Alternate diff tool not firing from gitk for Windows

Question

I have git cli and gitk working fine.

I use Beyond Compare as a diff tool, and configured git via the steps I found here.

I can see that these commands kicked in here:

But when I use the "Diff" options shown in this menu, nothing external fires. Gitk just operates as always.

I found this in Preferences, and set it to the beyond compare binary, but also no change in behavior.

I always fully exited Git GUI after making these changes. But the diff behavior never changes.

How do I get Beyond Compare firing?

Answer 1

Well, the answer is... use a different git gui....

I tried a couple. Landed on Sourcetree, which easily allows Beyond Compare to be triggered, and supports the standard ctrl+D hot key to fire a diff.

I still don't understand why these guis don't allow me to multi select any two commits and do a diff via external diff tool. (Perforce is just sooooo much better... git is just so loosely structured it makes me crazy.)

Answer 2

Right click a file path in the bottom right view. Choose External diff.

This will open the currently selected diff, which is shown in the bottom left view, in your configured diff tool.

The option Diff this -> selected changes the selected diff, but does not automatically open it in a separate program.