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by u801e 2061 days ago
True, I suppose most people use Gmail or one of the other major email providers through a webmail interface. I haven't been able to get Gmail or Hotmail to display threaded messages the way they're displayed in Thunderbird and they tend to display messages using a variable width font.

In that context, reviewing code would be difficult, if not impossible, to do via email.
2 comments
h0l0cube 2061 days ago
It is one advantage to mailpatch though. A lack of vendor lock-in means you can view the patch using whatever application you want. And there's room for a better mailpatch viewer, if anyone could be bothered to make one.

I'm guessing one disadvantage is the method of diff is hard-coded into the patch. It would be good to switch to word-diff, or ignore whitespace, but I'd imagine these could be applied as transformations on the generic format.

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u801e 2061 days ago
> I'm guessing one disadvantage is the method of diff is hard-coded into the patch. It would be good to switch to word-diff, or ignore whitespace, but I'd imagine these could be applied as transformations on the generic format.

The plugin I use in Thunderbird can switch between unified, context, and side-by-side diff views based on the same email. Adding the transformations you mentioned could be done.

But one limitation that email has over other review tools is the lack of ability to expand the view of the context within the client. The only way I could think of is to have git format-patch generate the diff with the entire context included and then have the client limit the display of that context. But that not have a reasonable fallback for those using clients that aren't capable or configured to do that.

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izietto 2060 days ago
Which plugin are you using? it seems life-changing to me
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u801e 2060 days ago
This is the one I'm using: https://github.com/Qeole/colorediffs. I installed it several years ago, so I'm not entirely sure whether you can install it on a current version of Thunderbird, but it is still working with my installation.
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basicexploit 2059 days ago
I might try it out as well! Thanks for it.
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eru 2060 days ago
That should be an easy problem to fix:

Just send out email in HTML format with the code portions set to fixed width font and syntax highlighting already applied. Should display just fine in GMail.

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u801e 2059 days ago
> Just send out email in HTML format with the code portions set to fixed width font and syntax highlighting already applied

That won't work because people actually download those email messages and apply them to their local repository with the git am command and they also expect to be able to reply to the email inline when commenting on a patch. Also, for mail clients that don't support HTML rendering, it would be much more difficult to read or respond to an HTML email.

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eru 2058 days ago
I would assume you'd sent both a text message and an HTML message?
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