Support external diff/merge tool

[kpowick]

Problem description

Build 1065 on MacOS 10.13.6

Sublime Merge does not support external diff/merge tools

Preferred solution

Allow Sublime Merge to launch a 3rd party diff/merge tool for any diff that Sublime Merge itself would show. I believe that almost every major Git client today offers this feature. Personally, I want to be able to use Araxis Merge with Sublime Merge.

Alternatives

None that I can think of.

[pvanb]

Adding Kaleidoscope to the list of requested external diff tools to support.

[rjelinek]

An alternative (or temporary/additional) solution would be to expose both selected commits. According to the documentation, only the full (or short) hash of the selected commit ($commit and $short_commit, respectively) is available currently.
With this enhancement we could set up a custom menu (e.g. Action.sublime-menu) to be able to send the diff to our external tool.

But the best solution would be to support external diff tools natively... I vote for Beyond Compare 4 😉

[jimon]

Just want to ask for one special treat please, which is diffable folders.

This is achieved via git difftool --dir-diff and works very nice with Beyond Compare. This workflow saved my butt on a few difficult merges (1000+ files).

[chrisjbillington]

@pvanb FWIW I'd like to use meld.

Though, since one can configure git-difftool, perhaps sublime merge can just defer to that and not try to have a list of supported tools? I guess it would be easier to set up if sublime did it for you. For me git difftool defaults to meld anyway even though I never set it up.

[rjelinek]

Though, since one can configure git-difftool, perhaps sublime merge can just defer to that and not try to have a list of supported tools? I guess it would be easier to set up if sublime did it for you. For me git difftool defaults to meld anyway even though I never set it up.

This is a good idea. If SublimeMerge could at least call git difftool/mergetool and support external diffing/merging through it, it would be great. Then we could just set up our preferred tool in .gitconfig by hand.

I ask the devs here: This ticket is rather old... What is the status of it? Is it on the backlog, or is it practically rejected?

[rokups]

There is no need to have a list of supported tools. What would do is a way to configure a diff tool command line, providing some parameters. For example SmartGIT allows to set diff tool binary as well as command line: "${leftFile}" "${rightFile}" "${baseFile}" "${mergedFile}" (conflict solver) or --lefttitle="${leftTitle}" --righttitle="${rightTitle}" "${leftFile}" "${rightFile}" (diff tool). These are parameters for beyond compare, but any other tool can be configured.

[jaxor24]

Would love some way to configure an external diff tool to be used (even using git difftool config). BC4 is core to my workflow. Can't justify a license until this feature is in.

[neonihil]

Any update on this? I'd love to use Araxis Merge's excellent 3way merge together with sublime merge.

[Codinablack]

I'm not sure about the external tools, but being able to "Import & export" diff files seems to be a feature missing from sublime that is holding it back from being the best git tool in the world (imo).

When I speak of "diff files" I am speaking of the ones github will generate for you, the same ones that are perfectly usable in Visual Studio (and other compilers/ide's).

From what I understand, that is what this feature is requesting right? If I am wrong, I will definitely create a brand new PR, as this feature is the best feature sublime merge doesn't have yet.