Last week I blogged about the new merge tool that understands your code and helps you fight the merge agony when working with multiple developers on a project.

Diff viewer

The semanticmerge tool doesn’t only helps you with merges, you can use their diff viewer to compare the changes you made on a file, or compare the changes you made against any version in you source control.

Setting Tortoise SVN options

To use their diff viewer we’ll have to tell Tortoise SVN witch files he have to compare. Right click on a folder and choose for ‘TortoiseSVN’ and then settings.

In the settings screen go to ‘External Programs’ – ‘Diff Viewer’. There you can set the path to the semanticmergetool.exe.

For the diff viewer we’ll only need to set 2 options. The ‘base’ file and the ‘mine’ file (where the changes are. The complete command:

Testing

After saving these settings in TortoiseSVN we can start testing. Open up one of your code folders and right click on a file you’ve changed.

Click on ‘TortoiseSVN’ – ‘Diff’ and wait a second for semanticmerge to come up. One of the advantages of the semantic diff viewer is that you immediately get an overview of the semantic differences on the left hand side.

You’ll see directly if parts are moved or changed. You can click on one of the changes and click on the diff button to only see that change.

Or you can click the launch diff tool so you can scroll through your file and see all changes. You still have the option to open the specific change in the overview.

Conclusion

I was already impressed with the merge tool an sigh but the also the diff tool has some advantages you don’t find in the basic Tortoise diff viewer.

DISCLAIMER: The configuration seems to be working on my system. I’m not 100% sure it’s the correct configuration. Use it on your own risk!