How to merge?

[jasimon9]

I have owned UltraEdit for years, but have rarely found it useful. The reason is because I cannot find documentation on how to use it effectively.

Today I wanted to use it to try merging, and I don't see how to do it. The help explains the micro details, but not the overall picture.

I only want to merge specific lines. I am assuming that somehow the lines should be marked. Then click on a merge function should do it. But I don't see how to mark lines.

It would help if there were "how-to's" or mini tutorials on such subjects.

While I am sure UltraCompare is powerful, I have never found out how to access this power.

[Mofi]

Are you talking about UltraCompare Profressional or UltraCompare Lite published with UltraEdit?

UltraEdit Compare Lite does not support merge of changes - see UltraCompare Professional vs. Lite or read in help of UltraCompare Lite the page UltraCompare Versions (Contents - Getting Started).

[jasimon9]

UltraCompare Professional, v4.10a.

All my comments about "untapped power" pertain to the Professional version. I have not found accessible instructions on how to use it, so I only have used it trivially, and then use my other tools and IDE to do the heavy lifting.

[Mofi]

First you must activate View - All.

By default the block mode merge is active. In this mode you can only use for example the toolbar icons Go to Next Difference and Go to Previous Difference and merge the current block with Merge First to Second, Merge Second to First, etc.

If you want to select individual lines in different blocks for merging, you have to enable the Line Mode Merge in menu Merge or with the toolbar symbol left the "Save Merge Changes" (disk) symbol.

Now you can select the lines by clicking with the left mouse button at a line and using Shift and Ctrl like when selecting files in Windows Explorer to select a range of lines (Shift) or select/unselect individual lines (Ctrl).

After you have selected the lines in first OR second file, select with a single left mouse button click the line in the other file (side), where the selected lines should be inserted before of after this line.

So with this method you can for example select in file 1 (left side) the lines 8-20, 25 and 30 and insert these lines in file 2 (right side) before or after for example line 50.

You cannot replace a line in the other file with the selected lines. Simply select after inserting the lines you don't need anymore and press the key DEL to delete the selected lines.

See also the power tips Editing files in UltraCompare and Block and line mode merge.

[jasimon9]

First of all, where is this procedure explained? It would seem like there has to be a simple explanation documented somewhere.

Second. I have tried it as you explained and it does not work for me. After selecting lines in the source file, when I try to "select with a single left mouse button click the line in the other file (side), where the selected lines should be inserted before of after this line." nothing happens.

Then if I try to use the context menu to "Merge Second to First", what happens is that lines are not inserted, but rather they overwrite the existing lines, contrary to what you say.

Because UltraCompare is such a well-established and refined product, I am sure the problem is with what I am doing.

However, if I had this experience with any other software, I would consider it poorly implemented, poorly documented, and not usable.

Yes, I am a newbie, because I have only been a professional software developer since 1973.

[mwb1100]

Yup - line mode merge seems a little buggy (or at best, very poorly documented).

In line mode, the 'non-advanced' merge commands (the ones without 'before' or after' qualifiers) act only on the first line of any selected range, and the operation simply replaces the line in the target buffer with the line in the source. If this is how the command is intended to work, it seems less than useful to me.

It seems to me that using the 'advanced merge' commands ('before' or 'after' variants) works for the most part (with the minor detail that the merged lines do not have a different background as the documentation states should happen).

The block mode merges seem to work OK for me. (UC Pro 4.20)