Repeating differences refresh

[hugh]

Hi,

I’ve just started using BC3 for proper work (now its released).

When working with folder compare, I tend to start at the top and let BC3 perform a complete tree difference and then go into subfolders on both sides and then out again.

I’ve noticed that when I move back up, BC3 repeats the top-level folder differencing, which is annoying because it can take some time. BC2 didn’t used to do this.

Is there a new option to control this (eg differences cache or something) or a workaround?

Thanks for any help,
-- hugh.

[Michael Kujawa]

What do you mean by "go into subfolders"? When diffing folder trees (I'm in the middle of a rather complex one right now, in fact,) I stay within the complete tree difference (expanding and collapsing folders as needed) and diff the files from there. I never need to go "back out".

[Zoë]

I think Hugh is referring to using the "Set as Base Folders" command, and "Go back up" referring to either using the "Up one level on both sides" or the "Back" dropdown.

Anyway, Hugh, if you want to view a subfolder you should just expand it inline or use the "Compare In New View" commands to open another window/tab with the relevant subfolders. You're mistaken about BC2's behavior, if you did the same thing there it would also have recompared the entire folder structure, and we don't have a way to change that.

[hugh]

Time difference

Yes, that’s exactly what I mean by going into folders and “back up”.

Here are the facts between BC2 and BC3:

I have a folder structure to compare the times to perform the initial comparison are BC3=47s and BC2=47s (the same). I do a “set as base folders” on one of the subdirectories and it performs the comparision.

Now, when I go back up both BC2 and BC3 perform a refresh. But BC3=47s, BC2=2.5s. So BC2 is doing something clever that BC3 is not doing.

If I do a “compare in new view”, that’s fine, but then I have to refresh the original view again to update it which takes the full 47s in BC3.

Any suggestions?

[Zoë]

The "clever" thing that BC2 is doing is not refreshing the folder comparison when it goes back to the original one. That tended to leave things out of date, so in BC3 we consider loading a folder comparison a milestone and it will re-read the directory information in that case. So I guess what you're seeing is intentional behavior. We can consider making this refresh optional or moving it more into the background, but there's no way around it right now.

I am curious about your comment on needing a refresh after a "Compare In New View" though. In BC3 all the views are tied together, so if you copy a file in one view all of the other comparisons will notice immediately. You shouldn't need to refresh anything when closing the secondary view.

[hugh]

Not so. BC2 does refresh the view (partly) . If I make changes in the subfolder (eg synchronise them), then they are in sync when I move up. So the “clever” bit is not refreshing the folders I haven’t changed – and that is clever, rather than refreshing the folders I haven’t changed a la BC3.

You are right about the multiple views. They are kept in sync, I just wasn’t sure. Pressing F5 does indeed cause a complete refresh (as you’d expect).

It looks like the answer to my question is to change to work with multiple views in BC3.

[bmccabe]

I just noticed a similar problem. I am syncing two folders on separate systems, I select the 'Show differences' to get only the folders that have differences (in this case they are entirely missing from the target system). When I click on "copy to side' BC3 spends several minutes 'Refreshing' before doing the copy. As the target system is missing all folders and files, what is it "Refreshing"? Why does it not just start to copy the files?
-Robert
PS the two systems are on different sides of the country, so the "refreshing" takes a while.

[Chris]

Hi Robert,

In BC2, it started copying files right away and it would stop with a prompt if it was overwriting a read-only file or there was some other file operation that needed to be confirmed. In BC3, the "refreshing" stage checks for anything that needs a confirmation right at the start, so you'll get the confirmation prompts before any files are copied.

In most cases, the overall time including the refreshing stage should be the same speed as BC2 or slightly faster.

We've had some lengthy discussions about "refreshing" in the past, you can find the discussion at the following link: http://www.scootersoftware.com/vbull...ead.php?t=3388