Eckhard M. Jäger

Comparing files using gEdit

Monday, 16. June 2008, 13:23:12

gedit, external, compare, files, diff, meld, tools

At the moment i'm heavily on scripting various things and some times its needed to compare files. As a Winy i used PSPad which have an included comparsion tool. Now i'm on Linux using gEdit and i'd like to have such a nice workflow once i had using PSPad.
I found a very nice way using Meld. Meld is a graphical comparsion tool and will work very well as an external tool of gEdit:

1) Install the package "meld"
2) Start gEdit and opening the Menu "Tools > External Tools..."
3) Add a new external tool:
* Name: Compare Files
* Description: Compare then opened file with another
* Command:

#!/bin/sh 
meld $GEDIT_CURRENT_DOCUMENT_DIR/$GEDIT_CURRENT_DOCUMENT_NAME `zenity --file-selection --title=File for comparsion --filename=/home/` &

* Any othe roption is not interesting so press close
4) Now you have in "Tools" an menu entry "Compare Files" that will use the active document of gEdit and the other browsed file for comparsion

Happy computing

^Gimp2CSS

Comments

Anonymous # 16. June 2008, 14:23

angelys writes:

Hello,

I have meld installed.

I have an error :

/bin/sh: Can't open meld $GEDIT_CURRENT_DOCUMENT_DIR/$GEDIT_CURRENT_DOCUMENT_NAME `zenity --file-selection --title=Datei zum vergleichen

Exited: 512

Strange ?

area42 # 16. June 2008, 18:54

What kind Linux distribution? Is Zenity installed? Is you eternal tool command really

#!/bin/sh

meld $GEDIT_CURRENT_DOCUMENT_DIR/$GEDIT_CURRENT_DOCUMENT_NAME `zenity --file-selection --title=Datei zum vergleichen auswählen --filename=/home/` &

?

What happens when you try to start meld /path/to/file.txt /path/to/another/file.txt at the shell?

Anonymous # 16. June 2008, 20:11

angelys writes:

Sorry, i have put all on the same line :

#!/bin/sh meld $GEDIT_CURRENT_...

I'm under ubuntu hardy 64.
Zenity is installed (under gnome).
When i try to start meld @ the shell, all is working fine...

I have two css files opened in gedit and when i run the script, meld opens with an error > invalid arguments received > 4

area42 # 17. June 2008, 07:55

Hi,

at the first tries i get the same errors. Make sure that there are spaces just after meld, after $GEDIT_CURRENT_DOCUMENT_NAME and after ... home/`. Any space between will accept Meld as the next file.

Anonymous # 18. June 2008, 11:57

angelys writes:

It does not work.
But I will try to correct the problem.

For now, I especially look forward to seeing to see CSSdev :)

Thank you very much for your great job

Anonymous # 31. July 2008, 14:02

Giorgio Salluzzo writes:

Right script to take care of filepath spaces:

#!/bin/sh
meld "$GEDIT_CURRENT_DOCUMENT_DIR/$GEDIT_CURRENT_DOCUMENT_NAME" "`zenity --file-selection --title=File for comparsion --filename=/home/`" &

area42 # 31. July 2008, 15:25

@Giorgio

"" <- is a good idea

Thanx.

Anonymous # 13. May 2009, 19:10

Maeve writes:

Hi,

I first wondered why I don't have the "External Tools" Option. I added it at "Preferences - Plugins" for the case someone has the same issue.

Your instructions worked perfectly for me.

Thanks.

area42 # 13. May 2009, 20:26

There are tons of other usefull commands, check out the
External Tools Plugin Command Collection
http://live.gnome.org/Gedit/ExternalToolsPluginSnippets

Anonymous # 14. May 2009, 19:25

Maeve writes:

Thanks for the link I'll have a look.

Anonymous # 11. September 2009, 14:45

Andy writes:

Thank you for this useful tutorial.
This was exactly what I was looking for.
It works perfect on jaunty.

]andy[

Anonymous # 12. November 2009, 08:32

mat writes:

Thanks for the tip !! I have to work on linux for a while, this trick is really handy.