), FileZilla should prompt if we want to upload the changed file back to the server.

Total Commander can also do an in-depth directory comparison (including subdirectories), but I think that's something for a separate ticket.

comment:8 by Andy Ingham, 13 years ago

Hi,

this feature would save me so much time! It would be great to be able to initiate a comparison of remote vs local file from within Filezilla, even if there wasn't the integration to allow the merged file to be saved back to local/remote version.

I think that Dreamweaver allows the user to specify the external compare tool, which woul dbe nice, but even if tied to WinMerge that would be absolutely great for me!

Andy

comment:9 by Oriman, 12 years ago

I would like this feature as well. It will make my work so much easier!!!

comment:10 by Lorenzo Stanco, 12 years ago

It will be a great feature. Used with navigation sync and file list comparing tools, it will be awesome.

You can just place a button in toolbar that is enabled when two file are selected in local and remote (or when one file is selected and navigation sync is enabled). When clicked:

  1. FileZilla download the remote file in a temporary location, just as it does now when editing a remote file.
  2. An external diff tool is opened (example, WinMerge for Windows) showing local file on the left and remote file (i.e. temporary downloaded file) on the right.
  3. FileZilla has not to worry about the changes we made in both directions using the diff tool: simply, when temporary file is changed by the diff tool, FileZilla will ask for upload, just as it does now when editing files!

Is that difficult to implement? I'm not familiar with C++ (I am more into C# and Java), otherwise I will help you!

comment:11 by Chris, 12 years ago

I'd also like to see this feature added... This is something that Adobe Dreamweaver can do and one of the only things I still use it for.

comment:12 by Lars, 12 years ago

Me too. I often develop code from multiple computers, and upload it to a single web site. It would be very handy to be able to launch a comparison tool to see which version of a file (local or remote) is newer, or if they even both have changes that I need to keep. I would probably launch WinMerge, which would then let me merge changes to the local file from the (local copy of) the remote file.

comment:13 by Attila Fulop, 11 years ago

+1 It would be very, very handy. And I think it would be easy to implement to pass the files to an external diff viewer (eg. meld on Linux) similarily to the remote editing functionality

comment:14 by postadelmaga, 10 years ago

+1 please implement this, make this program better, I love it but it is becoming a bit outdated !

comment:15 by Anthony van Orizande, 9 years ago

+ 1 for this feature. Even basic support for this feature would be greatly appreciated. Just allowing a download with diff would really be great. This request is 7 years old.

https://forum.filezilla-project.org/viewtopic.php?t=10824

comment:16 by Anthony van Orizande, 9 years ago

Keywords: File Diff added
Summary: Compare file contents with external programCompare file contents with external program (File Diff)

comment:17 by Anthony van Orizande, 9 years ago

At least three other tickets that I could find were created and closed as duplicates of this...

http://trac.filezilla-project.org/ticket/5065
http://trac.filezilla-project.org/ticket/7159
http://trac.filezilla-project.org/ticket/10174

Thanks

in reply to:  description comment:18 by Björn Ali Göransson, 9 years ago

Has this been commenced by anyone? (I guess not?)

Btw, TortoiseSvn also has a nice solution for this.

comment:19 by jan.zankowski, 7 years ago

+1

comment:20 by Jorge Ferreira, 6 years ago

Anyone still looking at this? This would be a great addition. I use ForkLift on OSX and i'm moving to Ubuntu and have not found any FTP client that i can configure to do a diff of local and remote files.

Forlift allows me to create custom actions and one of the actions i use the most is file comparison.

Please, could someone let us know of dev plans? Do they include this?

Thanks, best regards!

comment:21 by Gores, 4 years ago

I need this feature, too. Everytime when I see that a file is different on server and local, I have to downalod the file in a temp folder, start my Diff software, and open the local and the downloaded file in the Diff software. A new menu item "Compare file content" which automatically downloads the selected file on server and starts my Diff software with two parameters "local file" and "downloaded file" would be great and saves a lot of time.

comment:22 by jriley, 3 years ago

This would be a very handy feature. I have used FileZilla for many years and keep hoping that this will be implemented at some point. I want to quickly be able to right click a file and perform the diff.

Please consider this important feature request.

comment:23 by Oleg Braun, 3 years ago

I've registered to ask for that feature :)
It will make my developer life much easier.
Shortcut for this function would be also nice.

Please consider to implement this feature, if it is possible.
Thank you very much for what we already have - FileZilla you're doing great job!

Note: See TracTickets for help on using tickets.