Side-by-Side Settings

A Sublime Text plugin for viewing default and user settings side by side in a new window. It also works for key bindings and plug-in specific settings, making it much easier to configure Sublime Text.

Installation

There are two options for installing this package:

Package Control (Recommended)

Side-by-Side Settings is available via Package Control. If you do not have the Package Control plug-in installed in Sublime Text, you should! Simply follow these instructions to install it. Once it has been installed, search for and select Side-by-Side Settings in the Install Package command window.

Git Clone

You can also clone this repository into your Sublime Text Packages directory using Git, if you feel so inclined. If you do use Git, make sure to clone using the appropriate folder name of Side-by-Side Settings (so that the menu items work as expected). Here's an example git clone command using SSH:

git clone git@github.com:jgbishop/sxs-settings.git "Side-by-Side Settings"

Usage

Side-by-Side Settings adds three new commands to the command palette:

• Side-by-Side: Select a File - Opens a panel displaying all of the .sublime-settings and .sublime-keymap files in the Sublime Text environment
• Side-by-Side: Sublime Settings - Opens both default and user Sublime Text settings side by side in a new window
• Side-by-Side: Sublime Key Bindings - Opens both default and user Sublime Text key bindings side by side in a new window

Select a File Command

The “select a file” command opens a quick panel that displays all of the .sublime-settings and .sublime-keymap files that Sublime Text knows about (note that files located in the Packages/User directory are filtered out of this list; more on why it does this in a second). When a file in the quick panel is selected, it becomes the “left” panel in the comparison window. The “right” panel will contain the corresponding user settings file, typically located in the Packages/User directory (hence why files in User are filtered out).

Side-by-Side Settings tries to do the correct thing depending on the file you select in the quick panel. If the file you select is a platform-specific settings file (e.g. Default/Preferences (Windows).sublime-settings), the corresponding user file that gets opened will be Preferences.sublime-settings (in the Packages/User directory). This is due to the fact that platform- specific files in the User directory are ignored by Sublime Text. Likewise, if you select any .sublime-keymap file, the appropriate platform-specific .sublime-keymap file in the User directory will be opened.

Default Keyboard Shortcut

By default, the key-chord Ctrl+K, Ctrl+S is bound to the “select a file” command. If you wish to bind any of the commands to a different key, here are the internal command names to use:

• sxs_select_file
• sxs_settings
• sxs_key_bindings

Here's an example key binding:

{ "keys": ["ctrl+k", "ctrl+p"], "command": "sxs_settings" }

Plug-in Settings

Side-by-Side Settings currently supports the following plug-in specific settings:

filter_platform: When enabled, platform specific files that do not match your current platform are filtered out of the files shown in the file selection panel. Defaults to true.

hide_minimap: Specifies whether the minimap should be displayed or not when opening a side-by-side session. Defaults to false.

open_in_distraction_free: This option allows the side-by-side window to open in distraction free mode, essentially resulting in a full-screen window. This option defaults to false.

Reporting Bugs & Suggesting Features

If you spot a bug in this plug-in, or you have a feature request, please open an issue over on the issues page at GitHub.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to the following folks:

• Jeremy Bolding for providing several plug-in suggestions.
• Ben Felder for suggesting the filter_platform option.