[Suggestion] Use clipboard and current selection to compare

[esquevin]

Seems to me that the flow could be simplified by using the clipboard buffer and the current selection to define text to compare.TextMate had this and it was awesome.

You select your first text by copying it, then you go to the second text and select it, finally you run a command Compare clipboard with selection

[ryu1kn]

Thanks for the suggestion.

In terms of the number of steps you need to compare 2 texts, it seems partial-diff is a bit simpler as it requires 1 step less. Once you select the 2nd text, it automatically executes the text comparison.

As for the clipboard, we could use it to get the first text from, but I'm not too sure if I like it. Isn't it nice that we can compare 2 texts without affecting the contents of your clipboard? I might encounter the situation where I want to compare 2 texts but don't want to overwrite the clipboard contents.

[esquevin]

I'd say that the simplicity is in the number of custom commands to remember / use. The way it's currently implemented I need to use 2 custom commands, the way Textmate did it only required one.

Not wanting to overwrite the clipboard content to do a diff do not seem a frequent case for me, and either way one that should be rather dealt with clipboard history which is a very different feature

[ryu1kn]

Ah I see what you mean. In TextMate, you highlight the 2nd text and do Compare clipboard with selection. I thought you highlight it and do "mark 2nd text" kind of command before you issue the compare command.

Yet I still don't find a strong enough motivation to change the current behaviour, and I kind of like the current flow better. I don't want to push (or hope) people to have a clipboard history if they find partial-diff overwriting the clipboard annoying.

Let me close this issue for now, if other people also prefer the TextMate way, I'll consider this again. Thank you for your suggestion anyway 👍