Add the possibility to resolve conflicts as they arrive

Feature Request
1

Hi there !
It would be great to have the possibility to manually resolve conflicts when they appears, meaning :

Let say I have few conflicts, upon syncing, I would like a window poping up (or a notification that would pop up the window) with the list of all conflicted file and the possibility, for each file, to either :

  • Resolve the conflict using the file stored on the server,
  • Resolve the conflict using the local file and push it to the server,
  • Keep both with a conflict file, as done at the moment.

Moreover, It would be nice to also have the possibility to apply those three options to every conflicting files at once.

Finally, a small interface which would find every conflict file in the local folder of a library would be a neat feature too :slight_smile:

Thanks for reading me, and best regards,
Julien Faucher

5 Likes
2

Hi,

I’m afraid this will make Seafile too complicated to use for most users. So we don’t have plan to add this.

3

Hi,

First, thanks for the feedback.
I would just add the point that at the moment, I think that the way Seafile handle conflicts is actually way more complicated than the mechanism that I am proposing, from a user point of view for few reasons:

  1. You don’t really know which files are in conflict when it arise, you may even not be aware that there is a conflict.
  2. You don’t really know if the file you are currently having is the one from the seafile server or the one on your computer before the conflict.
  3. It pollute your library content by potentially doubling (in extreme case, but I’m sure you get the point) the number of files.
  4. It is a pain to cleanup the mess afterward, particularly for a “casual” user who don’t have knowledge on scripting which would make easy to remove all conflict files.

I might be able to find more reasons, but those are the main ones.
A well designed interface which clearly state what “using local (and override server version)” and “using server version (and override the local version)” does, while letting the possibility to keep both version side by side, as currently done seems more clean to me.
IMHO, handling the issue of conflict files clearly and “properly” (as in “show that there is no big deal, we are in a known situation and we are in control of what is happening”) is really important as it is (still IMHO) the biggest issue with every synchronization system : the fear to break everything or to lose data on a conflict.

Anyway, Seafile is a great piece of software, but I’m convinced that this feature would be a great addition. :wink:

Best regards,
Julien Faucher

3 Likes