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Bug 321448

Summary:	Difficult to understand the Match Mode Dialog
Product:	[Modeling] EMFCompare	Reporter:	Ed Willink <ed>
Component:	Core	Assignee:	EMF Compare <emf.compare-inbox>
Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX	QA Contact:
Severity:	normal
Priority:	P3	CC:	laurent.goubet
Version:	2.6.0
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	PC
OS:	Windows Vista
Whiteboard:

Description Ed Willink

2010-08-01 02:46:58 EDT

Helios adds the Match Mode dialog, but unfortunately the dialog message is intelligible only to the developer, since it defines the internal perspective of the comparison algorithm.

The dialog would be more helpful if it described the user perspective. For instance, as a user, I might expect the options to be:

Shallow compare (comparing references without loading)

Deep compare (loading all referenced models)

I'm not sure whether that is what the two options are or not. I have tried both and could not always tell the difference.

Within those options, there could be sub-options.

Shallow: compare only fragments so that platform:/... and http:/... are the same.

Deep: locate referenced resources in local file system (my project) or target file system (CVS).

Comment 1 Laurent Goubet

2011-08-09 05:14:46 EDT

Ed,

This dialog is there as a clumsy "fix" in order to stay compatible with old version in which the "match mode" was "selected resource only". EMF Compare was initially contributed as a tool that was comparing one resource with one other. This mode implies that only the EObjects contained by the selected resources will be matched (leaving all others out of the scope), and it means we will detect false differences on the "out of scope" objects.

Users should "always" use the "complete resource set" scope in order to ensure the integrity of the model ... but we couldn't make that choice for them as it changes the "old" behavior, and induces a potentially important performance hit as we resolve the whole resource set of the selected model.

That dialog will most likely disappear in the coming version, I think that the "match scope" dialog will stay the same for now (better focus on removing this clumsy workaround instead of fixing its cosmetics).