Visual studio extensions with Beyond compare 4

[MadyR628]

We have a visual studio extension to add comments while doing code reviews. We use Beyond Compare 4 for comparing files with previous version in team explorer.
Here is the order of actions we want:
1. Open a changeset that needs to be reviewed.
2. Right click on the file and click "Compare to previous version".
3. I configured my user tools in VS to use Beyond Compare. So, the "compare to previous version" opens beyond compare window showing the comparison.
4. Now, I would like to add a code review comment where our visual studio plugin comes into picture.

Here the problem is we are good with using our visual studio plugin as long as the control is in Visual Studio.
Since at step 3 the control goes to beyond compare, we can't use our plugin anymore.
Does anybody have an idea about how to integrate our visual studio extension with Beyond Compare 4 ?
Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Chris]

Beyond Compare can launch external applications using the Open With menu item.

To define a command, open Tools > Options.
Go to the Open With section.
Click + to add a new command.
In the Command line, enter the path to an executable followed by %f to pass the path and filename of the file currently being compared.

After you've configured an Open With command, you can access it by right clicking in the left or right pane of the Text Compare and selecting Open With or by selecting Actions > Open With from the menu.

Beyond Compare can also access Windows Explorer shell extensions using the Actions > Explorer menu item.

[MadyR628]

Thanks for the information chris. That is a good input to try to incorporate our tool into beyond compare.

Also, do you have any suggestions on how beyond compare can be opened within visual studio ?
(May be converting it into a vsix or something?).

[Chris]

We don't have a method to access Beyond Compare as a visual studio extension. We do document calling BC as an external diff and merge tool for many version control systems, including Team Foundation Server.

Using Beyond Compare with Version Control Systems: http://www.scootersoftware.com/support.php?zz=kb_vcs

[MadyR628]

Hi Chris,

I added an external application to Beyond Compare using (Tools -> Options -> Open With) and I am able to see the external windows forms application running. My question is can I ask Beyond compare to send the file name and changeset name while or before running the external application in anyway? (I am using Beyond Compare with Version Control Systems).

Let me know if you want me to elaborate on this.

Thanks,
Madhuri

[Aaron]

Hello,

Hello,

The Open With application can pass the file name as part of the command line, or parts of the file path, but we don't have any extra variables besides those in the Command Line dropdown arrow of arguments. From the Text Compare, the Open With command only functions on the currently selected side, but from a Folder Compare, an Open With can be configured to work with both sides as long as both left and right are selected.

I'm not sure if this would help in this scenario, but if you would like to execute and include your own tool/view into the process, you could define a new External File Format in the Tools menu -> File Formats dialog. This format would launch an entire view, and could replace our own Text Compare session. You can have multiple formats for your files defined per extension in the Tools menu -> File Formats dialog, and whichever is topmost in the File Formats list is the session type used first.