Friday, March 28, 2014

Suggestion for vim -diff behavior change

I've only really actively used diff mode recently (as opposed to using it as a visual diff tool). The default folding update on a change has led me astray more then once.

I've learned the workaround only today, zo and zc, but the auto-folding behavior seems to me to be a real UI issue. I believe that diff mode should:

* leave the initial folding alone (it's quite useful)
* leave the change markers in place (this is less important)
* but **not** refold.

In almost all diff resolution workflows I can imagine, we want to **review** the changes. Auto-folding assumes that we are omniscient and do not need to review.

With the change marker keys, ]c , [c , folding is less important. I can navigate to a change set, so an ocean of text on the screen is less important. I suppose if there is a **massive** diffset (in which case vim-diff may not be the best choice) then the auto-folding behavior might be the correct behavior. But for almost all the scenarios I've been using diff-mode, the initial folding is as noise free as it needs to be.

Keeping the change markers around also seems nice, as it facilitates review. Cycle through the changes with ]c and verify.

Is there a way to change this behavior? Does it seem doable in vimscript?

Anyways, it seems worth discussing. I'd like to hear any alternate views/approaches.

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