Hex Compare from Explorer - toolbar buttons don't get rendered

[grindax]

When Beyond Compare is not open:

If I select 2 files in Explorer, then use the context menu to select 'Compare', then choose to do a 'Hex Compare' from the 'Quick Compare' dialog, the Beyond Compare application window opens up with many of its toolbar buttons not visible. Only when I mouse-over on the toolbar where the buttons are supposed to be visible do they appear.

This is on Windows 7 x64.

Screenshot of Hex Compare open, before moving mouse across the toolbar:


Screenshot after moving mouse across the toolbar:

[Aaron]

Hello,

Thanks for the report. Could you email in your current BCSupport.zip (Help menu -> Support; Export) to [email protected] along with a link back to this forum thread? This is probably a combination of your current default window size and screen resolution. Could you include your monitor setup information so we can more reliably reproduce this?

[grindax]

OK, I've emailed the BCSupport.zip file to support.

I'm using two monitors, both at 1920x1200. Beyond Compare launches in a maximized state on my first monitor, with my taskbar oriented vertically along the left side of the screen. Therefore the BC window has a dimension of 1858x1200.

None of the other comparison modes have this problem -- only Hex Compare.

[Aaron]

Thanks. The key factor was Full Screen/Maximized state. If you run with a Window, it will paint correctly. We'll look into this.

[grindax]

Same thing still happens in 4.1.6

[Aaron]

This is still an open tracker entry and wasn't fixed in 4.1.6. We're still investigating a fix.

[grindax]

Several extremely minor changes in 4.1.7, including things such as changing wording on certain dialogs, etc.

But none of the things I report/discuss here in the forum get fixed/implemented. Every new release is a disappointment.

I feel it is a waste of time participating in the Scooter Software forum.

[Zoë]

4.1.7 is based off of 4.1.6, which was in turn based off 4.1.5. We've been working on a 4.2 release in parallel for a while now, so the 4.1.x releases are consequently limited to bug fixes and minor improvements.

I have looked into FTP keep alive support and it is something we plan to add, but we are not getting a lot of requests for it. You asking repeatedly does keep it on our radar, but that isn't the same as multiple people asking for it, so it isn't going to force it above things we've already scheduled.

The toolbar issue is certainly a bug and an annoyance, but it also has to compete with all of the other issues that customers report.

[grindax]

Zoë, your cherry picking of just 2 examples makes you appear very defensive.

If you go through the history of my forum posts, you will surely notice many other ideas, features, and bug reports that I've contributed.

How about if I cherry pick an example? For how many years has Beyond Compare, a tool that specializes in comparing items, been unable to compare foldername case?
https://secure.scootersoftware.com/v...oldername-case

[Zoë]

I'm not trying to cherry pick, though I can see giving that impression. Keep Alive is just one I associate with you because you ask about it a number of times, and it's one that I was looking into for 4.2 before other issues sidelined it (like breaking API changes for various cloud services forcing updates).

Folder name case isn't supported because BC's folder compare was designed to compare files, not folder entries specifically, so it can't currently distinguish between "This folder has files with differences" and "These two folders have different filenames/last modified times/DOS attributes". That, coupled with some other design decisions related to filename behavior, mean that there's a fair amount of technical debt involved in adding what would look like a simple enhancement. Improving case handling at various points is absolutely something that I think we should handle better. Maintaining state better when doing "Align With..." is another one that's difficult to add because the original implementation wasn't designed to allow it, and is one that the tech support guys bring up frequently when we're discussing future directions.

[grindax]

Has a fix for the Hex Compare toolbar bug, which I reported almost 1 year ago, made it into v4.2 ?

[Chris]

Sorry, the Hex Compare toolbar bug you reported isn't fixed in BC 4.2 beta. It is still an open item on our bug list.