Lack of Finder integration

[intersol]

It would be really nice to have a Finder integration like the one on Windows Explorer, where we can right click Compare left side / right side...

[Chris]

Beyond Compare 4 beta Mac already supports right click integration as a Finder service.

If you right click on a file in Finder, at the bottom of the Finder list you should see "Select left file for compare" and "Compare" commands to launch Beyond Compare.

If you don't see the menu items, in Beyond Compare 4 select "Beyond Compare > Services > Services Preferences". Make sure under "Files and Folders" the items Compare Files, Compare Folders, Select Left File for Compare, and Select Left Folder for Compare are all checked.

[intersol]

These options are opening Beyond Compare on Windows via Parallels! I wasn't able to find a way disable this feature/bug... used to be a feature until BC went native: p

[Chris]

I'm not familiar with Parallels, but if your Mac services menu is opening Windows applications running in Parallels, it looks like you can disable this feature in VM settings.

http://forum.parallels.com/showthrea...-context-menus

If it helps, you can disable Beyond Compare 3 for Windows' context menu by unchecking "Include Beyond Compare in Explorer context menu" in the Startup section of the "Tools > Options" dialog.

[intersol]

Thank you! This solved the problem. Still in the long run is a problem because disabling this feature in Parallels makes is much harder to use.

I will add a comment on Parallels, I do think it is a bug that it overrides already existing services from Mac. I used version 8 and it may be fixed in 9 but I am not planning to upgrade, upgrading parallels is more expensive than buying a new license.

[dempson]

This thread reminded me of a small request: I have more than one file comparison utility installed on my Mac, and the service names used by Beyond Compare are generic enough that I didn't know which application put them there until I tried them. It would be nice if the service names actually mentioned Beyond Compare (even if abbreviated to BC).

As some examples, GraphicConverter prefixes all of its services with "GraphicConverter: ", and DeltaWalker uses "Compare with DeltaWalker".

In fact, everything in my Services menu which comes from a third party application mentions the application name. Beyond Compare is the only exception.

[Aaron]

Thanks for the feedback. We're still working on our standards in these areas and we'll consider this.

[benjosevilla]

Just downloaded the trial version for Mac, I am still missing the option I had when I use my Windows PC where I can right click a file and "add to left" then compare. I already tried going through "Beyond Compare > Services > Services Preferences". Make sure under "Files and Folders".. but have not seen the option to check like "compare" and the other options mentioned on this thread. I would like to buy the full version if this option is available. I do not have parallels and I have El Capitan.

[Aaron]

Hello,

Is your BC4 .app located in your Applications\ directory and have you rebooted your computer? OSX should scan Applications\ for any applicable services and add our items to the menu once we are detected.

Do you see any of our options, such as Select Left File when selecting a single .txt file on your Desktop\?

[mwatts]

It appears that this integration is limited to Finder only and not other Finder replacement apps like "Path Finder" - is there some reason why the NSRequiredContext is restricted to only Finder? The impact of this is that while all of the other services appear in PF as they should, the Beyond Compare "Compare" services are not available.

[Aaron]

Thanks for the inquiry. It looks like we do have a limitation in place to only set to com.apple.finder. The developer in charge of this area is out of the office today, but I can check in with her on Monday if this was done to fix a bug or if it can be expanded. If you are confident, you could edit your own Info.Plist to remove our limiting entry and reboot to test; otherwise we can resume troubleshooting on Monday.

[mwatts]

Do you have an update on this?

Thanks for the inquiry. It looks like we do have a limitation in place to only set to com.apple.finder. The developer in charge of this area is out of the office today, but I can check in with her on Monday if this was done to fix a bug or if it can be expanded. If you are confident, you could edit your own Info.Plist to remove our limiting entry and reboot to test; otherwise we can resume troubleshooting on Monday.

[Aaron]

We're still investigating the impact, but I edited the Beyond Compare.app/Contents/Info.plist and removed the 4 <string>com.apple.finder</string> entries from each of the NSMenuItem sections. How does this edit work for you?

[mwatts]

I made the edits but it does not appear to enable the functionality.

[Aaron]

Hello,

Our developer has dug a bit deeper and found the full edit requires deleting the <key> and the <string> for each of the 4 NSMenuItem entries. After a reboot, it is working in Finder and in Path Finder.

This changes:
<dict>
<key>NSApplicationIdentifier</key>
<string>com.apple.finder</string>
</dict>

to

<dict/>

in each of the four places com.apple.finder appears. This will be patched into the next release of BC4, or you can manually update your .app and apply the changes early.