comparison man/ediff.texi @ 90428:a8190f7e546e

Merge from emacs--devo--0 Patches applied: * emacs--devo--0 (patch 285-296) - Update from CVS - Merge from gnus--rel--5.10 - Update from CVS: admin/FOR-RELEASE: Update refcard section. * gnus--rel--5.10 (patch 102-104) - Update from CVS Revision: [e-mail]/emacs--unicode--0--patch-64

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@node Major Entry Points, Session Commands, Introduction, Top
@chapter Major Entry Points

When Ediff starts up, it displays a small control window, which accepts the
Ediff commands and two or three windows displaying the files to be compared
or merged. The control window can be in its own small frame or it can be
part of a bigger frame that displays other buffers. In any case, it is
important that the control window be active (i.e., be the one receiving the
keystrokes) when you use Ediff. You can switch to other Emacs buffers at
will and even edit the files currently being compared with Ediff and then

To be more precise, this toggles the check for whether the current merge is
identical to its default setting, as originally decided by Ediff.  For
instance, if Ediff is merging according to the `combined' policy, then the
merge region is skipped over if it is different from the combination of the
regions in buffers A and B.  (Warning: swapping buffers A and B will confuse
things in this respect).  If the merge region is marked as `prefer-A' then
this region will be skipped if it differs from the current difference
region in buffer A, etc.

@item /
@kindex /

the control frame.

To start Ediff with an iconified Control Panel, you should set this
variable to @code{t} and @code{ediff-prefer-long-help-message} to
@code{nil} (@pxref{Quick Help Customization}).  This behavior is useful
only if icons are allowed to accept keybord input (which depend on the
window manager and other factors).
@end table

@findex ediff-setup-windows
To make more creative changes in the way Ediff sets up windows, you can

@vindex ediff-ignore-case-option
@vindex ediff-ignore-case-option3
@vindex ediff-ignore-case
Finally, Ediff can be told to ignore the case of the letters. This behavior
can be toggled with @kbd{#c} and it is controlled with three variables:
Toggle case sensitivity in the diff program. All diffs are recomputed.
Case sensitivity is controlled by the variables
@code{ediff-ignore-case-option}, @code{ediff-ignore-case-option3}, and
@code{ediff-ignore-case}.

The variable @code{ediff-ignore-case-option} specifies the option to pass
to the diff program for comparing two files or buffers. For GNU

can be used, the user can set this variable to @code{t} to make sure that
Ediff uses faces to highlight differences.

@item ediff-highlight-all-diffs
@vindex ediff-highlight-all-diffs
Indicates whether---on a windowind display---Ediff should highlight
differences using inserted strings (as on text-only terminals) or using
colors and highlighting.  Normally, Ediff highlights all differences, but
the selected difference is highlighted more visibly.  One can cycle through
various modes of highlighting by typing @kbd{h}.  By default, Ediff starts
in the mode where all difference regions are highlighted.  If you prefer to

(setq ediff-current-diff-face-A
      (copy-face 'bold-italic 'ediff-current-diff-face-A))
@end example

@noindent
would use the pre-defined fase @code{bold-italic} to highlight the current
difference region in buffer A (this face is not a good choice, by the way).

If you are unhappy with just @emph{some} of the aspects of the default
faces, you can modify them when Ediff is being loaded using
@code{ediff-load-hook}.  For instance:

90428:a8190f7e546e

@node Major Entry Points, Session Commands, Introduction, Top
@chapter Major Entry Points

When Ediff starts up, it displays a small control window, which accepts the
Ediff commands, and two or three windows displaying the files to be compared
or merged. The control window can be in its own small frame or it can be
part of a bigger frame that displays other buffers. In any case, it is
important that the control window be active (i.e., be the one receiving the
keystrokes) when you use Ediff. You can switch to other Emacs buffers at
will and even edit the files currently being compared with Ediff and then

To be more precise, this toggles the check for whether the current merge is
identical to its default setting, as originally decided by Ediff.  For
instance, if Ediff is merging according to the `combined' policy, then the
merge region is skipped over if it is different from the combination of the
regions in buffers A and B.  (Warning: swapping buffers A and B will confuse
things in this respect.)  If the merge region is marked as `prefer-A' then
this region will be skipped if it differs from the current difference
region in buffer A, etc.

@item /
@kindex /

the control frame.

To start Ediff with an iconified Control Panel, you should set this
variable to @code{t} and @code{ediff-prefer-long-help-message} to
@code{nil} (@pxref{Quick Help Customization}).  This behavior is useful
only if icons are allowed to accept keyboard input (which depends on the
window manager and other factors).
@end table

@findex ediff-setup-windows
To make more creative changes in the way Ediff sets up windows, you can

@vindex ediff-ignore-case-option
@vindex ediff-ignore-case-option3
@vindex ediff-ignore-case
Finally, Ediff can be told to ignore the case of the letters. This behavior
can be toggled with @kbd{#c} and it is controlled with three variables:
@code{ediff-ignore-case-option}, @code{ediff-ignore-case-option3}, and
@code{ediff-ignore-case}.

The variable @code{ediff-ignore-case-option} specifies the option to pass
to the diff program for comparing two files or buffers. For GNU

can be used, the user can set this variable to @code{t} to make sure that
Ediff uses faces to highlight differences.

@item ediff-highlight-all-diffs
@vindex ediff-highlight-all-diffs
Indicates whether---on a windowing display---Ediff should highlight
differences using inserted strings (as on text-only terminals) or using
colors and highlighting.  Normally, Ediff highlights all differences, but
the selected difference is highlighted more visibly.  One can cycle through
various modes of highlighting by typing @kbd{h}.  By default, Ediff starts
in the mode where all difference regions are highlighted.  If you prefer to

(setq ediff-current-diff-face-A
      (copy-face 'bold-italic 'ediff-current-diff-face-A))
@end example

@noindent
would use the pre-defined face @code{bold-italic} to highlight the current
difference region in buffer A (this face is not a good choice, by the way).

If you are unhappy with just @emph{some} of the aspects of the default
faces, you can modify them when Ediff is being loaded using
@code{ediff-load-hook}.  For instance: