Linux text editor with integrated diff

Question

I'm looking for a GUI text editor with an integrated diff feature. I'm used to Notepad++ on windows and its diff plugin. Now I am using a Linux machine and I can't seem to find something similar.

I have tried:

• Notepadqq which has most (if not all) the features of Notepad++ but it's lacking on the plugins side and doesn't have a diff plugin yet.
• Geany has a diff plugin but apparently it works only for files under version control.
• I heard there's a way to integrate Kompare with Kate but I can't seem to find a step by step instructions to do this.
• I already use Atom and Eclipse but I use those for my javascript and Java projects, respectively, and with all the plugins I have installed it's kinda heavy. I'm looking for a lightweight text editor I can open in little time.
• I have tried to run Notepad++ on Wine but as soon as I use the compare Plugin it crashes.

I know I can use Kompare or Meld but i'm not looking for a compare tool, I am looking for a text editor which could help me compare files whenever I need. I use those applications already when i have to compare many files at once, also those diff tools miss most of text editors features i need, such as code highlight, various text operations (indentation help, newline conversion, change encoding....).

On top of that sometimes I need to compare pasted text without saving files, so I open two new documents on Notepad++ and then paste the text I need to compare there.

I am using Linux Mint with KDE.

This is how the Notepad++ plugin works on windows:

1. Open 2 files (in case more than 2 files are open, the compare plugin will use the one just right the current file)

2. Use the compare plugin

3. It starts a split view with a classical diff interface showing removed lines, added lines or lines that are slightly different

Answer 1

Adding to @ivanivan's answer, when I opened Meld (version 3.22.0) I found out that there is an option in the welcome screen called Blank comparison:

It turns out that this does what the question is asking about, that is, perform a comparison on the fly. Here is a comparison example of latex text and the revised version by ChatGPT:

Answer 2

It's a bit heavyweight, but you could use Eclipse and its "Compare With... /Each Other " feature.

You can edit inside both panels (syntaxchecks are disabled then), and re-compare

There are many other comparison options (compare with git HEAD, compare with Local History, etc)

A screenshot is attached.

Answer 3

If you take the *nix approach and have a tool that does one job, and does it well, and glue your tools together you can do it. :)

In Geany (yes, I see you tried it...) you can set custom build commands. No version control plugin or actual VCS to worry about.

On my Mint desktop system, I just installed meld - use whatever GUI diff tool you want, it just needs to take the 2 file names to compare as arguments.

In Geany, click on the Build menu, then click Set Build Commands. Down towards the bottom, in the Execute section click an empty button and create a new command/action - label it as "Diff tool" or whatever you like.

For the actual command , enter

/usr/bin/meld "%f" "`zenity --file-selection`"

This will call my installed meld, giving it the open file in the current window as the first argument, and launches a zenity file-picker dialog to let you pick the other file. Once you've selected the other file, it calls meld with both filenames/paths as arguments.

Since you are using KDE you can replace the zenity call with something native to KDE if you'd rather...

Answer 4

CudaText also has a plugin called Differ to compare files.

This plugin does not work the same way as notepad++ compare plugin: here Differ can compare only content of files not content of tabs.

Install notes:

• on linux, the path of python must be manually set in users.json, as mentioned in default.json (Options -> Settings-Default)
• to install this addon select Plugins -> Addons Manager -> Install from GitHub: enter URL