3.2 Other Session Commands

The following commands can be invoked from within any Ediff session, although some of them are not bound to a key.

eregistry

ediff-show-registry

This command brings up the registry of active Ediff sessions. Ediff registry is a device that can be used to resume any active Ediff session (which may have been postponed because the user switched to some other activity). This command is also useful for switching between multiple active Ediff sessions that are run at the same time. The function eregistry is an alias for ediff-show-registry. See Registry of Ediff Sessions, for more information on this registry.

ediff-toggle-multiframe

Changes the display from the multi-frame mode (where the quick help window is in a separate frame) to the single-frame mode (where all Ediff buffers share the same frame), and vice versa. See ediff-window-setup-function for details on how to make either of these modes the default one.

This function can also be invoked from the Menubar. However, in some cases, the change will take place only after you execute one of the Ediff commands, such as going to the next difference or redisplaying.

ediff-toggle-use-toolbar

Available in XEmacs only. The Ediff toolbar provides quick access to some of the common Ediff functions. This function toggles the display of the toolbar. If invoked from the menubar, the function may take sometimes effect only after you execute an Ediff command, such as going to the next difference.

ediff-use-toolbar-p

The use of the toolbar can also be specified via the variable ediff-use-toolbar-p (default is t). This variable can be set only in .emacs — do not change it interactively. Use the function ediff-toggle-use-toolbar instead.

ediff-revert-buffers-then-recompute-diffs

This command reverts the buffers you are comparing and recomputes their differences. It is useful when, after making changes, you decided to make a fresh start, or if at some point you changed the files being compared but want to discard any changes to comparison buffers that were done since then.

This command normally asks for confirmation before reverting files. With a prefix argument, it reverts files without asking.

ediff-profile

Ediff has an admittedly primitive (but useful) facility for profiling Ediff's commands. It is meant for Ediff maintenance—specifically, for making it run faster. The function ediff-profile toggles profiling of ediff commands.