Directory Viewer color problem

In the Directory Viewer, a pair of exe/dll files have different colors, (e.g. red & grey,) according to Modified Time. But after I double-click to compare them in the File Viewer, they are now the same (grey) color in the Directory Viewer, and the inequality sign between them disappeared.
Is this by design? (Why so?) Or a bug? Or is there a setting for this that I don't know?

[chrroe]

Hi B2C!

In the first scenario BC has compared the files only by date and size. If the date are unequal the newer one is marked red.

When doubleclicking a pair of files BC loads them in the file-viewer and compares the content. If the files are considered equal and you close the file-viewer again, the result is given to the folder-viewer.

You can tell BC to compare files binary in the folder-viewer by default using the comparision-control dialogbox. But this is increases much more cpu- and disk-usage.


Hope this helps ...


Bye
Christoph

Thank you but... maybe I didn't make myself clear.

I meant:
The pair of files are really different. -- Different size, and contents indeed different in the file-viewer.

After doubleclicking, the file-viewer opened. When the file-viewer finished comparing, no need to close it, just go back to the folder-viewer. The pair are already in the same (grey) colour.

Later I found this behaviour was because of the rule named "All Files" when its "Character Set" was ANSI or DOS/OEM. If I set the "Character Set" to Unicode, the colors will be ok. And it seems this only happens on those file types that can only be handled with the "All Files" rule, such as *.exe, *.dll, *.chm, etc. Everytime after the file-viewer finished comparing a "relative" pair of such files with the "All Files" rule, the pair will turn into the same (grey) color in the folder-viewer. ("relative", I mean, the pair that have same name and are in the same row in the folder-viewer.)
What's more, now you press "Only Matches" button, these grey files will still be there, though they are NOT matches.

This also happens on *.txt with the "Common Files" rule. But *.log seems ok.

See the snaps:

Before:
http://img14.imgspot.com/u/05/133/23/BCbfr.gif

After:
http://img14.imgspot.com/u/05/133/23/BCaft.gif

[Chris]

The File Viewer is only meant to compare text files.

Because the File Viewer isn't meant to compare binary files, if it is interpreting the file as text, it is probably running into bytes that aren't valid ANSI character values that are causing problems. When you open files in the File Viewer it updates the comparison in the Folder Viewer based on the result of that textual comparison.

To compare the content of binary files in the folder viewer you're better off using the binary comparison criteria in Session|Comparison Control. To selectively perform a binary comparison, use the Actions|Compare Contents command.

If you're a registered user of BC, the best option to see content differences in binary files is to use the Hex Viewer plug-in at: http://www.scootersoftware.com/download.php?c=v2plugins

Thank you very much!