"Batteries Included" windows installer

[Steve Borho]

On Wed, 2007-08-29 at 11:30 +1000, Bela Babik wrote:
> > * Many new mercurial users are coming from, or already working with SVN, so
> > they are likely to already have TortoiseSVN installed (and a familiarity with
> > it's tools).
> 
> Or they may use CVS and doesn't have TortoiseSVN installed. (By the
> way I prefer SmartSVN, because it's the same on Win/Linux/Mac.)

SmartSVN looks nice, but it's not open source so I have to reject it for
my purposes.

> > * TortoiseSVN also provides a ssh client, reducing the required app count to 2
> > (csdiff and kdiff3 both require separate installs)
> 
> csdiff and kdiff3 are just single executables, no install required.

I was thrown off by their installers which cram a lot of files in their
install directory.  I'll give these a try in their standalone state and
see how they hold up.

> > * Kdiff3 has a very busy interface, and I think it can confound new users.
> 
> It have a filelist and a diff window. Not more complex than any other.
> The main difference is that the file list window doesn't disappear by
> default when comparing files (which behaviour can be changed).
> It's a bit ugly application but easy to use and really powerful, which
> is important on more complicated merges, where an enough good solution
> doesn't help too much.
> 
> > * I tried to use csdiff but I couldn't figure out how to make it do a three
> > way merge or the "change selection" feature that qct needs.  TortoiseMerge
> > can perform both tasks, if a bit clumsily.
> 
> It's just a file diff, not suitable for merges.

qct just needs a tool that will merge individual patch hunks into a file
(change selection).  Most two-way diff tools will do this, but I wasn't
able to figure out how to make csdiff do it.

> > I have to admit I haven't used TortoiseMerge for very long myself, what do you
> > think is deficient about it?
> 
> I have used it for 1-2 days 4 months ago, so I can't mention any
> concrete problems with it, but I remember that my expectations were
> high (it's part of a widely used package), but it was pain to use.
> 
> I can recommend Winmerge too, if you would like a more Windows user
> friendly one.

If kdiff3 works well in standalone, but doesn't do the change selection
properly, I may revisit WinMerge again for that feature.  If I ditch
TortoiseSVN, I'll also have to bundle plink or some other ssh client.

Thanks for the feedback.

-- 
Steve Borho <steve at borho.org>