annotate help/a-35.html @ 706:345c12e02e3e

Further Linux build bits

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<h2>How do I use the Merge window?</h2>

<p>If you are working with other people on a project, it is likely that
at some point you'll find that more than one of you have edited the
same lines in the same file, in different ways.</p>

<p>When that happens and you try to merge the two versions, EasyMercurial
will pop up a merge window that looks a bit like this.</p>

<p><center><img src="images/merge50.png"></center></p>

<p>(This is actually a separate program, not part of EasyMercurial: it's
a merge tool called kdiff3.)</p>

<p>This looks a bit complicated, but it is there to help you pick which
of the changes from each of the two &ldquo;rival&rdquo; versions of the file you
want to use in your merged version.</p>

<p> <b>The top middle one is <i>your current version</i>.</b> That's
  the one you had before you decided to merge the other version into
  it.</p>

<p> <b>At top right is <i>the version you're merging</i>.</b> That's the other
  rival version &ndash; the one that the other person can see in their copy
  of the repository.</p>

<p> <b>At top left is <i>the common ancestor</i>.</b> That's the version that both
  of you had, before you started editing it in different ways.</p>

<p> <b>At the bottom is the output.</b></p>

<p>Each <i>conflict</i> (a line which you have both changed in different ways)
is shown with <b>Merge Conflict</b> in the output at the bottom.  To sort
out the conflicts and get the right output, you need to go through
them one by one, for each one pressing the A, B, or C button to say
whether for this line you want the top-left, top-middle, or top-right
version to &ldquo;win&rdquo;.  (You can choose more than one, if you want both
versions of a line to appear.)</p>

<p>Then having resolved a conflict, press the three-arrows-down toolbar
button to go to the next one &ndash; and when you've done them all, save
and exit.</p>

<p>The most important thing to remember is that <i>whatever appears in the
bottom pane is what you'll get as a result</i>.</p>

<p>No matter how confusing the process, just remember that if it looks
correct in the bottom pane, it will be correct when you save and
exit. You can even edit the file directly in the bottom pane if you
aren't happy with the way the merge is going.</p>