Question

I’ve just started using Meld. I’m using its Version Control Diff feature and its working well, except that it doesn’t seem to use the .hgignore file.

The tree I’m working in is huge, but I only mercurial-track a small portion, so Meld is taking a loong time to scan the entire tree, 90% of which I could care less about.

I’m using Meld 1.6.0, which doesn’t appear to allow the user to manually select the VC type, so I’m forced to start the compare in the directory containing the .hg sub-dir.

Is there a way to get Meld to use the .hgignore file or perhaps override Meld’s default VC choice?

Answer 1

I think you should do “the other way around”, that is:
configure mercurial to use meld as its “external diff” tool, utilizing “extdiff” extension.

NOTE: All of the above has been tested in UNIX-like environment

1. in ~/.hgrc enable “extdiff” extension by adding to [extensions] section:

   [extensions]
   extdiff =

2. add this below:

   [extdiff]
   cmd.meld = # if meld is not in your path, you may need to type in here the absolute path to the script

3. Save ~/.hgrc file.

Now, Then a new hg subcommand shall be available to you.
Enter the hg repo folder, in terminal:

user@machine:~$ cd myrepo
user@machine:~/myrepo$ hg meld

That would spawn meld properly, respectful to .hgignore, mercurial respects itself )

For GUI trickery, you may hook this up to context menus of your favourite file manager:
1. Linux: you may to dance with the Shaman’s drum a bit more, but TortoiseHg respects extdiff extension.
1. Windows: TortoiseHg does this automagically
1. Mac: no idea how to do this to Finder :), maybe AppleScripting will be needed here.

Regards.