jQuery.PrettyTextDiff

A wrapper around Google's diff_match_patch library. Google's library is awesome and can be fine-tuned in multiple ways, but their API is a bit awkward, probably cause they support the same API in 8 different languages.

Also, the library does not provide any beautification of the diff-ed output. They provide a reference implementation (look for diff_prettyHtml in the API docs ) but recommend developers to write their own - and the given method is not customizable .

This library is an alternative to embedding 30+ lines of cryptic JS in your code. In short, it tries to bridge the gap between the awesome diff_match_patch library and a simple user-experience.

This blog post explains things in a bit more detail.

Demo

jsfiddle demo

Download

From npm.js.

Usage

First, include the libraries

• include jquery.js, diff_match_patch.js and jquery.pretty-text-diff.js in your page, something like:

<script src="/path/to/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/path/to/diff_match_patch.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/path/to/deal_override_requests.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Next sprinkle a bit of JS

• something like:

  $(selector).prettyTextDiff({
    // options
  });

Check out the customizable options below.

Optionally, style the diff

• Style <ins> and <del> as much as you want. A simple example is in the jsfiddle demo.

Customizable options

• Either mark up your HTML to use the default selectors, or use these options:

option	default	explanation
originalContainer	.original	CSS-selector for the element that holds the original text. $(elem).text() will be used to extract the text.
changedContainer	.changed	CSS-selector for the element that holds the changed text. $(elem).text() will be used to extract the text.
diffContainer	.diff	CSS-selector for the element where the diff will be put.
cleanup	true	Whether diff_match_patch's diff_cleanupSemantic() will be used or not. true will produce a human-redable diff, whereas false will be more to the liking of machines. See the demo for the effect.
debug	false	see some debug output in your browser's console
originalContentv1.0.4+	None	Pass the original content as a parameter in your JS file, instead of creating an element in your HTML code to extract this content.
changedContentv1.0.4+	None	Pass the changed content as a parameter in your JS file, instead of creating an element in your HTML code to extract this content.

Development

• Install node and npm (comes with node now)
• Install coffeescript and uglify: npm install -g coffee-script uglify-js
• cake build to produce the output JS (minified)
• Increment the version in the coffeescript (and compiled/minified) javascript source and the package.json file.
• git tag x.y.z
• Push: git push && git push --tags && npm publish

Contributing

• Fork this repo
• create a feature/bugfix branch: git checkout -b branch_name
• Develop
  • Just change the coffeescript source. When your PR is merged, I will generate the JS flavors and update the versioning.
• Push to your repo: git push origin branch_name
• Submit a PR

License

Copyright (c) 2013 Arnab Deka. Licensed under MIT LICENSE for details.