Feature Suggestion: Synchronize with via small storage device

[spitfire_ch]

Hi,

'Beyond compare' looks like a very interesting tool, unifying features from different worlds in one nice piece of software. There are two suggestions I'd like to make:

1) Synchronization of unconnected computers via small storage device (USB-stick)
This would apply to situations where you want to sync two directory structures on two PCs which are quite larger then the USB device you are using to transport the files but changes only slowly. An example would be the following situation:
- directory structure is 100 GB large
- daily changes are 1 GB
- USB device is 4 GB large

If you could copy only the files that have changed onto your USB device, you could perfectly use a small device to keep two larger folders synchronized. Basically, on the first computer, you would store a list of files on the stick, compare this list with the second computer and copy all files that are newer onto the stick (as well as label files that are newer on first computer to be copied next time).

2) Detect renamings and movements
I know, this has been requested before in the topic "Rearrange rather than delete and recopy", but I would like to second this request. Currently, I know only two tools that are able of correctly recognizing and propagating moved or renamed folders / files. So, if you were able to incorporate such a feature, you would have a huge advantage over most competitors!

Thanks for considering it and keep the great work going!

- spitfire

[Aaron]

Hello,

1) Would you be looking for something like this:
http://www.scootersoftware.com/support.php?zz=kb_sneakernet.php

2) Yes, this has been requested before. Thanks for the suggestion, and this is an area we are investigating. Which tools would you be referring to? Do they run background applications in order to detect these changes?

[spitfire_ch]

1) Would you be looking for something like this:
http://www.scootersoftware.com/support.php?zz=kb_sneakernet.php

Exatly! Sorry, I must have been blind not to see this. It's awesome this is already implemented, thx a lot for the hint!


2) Yes, this has been requested before. Thanks for the suggestion, and this is an area we are investigating. Which tools would you be referring to? Do they run background applications in order to detect these changes?
I only know of
http://www.superflexible.com/
which - as far as I know, does not run a background service (it also works with directories that have existed already before installation), but I have tested it only briefly, so I don't know for sure;

and Microsoft's Synctoy
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52&displaylang=en
which does seem to run a background process (and by that is probably less flexible).

Best regards
- spitfire

[Michael Bulgrien]

Delphi 8 can leverage the .NET class: System.IO.FileSystemWatcher

But I guess BC3 is written in something else since I've read posts that it doesn't utilize .NET

[Aaron]

Beyond Compare is written in Delphi (the code and the compiler).

[Aaron]

Thanks.

This is a project we are looking into, but is large and it will require a lot of work to implement.

[spitfire_ch]

It's very promising that you are trying, thank you very much!