BC3 "Editions"

[Tim]

At this point, we're planning on releasing separate "regular" and "pro" editions of BC3. This will allow us to keep the price down on a BC2 replacement, while offering advanced features for a bit more. I'll post our tentative pricing info later on.

Here's a rundown of the significant features we've planned for 3.0:

Regular Edition

Virtually all BC2 functions
Full-screen editor with syntax highlighting, dynamic re-comparison, and undo after save
Dedicated folder sync sessions
Flattened folder compare
Full Unicode user interface and filename support

Pro Edition
3-way merge
Other miscellaneous advanced features

Please be aware that the above is subject to change!

[BretSutton]

Your "virtually all" phrasing seems to imply that some functions will be moved from the standard version to the pro version...

I logged on to ask about 3-way merging. Guess I don't have to. :)

[Tim]

Your "virtually all" phrasing seems to imply that some functions will be moved from the standard version to the pro version...



Mainly I was covering myself in case some BC2 feature was dropped, or changed enough to be unrecognizable. ;)

It's our intention that you can accomplish the same tasks with BC3 Standard as you can with BC2, plus a lot more.

In addition to 3-way merge, a few other new features may end up in the Pro edition only.

My only complain about BC2 is FTP. I know that you don't make the FTP DLL, but you must consider doing it, because is the only thing that keep your product from being perfect.

You must know that BC2 became unstable using FTP (cancelling sessions, etc)

Eduardo
Beyond Compare evangelist

[Chris]

Hello Eduardo,

Thank you for the suggestion. We are working to improve Beyond Compare's FTP performance.

In our recent releases, we're using the SmartFTP library by default. If you had better luck with earlier releases, you can switch back to the old FTP library in the FTP>Advanced section of Beyond Compare's Tools|Options dialog.

[steven11]

Hi,
I'm quite new to BC, but what is bugging me a bit is that it's comparison speed is a slower than WinMerge, which I used before. When I opened two files in WinMerge, it immediately showed me the differences. BC sometimes needs a bit more time. But atm I'm evaluating it and it looks good besides that ;-)

mfg Steven

[Chris]

Steven,

Thanks for the comment. Beyond Compare does quite a bit more than WinMerge, so that might explain some of the difference.

However, we consider performance very important, and I know all the guys on our development team work pretty hard at squeezing performance out of BC.

[nperis]

Hi all,

We've been using BC for years and are big fans. I think most days I use it more than even Windows Explorer.

There are 2 suggestions I made a while ago which I'm now wondering whether they could be included in BC3:

1)In the Browse for base folder dialog, FTP Site tab, could we remember FTP adresses?

2)In the main window, could Language be added to the list of items that can be set to display like you can add Extension, Status, Version etc.

[Chris]

1)In the Browse for base folder dialog, FTP Site tab, could we remember FTP adresses?

I agree a quick list of FTP addresses will be useful, this is on our wish list.



2)In the main window, could Language be added to the list of items that can be set to display like you can add Extension, Status, Version etc.

I'll add this to our wish list for a future version of BC.

Thanks for the compliments and suggestions.

[Tim]

Your "virtually all" phrasing seems to imply that some functions will be moved from the standard version to the pro version...



One BC2 feature that we plan to move to the Pro edition is source control integration (SCC). It's a better fit there, and a better place to expand the support.

Can I hope that in the 3 release I can find the really useful 'grep' function ?
I continue to have the necessity to display in the BC window ONLY the files containing a specific string.

Cla
P.S. I'm a registered user.

[Tim]

I would really like to get a grep filter in 3.0, but since we're running behind on development it was taken off the immediate "must get done" list. So, it might not make it in until 3.1.

As a long term user of BC2 a few things i think would be really great in version 3 (apart from the 3way merge which im looking forward to) are:

- Multiline edit mode. When you do find you need to do some editing of a file while diffing etc, accomplishing it line by line can be painful. Putting BC into a multiline edit mode would allow you to edit etc as normal (essentially lie notepad), then when yo ugo out of multiline mode it can re-diff the files etc and go back to normal

- passs through filter based on extension. Sometimes when you use a SCC system it only has the ability to specify a SINGLE diff tool. It would be great to setup pass through so that certain files (based on extension) could be passed to another external diff tool which knows how to diff them. Having a BC2 filter or plugin isnt always possible, so it would be good to actually spawn a call to an external diff tool in some cases

[Chris]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Mult-line editing will be in Beyond Compare 3.

A pass through filter isn't in our current development version of BC3, but we'll consider adding it.

I think we will have Open With functionality similar to what is in BC2 in BC3.

<ul type="square"> Full-screen editor with syntax highlighting, dynamic re-comparison, and undo after save[/list]
Careful with that one. We use a different product before we were introduced to BC that allowed full screen editing. We had several cases where a file was modified by inadvertently hitting a key. Because the file was also willingly modified elsewhere, the "Save?" dialog when closing the file was not enough to raise a flag that something when wrong. An explicit shortcut to enter full edit mode, or be able to disable this behavior altogether, would be nice.
<ul type="square"> 3-way merge[/list]
Woohoo!!!
<ul type="square"> Other miscellaneous advanced features
[/list]
Any chance of having patch support (file on left side, load a diff and show modified file on the right) for this version?

Keep up the good work. BC is amazing! We are a corporate user with 10+ licenses are are looking forward to upgrading to BC 3 Pro.

[Chris]

In BC3 it will be possible to switch between line mode (like BC2) and full editing mode.

I'm not sure if full patch support will make it into version 3.0, but it is something we would like to add at some point in the future.

What about adding a feature to keep the creation date when copying data within a windows enviroment. Right now the creation date is transferred with the copy. this is a feature of the robo copy command which I would like to see integrated into this software.

[Chris]

Thanks for the suggestion. Preservation of file creation dates is on our wish list, but I'm not sure when it will make it into a release of Beyond Compare.

How about copying NTFS/unix file ACLs? This is one of the things that keeps taking me back to ROBOCOPY when I'd MUCH rather be working with BC!

[Ernie]

That should be an option. If copying from one computer to the other, user/group permissions may not be the same on both systems.

[Chris]

Copying permissions (NTFS) is in the current version of BC (2.4.3), although it still has testing status at this time. You'll have to turn it on with a registry tweak. Details are at: http://www.scootersoftware.com/support.php?c=kb_ntfs.php

As far as I know, the above test code for copying permissions isn't in our current BC3 private beta. We would like to include better integrated permissions support in the future, but I don't know what specific plans are for it.

Dealing with Unix permissions is also on our wish list, but we don't have anything specific planned for when we might have support.

[LiquidL]

Can I hope that in the 3 release I can find the really useful 'grep' function ?
I continue to have the necessity to display in the BC window ONLY the files containing a specific string.

Cla
P.S. I'm a registered user.



We'd also find this a very useful feature.

It would be nice to be able to associate a note with individual sessions. That way one could be reminded of special processing or other session-specific information that may be required. I know there is the ability to have pre/post processing, but notes would still be nice.

Thanks,
Xavier

It would also be nice if you could generate a script from a selected session. That would make the creation of scripts much easier to create, modify, and update.

Xavier

[Chris]

Xavier,

Thanks for the suggestions. Notes for each session, and generating scripts from sessions are both on our wish list for the future.

[drxenos]

Hi. I just purchased BC. If I has known a new version was imminent, I might have waited. Will there be an upgrade discount?

Thanks,
DrX

[Chris]

Yes, we will offer discounts if you have a version 2 license. We'll post official upgrade information when we get closer to a release.

We plan to offer upgrade protection (free upgrade to BC3 standard for a 1 user license) for 1 year after a BC2 license purchase. After 1 year, we'll discount the cost of a BC3 standard license to half price.

[drxenos]

Excellent! Thank you.

I use BC2 to sync files between a FTP server and my machine.
It's a "wide" (>60 sub-dir on first level) directory structure, about 3-4 deep (sub-dir) at most, with a large # of files (approaching 300,000 files.)

I would like to see BC3 support multi-threaded FTP session (SFTP would be even better.) I would like to see the multi-thread support such that directory listing request are done in multiple threads to speed up the time in need to just get the directory list, as well as multi-thread WHEN syncing files.

It would be best if the number of threads of the above 2 can be separately controlled via options. (For example, I can see myself using 8 threads for directory list update and maybe 2-4 threads for syncing files.)

Thanks! Keep up the good work.

[Chris]

Thanks for the suggestion. Running multiple file operations at once is on our wish list.

In the current version, if your FTP server supports it, checking "-R" for recursive directory listings in the FTP>Advanced section of Tools|Options can help speed things up.

I guess the real question is when do you expect to have BC3 available? From reading the history, it looks like I should expect to see Betas sometime very soon. Please?

Jason

[Chris]

BC3 adds quite a few new capabilities, and new features take time to develop and test.

We're in private beta testing right now, with a plan to release sometime this year. I'm not sure of our exact development timetable, but it might be a few months yet before we release a public beta.

[alexloe]

@ Chris

Could you take a look to post #7580 ? Would be great if this feature would be in BC3.

[PhilAlanThompson]

If I purchase BC2 now will I be entitled to a free upgrade when BC3 comes out?

[Tim]

Yes. You'll qualify for a free upgrade to BC3 Standard, or you can get BC3 Pro for the difference in price ($20). This assumes we'll release BC3 within 18 months of your purchase, but that should be a safe bet. ;)

[arie]

The running log at the bottom of the screen is helpful, but it would be even better if the app wrote a detailed log to the hard drive.

[Chris]

In Beyond Compare 2, you can save the log file by right clicking on the log pane and selecting "Save to File".

You can also have the log written to a file all the time by selecting View|Log|Write To... from the menu.

Couple of small requests,

This one might sound silly, but often I want to compare my entire disk, to itself, as a binary compare. This tests my hard drive for basic readability and can find files which have problems. Right now, if both sides are the same, the compare is not done. Seems like a simple solution. I'd want the binary to actually read each file twice and verify that it got the same results each time. Even better would be an option to bypass the file cache so it was a true double read.


When doing a full refresh, or starting a full compare, I often can't figure out where it is. How about a current directory in the status bar.

For those that want sftp, I have found that webdrive along with BC is a great combination. Webdrive is a bit pricey, but lets me mount a network (virtual) drive which is actually supported by sftp. I used to use the bitvise tunnelier, but webdrive is much easer to use.

Then along with filebox extender, I use BC on my linux directorys, and filebox extender can remember my favorite directories, often 8 directories down in a linux tree.

Waiting for the 3 way merge. I've used kdiff3 but it gets a bit confusing when doing the actual merge. And it doesn't have the nice BC options of diff, diff w/context, etc.

[Chris]

There isn't a way to do a binary compare of a disk to itself in the current version.

Instead, save a snapshot of a drive with saved CRC values. Use the Actions|Save Snapshot command.

Once you've saved a snapshot, set BC to use CRC as the comparison criteria and compare the snapshot to the drive. This should give you a reliable indicator of any content differences on the drive.


When doing a full refresh, or starting a full compare, I often can't figure out where it is. How about a current directory in the status bar.


Is there a problem with the path displayed in the left and right base folder path edits? If you click on a subfolder, it will display the path in the left and right path edits. Are your paths too long to fit in the path edits?

Xavier, Thanks for the suggestions.
Notes for each session, and <font color="red">generating scripts</font> from sessions
are both on our wish list for the future.


How far away ist your future from the present? :mad:
in WHiCH version you'll implement this long awaiting and really, really essential feature?

[Chris]

Recording scripts is on our feature request list. At this point we haven't added it to our development calendar, so I can't say when it might be available in Beyond Compare.

Although we'd like to add wish list features right away, we have limited resources. We only have 5 full time employees. Right now our developers have their hands full with getting version 3 ready for release, with the main new features 3-way comparison and in-line editing. Once version 3.0 is released, we'll evaluate our list of feature requests for later 3.x releases.

Recording scripts is on our feature request list. At this point we haven't added it to our development calendar, so I can't say when it might be available in Beyond Compare.

Although we'd like to add wish list features right away, we have limited resources. We only have 5 full time employees. Right now our developers have their hands full with getting version X ready for release...


THAT's exactly the same answer/promise you has given more then a year before ;--(((

[Chris]

Sorry, but this is the reality of limited resources. We receive far more feature suggestions than we have time to implement, and because of this it can take a while for a request to make it into Beyond Compare.

If you need help writing a Beyond Compare script, please post in our Scripting forum, or send an email to support@scootersoftware.com and I'll provide some suggestions.

The features of the Pro-Edition seem very interesting. Is there already a rough estimation of the release date for version 3?

Thanks,
Michael

[Chris]

We're hoping to release sometime in 2007, but we haven't set a more specific release date yet.

So I guess we are not talking about a release in the near future (in Q1), but rather Q3 or Q4 when you are just saying in 2007 :confused:
I hope I am wrong 'cause I really need a descent 3-way merge tool (compared to the ClearCase one) and I really like BC.v2

[Chris]

Sorry, the official release definitely won't be in Q1. We're still in private beta right now. When we get to a public beta, I imagine we'll test for at least a few months before we have an official release.

[tomtrias]

Maybe it's a little late in the game, but here's my $0.02 regarding a couple of desired features (beyond the aforementioned merge / 3-way compare):

* The ability to save a single file comparison as a session

It may seem silly, but there are single files that I check frequently for modification, and it would be handy if I could just select those comparisons from the session manager.

* An analogue to "Align Manually" for folder comparisons

I know I can choose "Compare To...", but it doesn't just align the folders, it changes the top-level comparison; I'd like to be able to move around the folder comparison without resetting the top-level comparison.

Thanks

[Chris]

Version 3 will allow you to save a comparison session of a single pair of files instead of just folder comparison sessions like in BC2.

Align manually for folders isn't in our current development build, but I'll add it to our feature request list.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[esalkin]

Some of the tweaks are really useful. Manually editing the Reg is a pain and inherently risky. How about an "Advanced" section under options?

[Chris]

We use tweaks for features that only apply to a very small number of users or for features that we are testing. If a tweak turns out to be stable and usable by a wide audience of our users, then it eventually makes it into a configuration dialog.

[ontracanoer]

I realize this is probably late in the development cycle, but I have a couple of requests for v3 (maybe they are already there):

1) We use BC for code reviews. What seems to be missing is a way for reviewers to add comments about the code, w/o having to modify the code. Perhaps something like a discussion can be implemented within BC such that users can add comments to lines/chars/selections that are maintained in a seperate file and even on a dedicated server or share. Providing a way to quickly see with files have been commented on would also be useful.

2) I would be nice if the file differences report had an option that allowed you to show white space. For example, I would like to see for unimportant differences that a tab character was replaced with space characters, etc.

[Chris]

Greg,

Thanks for the suggestions.

1) I'm not sure if commenting will make it in or not at this point, but I will pass on the suggestion to our development team.

2) Reporting hasn't been completed for BC3 yet, so showing whitespace in reports might be a possibility. I'll pass this request on to the developers.

As long as the two files have the same name, you can save the file comparison as a session. Just enter the specific name under the "By Name" tab. You'll still have to click on the file in the directory-comparison listing, but that's only one click, and only that one file is shown in the directory compare.

Or, you can skip the session altogether, and simply run BC right from your editor. I've made such menu entries as "Compare to Server", "Compare to Checkout", etc., and the editor generates a BC command that contains the proper filenames. The BC file-compare window (not the directory compare)pops up, and it's cool. I can even edit the file in either the BC window or my editor.

[BretSutton]

I didn't mean to be anonymous on that last post...

I have just recently come up with a need that BC could serve. Perhaps just a simple additional filter but I need to weed out filenames longer than 80 and paths longer than 250 or 255 (selectable please). The reasons are more than obvious why this is so necessary these days.

I have another need as well although I'm not sure how well this could be integrated but I've bought TheUndelete just to handle the occaisional boo-boo that our wonderful MS OS no longer gives us tools to deal with. It would be great if we could see those ?Files. in a directory and revive them, however much is left of them. Perhaps just another filter?

[Chris]

Thanks for the suggestions. It isn't possible to display deleted files using the current version of BC.

It might be possible to do some filename length filtering using the current version, but it isn't easy.

As an example, here's a filter to only display filenames that are 4 characters before the extension or less:

?.*;??.*;???.*;????.*

The character ? matches any single character. Available filename filter wildcards are listed in the File Filters > Filtering by Name section of BC's help file.

We'll consider display of deleted files and simple filtering based on filename length for a future version of Beyond Compare.

[Rockeiro]

I'll look forward to the possibility of seeing that in future versions then.

Thanks! :)

BC3 adds quite a few new capabilities, and new features take time to develop and test.

We're in private beta testing right now, with a plan to release sometime this year. I'm not sure of our exact development timetable, but it might be a few months yet before we release a public beta.



Hi,

If it takes that long before we see BC 3, can you please meanwhile recompile the current version so that it supports unicode file and folder names? I'm quite happy with functionality present in BC 2. But the lack of unicode support is a big issue.

[Chris]

Sorry, we probably won't add Unicode filename support to BC2. From what I understand it wouldn't be a trivial project.

For the most recent information about when version 3 might be available, see the recent post by our company president, Tim.

http://www.scootersoftware.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=general&Number=8053

[jho1965dk]

Hi Tim

Thanks for a great product I am looking forward to BC3

You say
* ..., dynamic re-comparison, ...

I know it is a bit late, but be care full with this one
I once evaluate a 3-diff product with this feature and if the difference are not trivial it can do more harm than good (due to the dynamic re-comparison I actual switch back to BC2).
The problem is that you need some way to distinct differences that relates to already edited code (i.e resolved) from differences that relates to not yet edited code. (In the previous mentioned product you had only the cursor position to rely on and that was simply not enough)

br Jens

[Tim]

JensO,

Thanks for your comments! Our dynamic recomparison in BC3 is limited to the line being edited -- it does not affect the alignment of other lines.

If you would like to try this out, please send me an email at support@scootersoftware.com.

My other favorite app, FileLocator Pro, added the ability to set the number of separate search threads used (eg. you can have N number of simultaneous threads searching for files).

Does BC2 (or will BC3) provide that kind of control over how many separate threads are used for doing comparisons, or is it already pretty efficient at allocating resources internally for that purpose?

- Tim

[Chris]

Tim,

BC2 and BC3 are both multi-threaded already. They don't provide a user configurable setting for the number of threads to be used.

When copying a file, BC only copies a single file at a time, but an option to run multiple copies at once is on our wish list for a future release of BC.

Two part question:
1) Will BC3 have a feature to right click on a file / directory to select a "custom" script / external program run?

Use case: If we are merging / syncing a file, we might wish to first check it out of the repository first prior to merging it. I would expect that the script and external program would have the path and file name passed to it.

2) Will BC3 start supporting revision control software tools?

[Chris]

Yes, both of these will probably be included in version 3.

You can already do both of these in BC2.

1) In BC2, the command to run an external program is Actions|Open With. To configure programs for this command, go to the Open With section of Tools|Options.

2) You can configure BC2 as an external diff tool for many version control systems, and if your version control system supports the SCC API, you can also check-in and check-out files from BC. See our the Version Control Overview post in our forums for details: http://www.scootersoftware.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=5603

if your version control system supports the SCC API, you can also check-in and check-out files from BC.



The one exception is with the Microsoft Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider. Although BC recognizes this SCC provider, viewing a Source Control folder mapped with it causes BC to error. This has already been documented as a bug and I've offered to assist the Scooter team in trouble-shooting the problem since they do not have a TFS environment to test in.

[scooman]

I've been using BC2 for years and it's a great product.

Here's a BC3 edition suggestion though - how about an edition that can run off a USB key (external disk) without any host PC footprint? I persuaded my last project to buy BC as I found it so useful, but not all machines have it and it can't be installed even if I had licenses. I spend a lot of time transferring files and it's really annoying when I come across a machine without BC. So I'd definitely pay for a USB Key editions license!

Thanks again for a great tool,
scooman

[Chris]

It is already possible to run BC2 off a USB flash drive. Instructions are at: http://www.scootersoftware.com/support.php?c=kb_removablemedia.php

[gadgeteria]

Are the plugins being revisited for v3? I've been asking about a problem with the MP3 viewer on and off since SEPTEMBER 2004.

http://www.scootersoftware.com/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=2100&page=0&vc=1

I can't say money is no object, but the existing features are nice when they work, and I'd be willing to pay for the plugin separately if the features are fleshed out a bit. (Suggestions in the same thread as above.)

[Chris]

Inspector_Gadget,

The plug-ins will be updated for BC3.

Again, I'm sorry for the problems with the mp3 plug-in, but so far you're the only user that I remember reporting being unable to play mp3 files in the plug-in. My guess is that this is related to some update, driver, or setting relating to Windows Media Player, but I'm not sure what the exact problem is.

Looking into this is still on my todo list, but my todo list is pretty full these days so I'm not sure when I'll have time to investigate it further.

When will BC3 with 3-way compare/merge be available?

I have been begging/waiting for this for a couple of years. Can I buy a license for BC3 Pro version now and get the pre-release version?

[vladsch]

Previous post was mine. :) Did not realize that I was not registered or logged in.

[Chris]

Vladimir,

We aren't selling Beyond Compare 3 licenses yet. We're hoping for a public beta of BC3 in the third quarter of this year.

Please add ability to do change attributes (chmod) for FTP files/folders

[Chris]

Thanks for the suggestion. Support for CHMOD is on our wish list to include in a future release.

[gadgeteria]

The plug-ins will be updated for BC3.

Sounds good -- thanks. (Sorry for the delayed reply.)


Again, I'm sorry for the problems with the mp3 plug-in, but so far you're the only user that I remember reporting being unable to play mp3 files in the plug-in. My guess is that this is related to some update, driver, or setting relating to Windows Media Player, but I'm not sure what the exact problem is.

That's very possible. But since it's been more nonfunctional than functional over a period of 2-2.5 years, with huge chunks of the OS being changed via Windows Update (and other system/driver updates) during that time, it's hard to imagine that something else has been messed up all that time. Not impossible, but it seems unlikely. It's more likely that the playback is doing something nonstandard, because other stuff works. Still, since nobody's even looked into it, we don't know whether or not it might even be something as simple as changing a registry entry.


Looking into this is still on my todo list, but my todo list is pretty full these days so I'm not sure when I'll have time to investigate it further.

That's why I'm being a pest, though, lately -- it's like, since I've been asking since 2004, what the heck does it TAKE to get on up the to-do list?! Fair is fair, and I really have been quite patient. The plugin is part of a product I've plunked down my cash for, and the "no time" thing has to have a limit somewhere. If it's gonna be fixed for a Q3 beta I'm willing to shut up and wait some more, but I really hope three years will be long enough to take a look at it...

[Chris]

Have you tried installing the Mp3 Viewer on a different computer? Have you reinstalled Windows on your computer since the problem started?

[gadgeteria]

Thanks, Chris -- but I don't have a different computer. I could try it in a virtual one, but I dunno how that would help, since the viewer does indeed work under some (or even most) installs. Windows, no -- same version of XP Pro the entire time.

[jarcand]

So what's the ETA for BC3?

I've been itching to buy BC, but I don't want to buy it if I'm going to have to pay for an upgrade as soon as BC3 comes out. Is there a policy or a time period for when the upgrade to V3 would be discounted/free?

[Chris]

Our current estimate is that we're hoping for a public beta sometime in the third quarter of this year, with an official release towards the end of this year.

[Chris]

We will probably post official upgrade policy when we reach public beta for Beyond Compare 3, probably sometime in the third quarter of this year.

Tentatively, if you purchase a single user license for BC2, you'll have 18 months of free upgrade protection to BC3 standard. If you want to upgrade from BC2 to BC3 pro within the 18 month upgrade window, then you'll just have to pay the price difference between BC3 standard and pro.

If you have a BC2 license that is outside the 18 month window, then we'll probably offer a half price purchase of BC3 standard.

Please note that this is the tentative upgrade policy. We'll probably have official upgrade and pricing information posted when we release a public beta.

[maumoon]

Sorry, not sure where else to post this.
Please please please please please add SSH/SFTP support to BC3.

With the security push, mainly due to SOx (Sarbanes-Oxley), all our Linux servers are locked down and allow SSH/SFTP access only. I can no longer compare use BC to compare live to testing / testing to dev, as well as comparing versions on our locked down source code revision / nightly build servers etc.

I know you say use FTP to SFTP pass through products but to get those up an running everytime to the correct servers is a real pain (and most good ones are commercial).

I've finally got SO frustrated that I'm looking at the competition and were BC was miles ahead the competition is catching up, and while they are slightly more expensive it isn't a lot.

I'm really a big fan of BC and would hate to have to switch.

[Chris]

Maumoon,

I discussed this with our lead developer, and he is starting to work on SFTP support. It might be available in BC 3.0, or it might be in one of the following 3.x releases.

[arizonien]

This is my #1 must have for BC3. My company used to be private but now has been bought by a public one. Maybe you could offer it only in the pro version or even as an extra add on.

[maumoon]

Chris,
Regarding the SFTP support, that is brilliant news!!! Thanks. :)
I really hope it makes it into BC 3.0.
Regards
maumoon

If you get SSH and SFTP working, we will be extremely impressed... not just really really impressed like we are now. Built-in secure connections will greatly expand the usefulness of BC.

SSH and SFTP are quickly becoming necessary features due to regulations, corporate policies, and increasing security awareness by users in general. It's got to go in, really, and the sooner the better, I say. (Especially since I don't have to code it all ;)

Does it currently look like SSH and SFTP will make it into BC3.0?

I'm another BC user who would like SSH/SFTP support.

Also, I do have a real use for 3-way or 4-way merge. I use roboform to keep passwords and contact data and I have 4 different PCs. Roboform creats a new file for each password / form / contact data / note. Currently, what I do is I have ftp server running on each computer, and when I want to sync them up, I designate one of the computers as the master and then sync up with each of the other 3 one at a time. Then, once the master is complete, I then push the composite cahnges back to the other 3. If I could do a 3-way or 4-way merge, then I should be able to accomplish this faster.

Thanks for a really useful program. It exudes quality, and has made some folder comparison tasks very easy over the years.

[Chris]

Thanks for the interest in SFTP support. It is still too early at this point to say if SFTP support will be in BC 3.0 or in one of the following 3.x releases.

[Chris]

Limejuice,

Thanks for the suggestion and compliments. Right now we're just working on 3-way merge for BC3.0, but we'll consider other merge scenarios for the future.

[Chris]

Our company president Tim just gave me an update on SFTP support. He said it is our intention to include SFTP support in BC 3.0. We're still hoping to release it towards the end of this year.

Check out Bitvise Tunnelier. They have a nice FTP-to-SFTP bridge as part of their SSH client. It works well with BC2.

http://www.bitvise.com/tunnelier

Their WinSSHD product is the best windows based SSH server I've used.

[gmooresrg]

We're a long time BC-shop. We've used it completely streamline sync of central content and disaster recovery. Here are my feature requests:

1. Total Bytes Transfered in logs - It would be helpful to have a byte count at the end of the logs generated by BC scripting that indicated how much data was transferred to each side of the compare as a result of a Sync operation.

2. Duplicate Folder Structure - A function that would allow users to duplicate a folder structure, but not the files contained within.

3. Move-aware Sync - Sync that knows if a file was moved and rather than deleting and re-syncing the moved folder, simply repeats the move command on the out-of-sync side.

4. Offline Sync - Most useful for taking documents on portable media. Sync that works like Windows Offline Folders, without the 2GB limit. (i.e. How Siber System's Goodsync works). The most helpful function here would be to enable users to restructure a folder system offline and then sync changes back to the original fileset. I can explain this more in depth if necessary.

[Chris]

Greg,

Thanks for the suggestions.

1. I'll add a bytes transferred count to our wish list.

2. It is possible to duplicate folder structure using BC 2.4.3, but it is complicated. Making it easier is on our wish list for the future.

In the current version, load a folder comparison. Set the filter to "-*.*" to filter out all files. Select Actions|Synchronize Folders|Custom Sync. In the custom sync dialog, check "Create empty folders" and pick "Update Target on Right" for the type of sync.

This will copy the folder structure without copying any of the files.

3. Detecting moves is on our wish list.

4. We're working on improved syncing for BC3, and it might include something like this. Thanks for the suggestion.

[driden]

I've been asking for the ability to suspend file copies/moves etc. since version 1.? Is there any chance this is going to finally happen? I've been told in the past that it is on the board for the future but I'm beginning to give up hope. :(

The other thing I've wanted forever is the ability to see how fast the data is transferring. This would help in deciding what the best method is (USB, FireWire, FW800, eSATA etc.) is for doing the transfers. Often, interfaces do NOT live up to their billing. For instance, firewire is often faster tha USB 2.0 even though it is not supposed to be.

I love BC but it would be much more useful if it had these two features.

[Chris]

Thanks for reminding us about both of these features. They are both still on our feature wish list because we would like to add them at some point in the future, but I don't know if they'll make it into BC 3 or not.

Check out Bitvise Tunnelier. They have a nice FTP-to-SFTP bridge as part of their SSH client. It works well with BC2.

http://www.bitvise.com/tunnelier

Their WinSSHD product is the best windows based SSH server I've used.



Thanks for pointing this out. It works GREAT!

Dax

[jouni]

Hi,

Just want to add my voice requesting SSH/SFTP support. I need to manage our company website material remotely and have only sftp access.

Another request: you mentioned somewhere detecting "moved" files and folders. Would it be possible to detect also "renamed" stuff?

Cheers,

--jouni

[Aaron]

We are currently testing integrated sFTP support in version 3.0.

Renamed and moved files is in our wishlist, but probably will not make it into the 3.0 release.

[mrg]

As someone who is not a big fan of Windows scheduler, I'd like to see an integrated scheduler in BC 3x. . I wonder if the development effort could be minimized by writing a wrapper around Windows scheduler. Users wouldn't have to leave BC to schedule a script. The "wrapper" would hide Windows Scheduler and automate steps like program selection and command-line parameter entry. Not a critical feature obviously, but it would be a welcome convenience.

[Chris]

MrG,

Thanks for the suggestion. We are discussing a wrapper for the Windows Scheduler that would run from within BC as a possibility for a future version of Beyond Compare.

[mrg]

Thanks for considering it. I just ordered 6 licenses at work. The integrated scheduler would make life a little easier when managing multiple instances.

[ecroutha]

Is there a potential release date for BC3?

[Aaron]

There is no firm date for the release of bc3. It is currently in private beta testing, with a planned public test later, and will hopefully be finished and released near the end of this year or early 2008.

We'll be sure to announce in the Announcements forum when such events take place, and as we get better date information. Check back later. :)

[ecroutha]

Great, thanks. Was just looking for a ballpark idea because I have a need for a new feature that appears to be coming in BC3.

BTW... longtime user... awesome product.

[xtabber]

I second this request.

[Jamil]

Three-way comparison and merge is important enough for me to consider upgrading to the Pro version of BC3.

However, XML merge and comparison is at least equally important, if not more so. BC2 currently does not handle comparison and merging of XML files very good.

Here's an example of what I mean--

Take the following XML files that exists all on a single line:

File 1:
<main><data>1</data><record>a</record></main>

File 2:
<main><data>2</data><record>b</record></main>

If I compare these two XML documents, I may need to merge just the text of record and not of data. Unfortunately, BC2 does not parse XML to provide an option of doing this.

Any plans to provide this functionality in BC3 Pro?

Thanks.

[Chris]

Jamil,

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm not sure if it will be released at the same time as 3.0, but we are working on an XML comparison plug-in. It will be more powerful than the XML Tidy add on in BC2.

[tcpulley]

Any chance that support for Zip64 will be added to BC3?

[Aaron]

Updating our compression library is on our To Do List. It is a fairly large project to undertake, so we will be working on version 3.0 first.

For now, though, we won't be supporting zip64. We hope to include it (and other formats) in a later version.

This is great news! I use BC to compare & merge XML files a great deal, and this would be a welcome feature to the new version.

[dr_barnowl]

You should try the new and improved XML Tidy (Sorted Attributes) rule which goes some way towards improving the circumstances.

[Jamil]

I have version 1.0.2 of the HTML Tidy script installed.

Things I would like to see in BC3 that this script in BC2 currently does not provide:

* The XML file started as well-formed but with no line breaks. I would prefer that it remain that way even after making changes.
* The XML file started as NOT well-formed. I would prefer to receive an error stating this without modifying the XML in an attempt to make it well-formed.

[Aaron]

Our rule calls a tidy executable for it.

Here is the documentation: http://tidy.sourceforge.net/#docs

You can open the Tools->Options->Rules and edit the Tidy rule you want to change. Click to the Conversion tab and you can change the command-line call there.

We probably won't be changing the default behavior of Tidy, but we encourage customization (create a clone of the rule and play with it).

If you run into any trouble, let us know (I would suggest creating a new thread in the Beyond Help section), or email us at support@scootersoftware.com

Aaron,

When do think there will be support for zip64? I have been waiting on this feature for awhile now. It will be very beneficial to my work.

[Chris]

Tyler,

We still don't have a date set for when Zip64 support will be available. Adding support for Zip64 (and updating our archive support in general) is still on our todo list.

No idea if this has been mentioned before or not, but an auto-update feature would be nice. I don't have the time to check the site constantly to see if there is a newer version out. Have the program notify you and allow you to update.

[Marjolein Katsma]

In some programs I like this, in others I don't... best implementation I've seen is to allow the user a choice:

Check for new version:
o at every program start
o once every month
o never

And combine that with a menu item "Check for new version" (usually under the Help menu) to check on demand.

[Chris]

Gomjh,

Thanks for the suggestion. Our developers are looking into auto update support for version 3.

Mr. Chris,

There are two features that I will look forward to have in the next version :

1. In folder comparision there is a feature to see only :

Right side new
Left side new
Right side orphan
Left Side Orphan etc. etc.

In the File Comparision there is naturally no such option, however it will be nice if Right side Orphan and Left Side orphan option is there for File comparision also.

2. I use Beyond compare as a BackUps maintainance tool also. It will be nice if there is version or feature so that we can use it as a full fledged BACKUP maintainance tool.

Regards

Sanjiv Bansal

[Chris]

Sanjiv,

Thank you for the suggestions.

1. It is possible to filter on orphans in the File Viewer. From the menu, select View|Toolbars|Component. This will allow you to select to only display orphan lines on the left or right.

2. Can you be more specific about what backup features you would like to see in Beyond Compare?

Thanks, Mr. Chris.

Your reply help me find the option for ORPHANS in the file viewer. however, I noticed that file viewer does not have DROPDOWN as option in View|Toolbars as we have in folder view. Since, I find BC to be a very well organised software, there could be reasons for not having DROPDOWN option here - however it would have helped in discovering this feature easily for new users, had dropdown option been there.

Regarding the features of BACKUP, I use BC to take backups of my computer. I may not be able, efficient to be able to provide more of details at the moment, however it will be nice if there is a software from ScooterSoftware that works as a full fledged backup maintainance utility. BC is already doing most of the jobs efficiently.

Regards

Sanjiv Bansal

[Chris]

Sanjiv,

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll pass these on to our developers for consideration in a future version of Beyond Compare.

[sitary]

Hi,

I'd like the ability to click on a opened folder (with a "Only Mismatches filter in effect) and have Copy confine its actions to "only effect visual files" (setting for Sync Options). Or enhance Sync to work on a folder level rather than the whole session. The way BC works now I need to highlight the out-of-sync files and then click Copy.

Thanks!

Simon

[Chris]

Simon,

You can change the way sync operates so it will only sync the currently selected files/folders. Select Tools|Options. Go to the Sync Options section. Check "Just Selection".

I would like a set of default filter and comparison settings. For instance, when I perform a right-click comparison, I would like BC to expand all folders with differences and show only mismatches. So I guess a more elegant way to say this is that just as these settings can be saved for any given session, it would be handy to have default settings for any adhoc type of comparison.

[Aaron]

You can currently do this in BC2 under Session menu->set default.

This will save the current display filter/file filter/comparison control settings as the default.

Expand subfolders when loading session (and Only expand subfolders with differences) are options under the Comparison Control.

Couple of questions.

BC3 was slated for release this year - as we are now well into November I guess it will not be out until well into next year now :( :(

It also appears that the major developments are going into a more expensive pro version - surely this means that anyone wishing to take advantage has to pay more money.

Wouldn't it be better (especially as BC3 is delayed) to offer the pro to all people with a valid upgrade (say purchased within the last year), with new people having to either buy the standard or pro versions.

Thanks.

[Chris]

Our tentative release date right now is the first quarter of 2008.

The features included in the pro version (three way merge, version control integration), are features that aren't likely to be used by home users. Development of these features isn't a trivial undertaking, so rather than raise the price for all BC users, we're splitting it into two products. This way you're only paying for the features you use.

Some major new features that will be in BC3 standard include Unicode filename support and a tabbed interface.

How will the pricing scheme look like on the pro-version.
Will it be a factor 2, 10 or 100 compared to todays pricing?

[Chris]

Our tentative pricing scheme for a single user license is $30 for BC3 standard, and $50 for BC3 Pro. We will offer discounts for volume purchases starting at 5 or more users.

We will post a full price list and upgrade information for BC2 users when we release a public beta of BC3.

If I pay the upgrade fee now, can I help test?

Thanks, Tim

[Tim]

If you are a registered BC2 user and are really anxious to test the BC3 beta, send me an email at support@scootersoftware.com

Hi,

Could you publish your wish list and tick in this list the features that are intended to be released in BC3 ? Thanks.

Best regards,

JB MAHE

[Rockeiro]

I have another suggestion for a feature that is easily incorporated into BC2. Wouldn't it be great to have a file append and file split function?

SFTP support! Please...

[IbnSaeed]

Can I get the beta version ?

[Aaron]

SFTP support is something we are working on for version 3. :)

[Aaron]

We will be posting a more comprehensive list of BC 3.0 features in this forum. If you read through this entire post, you will find many features mentioned that are not in the initial post. We hope to re-organize and display that list in an easier, concise way.

[Chris]

Ibn,

If you are a registered Beyond Compare 2 user, send an email to support@scootersoftware.com for beta information.

[Aaron]

If I understand the suggestion correctly:
File Append = Add More text to the end of a file?
File Split = Take a section of text out of a file and put it in a new file?

BC3 will offer full-pane editing mode (like notepad). So you should be able to easily paste text at the bottom of a file, or cut text out of it and place it in another file.

[IbnSaeed]

Just sent an email.

[Chris]

Rockeiro,

Can you describe in more detail what you would like split and append commands to do?

Do you mean having an option for File and Folder Reports to append to an existing report file?

How would you like a split command to work?

Can I buy version 3 pro cross platform version (linux / windows) now? Even if I have to use the current version until the new version is released?

[Tim]

In general, no. But if you are in a "need to buy before the end of the year" situation, you can email me at sales@scootersoftware.com

[bryand7]

I would like to see support for comparing files that are (usually) all on one line - like JavaScript.

I see two ways to support this:

1. have a 'virtual line termination' character like ';' - this would work great for JavaScript and many similar file types.
The file would be displayed and compared as if there were newlines at each ';' character.
For visualization and diff only (read only) this is all you would need to do so this would be very easy to implement.

If you want to support editing and saving the file that has been displayed with virtual newlines, then there is more work - so do that separately/later.

To support editing and saving a file displayed with virtual newlines, you would need a way to visually distinguish a virtual newline from a real newline and the ability to edit and create real newlines vs virtual newlines.


2. Have a preprocessor 'pretty' the code first and then do the diff.
Using rule based processing, add a preprocessor command (run before display and diff) and postprocessor command (run only if file is edited and saved).

Preprocessor would format the file with real newlines and indentation.
Post processor would remove all newlines and extra spaces/tabs.

This would be very powerful and not much work to implement.
There are already plenty of utilities that could be used as the pre and post processors. And users could write their own new ones for custom applications.

You could build in an automatic pre/post processor that would be very simple - append a newline after every ';', and strip all newlines/spaces/tabs down to a single space.

Hmmm - It would need to know the string and comment conventions to ignore ';' in strings and comments - you already have almost enough to do that in the Rules/Importance tab.
Would just need to be able to specify escape characters!


This would be very powerful and useful for much more than just javascript files.

Bryan

[Chris]

Bryan,

Thanks for the suggestion.

The way we handle this right now is with an external conversion rule. It calls an external program to format a file before opening the contents for comparison.

Example rules are the HTML Tidy / XML Tidy rule and the Jalopy (Java code formatter) from our additional rules page.

http://www.scootersoftware.com/download.php?c=kb_morerules

For instructions on setting up your own code formatting program to be used by Beyond Compare, refer to: http://www.scootersoftware.com/support.php?c=kb_conversion.php

Also, for a tool you can modify to split lines based on arbitrary characters, see the following forum thread: http://www.scootersoftware.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=9405

Right after I posted that I found the pre and post processor commands - external conversion. Oops. Sorry.
Thanks for the pointers on how to use this.

And I just found where string escape characters are defined too! Very cool!

I really love BC! I guess I still have more to learn about what it is already capable of :)

Bryan

[etailor]

Question on right click from explorer.

In a 2 way compare, right clicking on the first file gets you a different right click for the second file. This is a really nice feature for picking the files/directories to compare.

Will this be extended for a 3 way merge. Usually I would have a file that was the precurser to 2 other files. I.E. the first file was edited by 2 people producing 2 other files.

I would like a feature that lets me right click on the precursor file and select something like, "base file". Then, once that is selected, the next click would be, left side to compare, and then after that, compare 3 way to "..."

I find this choosing of the 3 files (or 3 directories) to be the most tedious part of doing a 3 way merge (in all other merge utilities I've tried).

Also, there would be a 4th file or 4th directory that would become the target output of a merge. How is that going to be handled?

[Aaron]

I agree. It is definitely nice not needing to select all of the files at once.

We are still in the process of designing different ways to implement/streamline this feature (shell extension).

When does the next beta become available? :)

[Chris]

The last time I discussed it with our development team, it looks like a public beta is a few months away yet.

I've been using BC for years (I bought one about 5years ago and another one today, because I lost my license file and didn't bother to plague support with a request to find me in their records, I thought: "what the heck, they deserve another 30 bucks for this gem"). I'm delighted that version 3 is coming out. I have one idea which I suppose you've heard before, but this is my vote for it then. Split the "session" into file-sets and comparison-settings. During Java development I'm constantly comparing different project, but I always need the same comparison-settings (which directories and files to exclude, content comparison etc.). I typically need a different set of comparison settings when comparing deployed J2EE projects, etc.

[Chris]

Thanks for the suggestion.

If you're always using the same comparison criteria/filters, you can make them the default for new sessions. Just select Session|Set Default from the menu and click the "Save current settings as defaults" button.

Also, you can add presets to the Filter: dropdown menu in the "Folder Viewer" section of the Tools|Options dialog.

Hi, I love BC and have recommended it to my tech friends, some of whom have bought it. I only have one issue - why is the new version not out yet? As a software developer I know deadlines slip but...

We really need the unicode support here. When will the new version *really* be out??

thanks

[Chris]

The last time I spoke to our development team about the release schedule, it looked like a public beta might be released in the next 2-3 months.

We export are SQL tables and stored procedures as unicode and BC reads and compares them just fine. Am I missing something else or is there more unicode features on the way.

[Chris]

Beyond Compare 2 handles files with Unicode text content without any problems.

The previous poster was referring to Unicode filenames, which aren't supported in Beyond Compare 2. Beyond Compare 3 will support Unicode filenames.

Workarounds for Unicode filenames in version 2 are detailed at:
http://www.scootersoftware.com/support.php?c=kb_unicodeandcharactersets.php

Thanks, I had a look at the workaround link you posted. Without me having to test it, can you tell me if it just lets the filenames become visible or does it actually let BC work with them i.e. synchronise?

[Aaron]

BC can work with filenames that it can understand. So, by changing your Windows settings to match the language of the files, BC2 can then work with them. If you want to run a synchronize, it will need to be able to understand every file in the base folders.

[jarcand]

Our current estimate is that we're hoping for a public beta sometime in the third quarter of this year, with an official release towards the end of this year.



So, now that "towards the end of this year" has passed, is there a new ETA?

I'm really looking forward to this upgrade for Windows and having a native version for Linux!

[Chris]

Sorry for the changing schedule. It looks like we're 1-2 months away from a public beta at this point.

[scruffylooking]

I want to add my vote and enthusiasm for Secure FTP in Beyond Compare. It will really make a perfect solution once its able to connect securely.

Thanks for all your hard work!

I second the sftp change, we are locking down our servers so ftp'ing to them is no longer an option.

[Chris]

SFTP will be in Beyond Compare 3 Pro.

[Aaron]

We are working on native SFTP support in version 3, and we have a workaround article for BC2:
http://www.scootersoftware.com/support.php?c=kb_ssh.php

Is there or will there be a portable edition?

Best regards
pfennig

[Chris]

The BC3 installer should have an option to create a portable install (for USB flash drives, etc).

[taddeilg]

Looking forward to the 3-way merge in BC3 Pro!

The BC3 installer should have an option to create a portable install (for USB flash drives, etc).



That's good news. Thank you. :)
pfennig

[kjsmithtx]

Our tentative pricing scheme for a single user license is $30 for BC3 standard, and $50 for BC3 Pro. We will offer discounts for volume purchases starting at 5 or more users.

We will post a full price list and upgrade information for BC2 users when we release a public beta of BC3.



When will the new pricing be announced? Some of us just can't wait! ;)

[Aaron]

There is some additional information on the beta3 webpage:
http://www.scootersoftware.com/beta3/shop.php