Suggestion: Ability to set Difference Enhancer to full color

[joendsu]

Currently when setting the File Views: File Compare Colors you can change the Background Contrast and Difference Enhancer. When changing the difference enhancer, even at the maximum it is a less than full representation of the selected color.

It would be helpful to me to be able to set this to the full color, for my case, I want to make the difference extremly clear/visible so the more bold the background color the better. Example attached.

[Aaron]

Thanks for the suggestion. Are you currently manually scrolling through the document looking for differences?

Does the Bold option help make the different text stick out more for you? Also, the View menu -> Thumbnail View may be a useful option for you.

We also have various tools for going directly to different sections. You can use Display Filters to show only Different text (and also enable Show Context to get the immediately surrounding area of text). We also have toolbar buttons and keyboard commands for Next Difference and Next Difference section.

How do these tools work for you?

[Aaron]

Also, I would recommend not sliding the right bar all the way to the bottom if you are scrolling through and looking for differences. This would hide lines where differences are off the horizontal side of your screen.

We'll look into the color customization of this dialog.

[joendsu]

Originally Posted by Aaron

Thanks for the suggestion. Are you currently manually scrolling through the document looking for differences?

Does the Bold option help make the different text stick out more for you? Also, the View menu -> Thumbnail View may be a useful option for you.

We also have various tools for going directly to different sections. You can use Display Filters to show only Different text (and also enable Show Context to get the immediately surrounding area of text). We also have toolbar buttons and keyboard commands for Next Difference and Next Difference section.

How do these tools work for you?

Yes, I am using manual scrolling. I have thumbnail view enabled (and I like that feature as well for very large compares). I use "Next Difference Section", but I didn't realize there was a "Next Difference". Is there a reason I can't add that to the toolbar ("Show command on toolbar" it is grayed out in customize commands window)? It would be nice if when using "Next Difference" that the difference was centered in the Text Details view. Right now, it is centered in the top view (all lines), and off to the right most position on the Text Details view. As for horizontal differences, I'm all over it, many of my differences are in the off screen space (SQL table data dumps) .

[Aaron]

Hello,

Thanks for the feedback. Some of our commands do not have the art necessary to be toolbar buttons, but we have a list of requested toolbar buttons from users. I've added your notes to that list.

As for centering, we do center the main display, but not the Text Details line. We generally move that one as little as possible. Text Details is designed more as a helper, to look for additional details (like whitespace) or context after you've found the difference in the main pane. Originally, it was also in charge of edits, but in BC3 we added that ability into the main pane as well. Could you go into more detail on why you prefer the Text Details line to the main view? If it is horizontal length, we have a View menu -> Over Under Layout as well.

[joendsu]

Originally Posted by Aaron

Hello,

Thanks for the feedback. Some of our commands do not have the art necessary to be toolbar buttons, but we have a list of requested toolbar buttons from users. I've added your notes to that list.

As for centering, we do center the main display, but not the Text Details line. We generally move that one as little as possible. Text Details is designed more as a helper, to look for additional details (like whitespace) or context after you've found the difference in the main pane. Originally, it was also in charge of edits, but in BC3 we added that ability into the main pane as well. Could you go into more detail on why you prefer the Text Details line to the main view? If it is horizontal length, we have a View menu -> Over Under Layout as well.

I use Text Details and the Main View, an example would be I'm verifying mutiple lines of data and there are diffs in several of the lines, it is difficult to view the data with all other lines, so using the Text Detail line is easier to single out a line for verification. As for the centering on the Text Detail line, it definetly isn't a that big of a deal - I have been using the Next Difference action all week and that has worked well for verifying reports that have a small number of differences that are spread out on the same line - that way I can make sure I have seen them all (didn't just see the first and accidently accept the entire report and miss the second difference). As for Over/Under, yes I use that as well, that is a very nice feature.