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by anentropic 2045 days ago
The JetBrains merge tools are the best ones I've found!

I have it configured as my git mergetool

The only problem is it takes absolutely ages to start up, which is maybe a JVM thing

I wish there was a way to have git pass all of the conflicting files in a merge to the mergetool at once. Instead of having to wait for JetBrains to load up for each individual file and close after each one :(

3 comments

JVM apps can start in <100 msec, and IDEA has a 'lite' mode now where it's more like a text editor. That starts very fast.

IDEA is slow(ish) to start because it's an IDE so it's loading tons of plugins, a project database etc. Though actually recent versions only take a few seconds on my admittedly high end MacBook.

There's also some AOT options for the JVM to get a faster startup, along with -Xquickstart. I definitely agree with the "you're loading an entire IDE" statement.
I wish I could launch just the diff interface without all those plugins then

TBH I never got on with PyCharm and still use Sublime Text... but I keep PyCharm installed just for the mergetool!

That's what lite mode is. Check it out!
I do it the other way around, I let git write the default conflicting files. And then switch to IntelliJ, press Ctrl-a and type "resolve", press enter. And voila I am in IntelliJ's git resolution windows where each conflicting file is listed.
> I have it configured as my git mergetool

How are you doing this? I haven't seen any merge tool, let alone a standalone one, in the JetBrains toolbox. What am I missing?

You invoke it with "idea.sh merge <left> <right> <base> <out>". TBH, I don't think it's anything special; I've been using p4merge for years.