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Comment by shiranaihito | Hacker News Reader

Well, in my experience IDEA gives you a "visual merge" when there are conflicts.

You have a three-column view with the local version on the left, the merge in the middle, and the changes on the server on the right.

Then you can pick and choose which changes to include and which ones to revert, and their locations are all marked with red and green colors on the sides (of the columns).

I assume that's what you meant, and I don't remember ever having to "opt in" for that functionality.

Btw, it's possible that the people on #java were all using Eclipse :)

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"You no understand" (c) The Italian Man Who Went To Malta

I'm not asking for a visual merge "when there are conflicts". I'm asking for a visual merge NOW; because I said so. Because if it fails to produce the said visual merge, it gets thrown off the window - exactly what's happened.

And it's more than visual merge; I also want a tree of files that have been changed, on both sides; and I want to look at diffs when clicking on them; and to choose what to update, what to commit. It's very much more than just a dumb commit all/update.

Nope, those people on ##java are really passionate about IDEA.

Well, apparently Eclipse has more functionality for this specific purpose. That may be enough for you to completely dismiss IDEA in a fit of self-righteous prejudice, but that doesn't mean IDEA isn't a better product overall.

You can choose specific files to commit or update in IDEA too, but I guess that's no good either if it doesn't happen exactly where you want it to.

Why do you want a visual merge even when there are no conflicts though? You could just edit out everything that shouldn't be committed, and then commit.

I'm not going to speak for ilyak, but some people (myself included, sometimes), want to see the results of a merge even when there are no conflicts, because we don't trust merges to always go right. There are occasions where subtle bugs can get introduced by botched merges.

Having said that, I'm way less disciplined than I used to be, so I've gotten so I just trust the merge. The mentors who taught me the ropes with version control systems would not be impressed.

> The mentors who taught me the ropes with version control systems would not be impressed.

Or maybe they've also realized it's not 1992 anymore.

It also probably has a lot to do with what kind of software you're developing. In my case, we were writing firmware for prototypes that cost over $2000 and were easily destroyed by bad code. That's bad, but not nearly as bad as code that could endanger human life or perhaps code that handles large financial transactions.

If you're just developing a web application or twitter client, it's probably not worth being so anal-retentive about it.

I was told that I should use Changes | Local and Changes | Incoming in IDEA.

If it really works (didn't check) then IDEA would be fine. Still I'd prefer these modes to be merged.

post your question on the intellij forum: http://www.jetbrains.net/devnet/community/idea/ideacommunity

and if it doesn't do what you want, I suggest writing a feature request. I have gotten quite a few features this way.

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