Saving completed work in Sessions?

[toweyb]

Hi, folks,
I'm new to BC4 and I can't figure out a basic function.
I have 1500 XML files to compare. BC says there are 600 unchanged files. That leaves 900 that require inspection. A big job.
It can't be completed in one day. Here's what I did:

• Create a Folder Merge session
• Set up my three windows and output folder.
• Reconcile 10 files.
• Save the Session.
• Exit Beyond Compare.
• Next start again and load my Session.
• BC repeats the comparison, and does not remember the 10 files I did yesterday. All it remembers is the folder paths.

How can I get BC4 to resume where I left off?

[Aaron]

Hello,

This is true, BC4's Sessions would only remember the Folder Paths. If you make a copy of your "Yours" directory (assuming it is Left, for example), you can then Merge into Left as the Output. This would show any resolved files as already equal in the Output as a green checkmark in the status column.

[toweyb]

Thank you for the tip. When I try it, merged files (a little of this and a little of that) show as unequal to the center and right panes--which is true, they're not equal.
Maybe I can change the folder names. I can append the name of the person who should compare them, or "finished" when they are done.

[Aaron]

Ah, sorry. When testing I happened to have a good test case setup with file dates/rules-scan; in other cases this would still detect as a conflict and wouldn't work to resume. We don't have a good workflow, as the Merge session recalculates on load and does not have a memory to know how/what has been previously worked with or changed since last worked with. It's on our wishlist to expand on this behavior, but in the meantime you'll want to leave the window open while working on a single merge job.

[jamot1]

Hoping this feature is part of an upcoming release. I spent a day diff'ing a massive file only to come in today and realize all the work of isolating and aligning is no longer available to me. Definitely thought that was the purpose of the session save feature.

Beyond Compare is a great tool and I will continue to use it, but users really need to be able to save their work and pick up at a later time, without needing to keep the application open.

[Aaron]

The original thread is discussing resuming a Folder Merge task, but it sounds like you are asking to resume a Text Merge session. This is something on our wishlist as well.

[cocosnake]

For those who are still looking for a solution for the original problem, here is my workaround:

• After each file merge, I exclude it (right click > Exclude...) because excluded files are saved in sessions settings.

Hope this will help.