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Ellipsis in file comparison filename dropdown

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2017 4:20 pm
by David B. Trout
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At the top of each filename comparison's pane is the full path of each of the two filenames being compared. When the path is too long to fit within the width of the pane, an ellipsis is used to shorten the path such that the most important part, the filename, is always visible.

This is good! BUT...


Would it be possible to try to choose a bit more intelligently where the ellipsis is placed? ;-)


Foe example: suppose the two paths were:
  • C:\Users\Fish\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\Hercules\_GIT\_Fish\_BitBucket\_prometheus-0\scedasd.c
  • C:\Users\Fish\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\Hercules\_GIT\_Fish\_BitBucket\_prometheus-1\scedasd.c

Today (version 9.0), the ellipses are placed as follows:
  • C:\Users\Fish\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\Hercules\_GIT\_Fish\_BitBucket\_prome...\scedasd.c
  • C:\Users\Fish\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\Hercules\_GIT\_Fish\_BitBucket\_prome...\scedasd.c

Which I hope you'll agree is not very helpful!


What I would personally prefer is to truncate (replace with an ellipsis) the longest substring the two paths have in common, or if they have nothing in common, the beginning of the path and not the end.


If such a rule were implemented then almost identical paths such as the ones I provided would instead appear as follows:
  • C:\Users\Fish\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\Hercules\_GIT\_Fish\_BitB...\_prometheus-0\scedasd.c
  • C:\Users\Fish\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\Hercules\_GIT\_Fish\_BitB...\_prometheus-1\scedasd.c

Which I hope you'll agree is much more helpful!


Thanks for a great product that just keeps getting better!
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Re: Ellipsis in file comparison filename dropdown

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2017 8:45 am
by psguru
Unfortunately not possible (or, to be precise, very hard). ExamDiff Pro uses the DT_PATH_ELLIPSIS flag with the DrawText() Win32 API (see https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... s.85).aspx). So this behavior is provided by Windows and is consistent with other Windows programs.

On top of this, one could argue that sometimes the important part of the path is actually at the beginning, not closer to the end of it, so it's impossible to satisfy all scenarios unless both paths are compared themselves in order to determine which parts are to be made visible.

Re: Ellipsis in file comparison filename dropdown

Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 1:22 am
by JeremyNicoll
Remember that the whole value is visible in a tooltip.