Canceling comparision closes the files

[krzysztof]

Hi

In prevouis versions (up to 3.0.8 i guess) when I stopped the comparision I could still view and edit the partially compared files. I version I have now (3.1.4 build 10554) I can't do that any more. It is frustrating when I compare large files using rules based comparision.
If beginnig of the file differs I do not care about the rest, but I wan't to see the differences, analyse them and possibly manipulate the text.

Is there a way to stop or pause comparision instead of terminating it entirelly?

[Aaron]

Hello,

The new behavior is to help increase the safety of use of our application. We wouldn't want users to cancel a load, then accidentally save over their file with an only partially loaded file.

You can see your half-loaded file and preview it while the file loads if you do not click Abort.

What size files are you opening in the Text Compare? How long does it take for the comparison to run?

[krzysztof]

Hi

The average file size is about 10MB but sometimes I compare files that have several gigabytes. In general output from one program is compared to the output of another program. Often case is when one file is much shorter than second (even 100 times).
The annoying thing is that both files needs to be loaded entirely before I can do anything. Sometimes I wish to e.g. manual align files. Imagine 2GB files with some misalignment at the very beginning and matching rest. I need to wait until both files fully loads. Sometimes files differs in various places but I do not care about the mismatches near the end of a file. In previous versions I just stopped the comparison at the beginning and analyzed the mismatches - often changed the grammar to quickly filter out what does not interest me at the moment.

Another thing is when I see that the beginning of a file mismatch I simply do not want to load the rest - loading several GB from hard drive makes my machine less responsive. If I wish to do it from the network drive it would be much worse. Of course I want to analyze the partially loaded files.

I am using rules based comparison and loading big files takes even several minutes.

I understand the reason why you changed the BC, you did not want your users to corrupt their files. Couldn't you just make compared files read-only until they fully loads?

Other option would be to let user decide if he wants to work on partially loaded file. In tweaks maybe?

As a temporal solution, is there a way do downgrade my version to 3.1.3?

Regards,
Krzysztof

[Aaron]

Please contact us via email at [email protected] and include a link back to this forum post.

Thanks.

[Michael Bulgrien]

We wouldn't want users to cancel a load, then accidentally save over their file with an only partially loaded file.

Why can't BC3 keep track of the fact that a file load was aborted and raise a warning dialog if a save is attempted? And/Or, as Krzysztof has suggested, leave the compare in read-only mode after an aborted load?

[Erik]

Editing should be disabled after an error or cancelled load but the comparison should be kept. This was broken due to a change in 3.1.3 to unlock files. It should be fixed in our next release (3.1.5).