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planned
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Ross Binkley
Please add the ability to view diffs between particular revisions of a document.
Currently, you have to look through each revision one by one to see what changed between two particular points in time. It would be great to be able to view all of the changes that were made to a document within a particular range of revisions at once, as can be done on Wikipedia or almost any wiki-style site.
The user should be able to select two particular revisions from a document's history. The user would then be shown a diff of the document between those two revisions with all changes made in any revision between those two highlighted in the document.
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Justin Hunter
Update on this one for everyone! We have a few different designs we're considering. We have not begun work on this, but I'm moving the status to Planned because this is a big win for everyone. Here's an example of one of the designs we're considering. Would love feedback from everyone!
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Justin Hunter
Justin Hunter
planned
Justin Hunter
Update on this one for everyone! We have a few different designs we're considering. We have not begun work on this, but I'm moving the status to Planned because this is a big win for everyone. Here's an example of one of the designs we're considering. Would love feedback from everyone!
R
Ross Binkley
Justin Hunter: The interface looks good to me! Just to double-check, though, the drop-down at the top of each side of the comparison window does allow you to select an arbitrary revision on both sides of the comparison, right? So that you can compare the differences between any revision and any other revision?
Justin Hunter
under review
Justin Hunter
Thanks for the suggestion, Ross Binkley! As we consider this, I had a quick follow-up question:
How would you like the diff to be presented? There are a couple of options that immediately come to mind: Github style code diffs and Microsoft Word track changes diffs. Obviously the second one is more aligned with Docs, but I'm not sure if it's the best and would love your feedback.
R
Ross Binkley
Justin Hunter: As someone who deals with code all day, my personal preference would be for something more like what Wikipedia or Github uses, where additions, removals, or modifications are highlighted and long sections of unchanged comment are clipped from the diff view.
I personally tend to prefer side-by-side comparisons, as in Wikipedia or TortoiseMerge (a freeware Windows tool for comparing and merging source code changes,) but a single view as in Github or Word would also be fine.
The primary important factors for me, though, are:
- That it be able to display and highlight all of the combined changes that happened between any two selected revisions and
- That it have a quick and easy way to skip from one modified portion of the document to the next. This could be accomplished either by omitting large unmodified sections from the view entirely or by providing buttons that jump to the previous or next change in the doc.
As long as those two conditions are met, whether it looks more like Word with change tracking or Wikipedia or Github doesn't really make a lot of difference to me personally. I suspect users who are less familiar with dealing with code would probably prefer a view that looks more like Word's change tracking than Github or Wikipedia, though.
Matthew Eshleman
agreed. Or a way to export to word/pdf with redlines between two revisions would be wonderful.