Compare with Previous Version

An IntelliJ-style Git compare for VS Code. Right-click a file and pick a Compare action to diff it against an earlier revision — the commit author, date and message are shown the whole time.

Features

Right-click a file in the Explorer, the editor, or an editor tab → Compare submenu:

• Compare with Previous Version — one click.
  • If the file has unsaved/uncommitted changes, diffs the committed version (HEAD) against your working tree.
  • If it's clean, diffs the previous commit against the current (HEAD) version.
  • The older side's author + date appears in the diff title; the full author, email and commit subject appear in the status bar.
• Compare with Revision… — opens a picker listing every commit that touched the file, each row showing the author, date, short hash and message. Pick one to diff that revision against the current file.

Both commands are also available from the Command Palette (Git: Compare …).

Git Blame annotations

Right-click the line-number gutter → Annotate with Git Blame (Toggle) (just like IntelliJ's "Annotate"). Each line gets an inline author + date annotation from git blame; hover a line to see the commit message, full author and short hash. Uncommitted lines show You · Uncommitted. Run it again to toggle the annotations off. Also on the Command Palette as Git: Annotate with Git Blame (Toggle).

While annotations are on, click any blamed line to open the File History panel (bottom panel, IntelliJ-style) — a list of every commit that touched the file, newest first, each row showing the author, date and message. The commit for the clicked line is selected and expanded automatically to reveal every file that commit changed (IntelliJ-style), each marked added / modified / deleted / renamed. Click a changed file to open its diff for that commit (parent revision ↔ commit) in the editor. Focus stays in your file so you can keep clicking line to line; clicking only triggers on mouse selection, not arrow-key navigation, and uncommitted lines are skipped.

How it works

A git-previous: virtual document provider streams git show <rev>:<path> into a read-only left pane, and vscode.diff renders it beside the live file. No files are written; nothing is staged or modified.

Run it

1. Open this folder in VS Code.
2. Press F5 ("Run Extension") to launch an Extension Development Host.
3. In that window, open any Git repository, right-click a tracked file → Compare → Compare with Previous Version.

Package / install permanently

npm install -g @vscode/vsce
vsce package          # produces compare-with-previous-0.5.0.vsix
code --install-extension compare-with-previous-0.5.0.vsix

Requirements

• git on your PATH.
• VS Code 1.75+.