My thoughts on BC3

[rgjordan]

I've been using bc2 for close to two years and I just downloaded the bc3 beta. Wow, the new version looks really great! I'll be buying the pro version day 1.

I like the new tabbed interface, sftp support(this was a must) and three-way edit/compare.

Here's some features I'd like to see:

Include feature. I'd like to be able to select and include multiple child folders of interest. Right now, I exclude them, then cut and paste them to the include folder.

Editor Filter. I'd like to be able to have include or exclude filters for lines in compared files. For example: Exclude all lines with the # sign at the beginning. This way I could ignore all comments in a compared file. Likewise, this could be used to focus in on certain records within a file like all lines with a particular variable name.

N-way text compare. This would be great for web admins like me who often need to compare configs cross 6 or more nodes and make sure they are relatively in sync other than hostname/ip differences. Even if you couldn't edit, this would be great for auditing purposes. mvalent.com has an editor that can do this, however the editor isn't as good as bc and comes with a product "integrity" that is in the neigborhood of 100 grand.

Comparison, of unix/linux permissions and ownership. I understand that this isn't bc's main purpose, but it would sure be great, especially for keeping large server clusters in sync. Differences in ownership and permissions often cause failures.

Keep up the great work!

Thanks,

Rob Jordan

[Marjolein Katsma]

Use File Formats and color coding

Editor Filter. I'd like to be able to have include or exclude filters for lines in compared files. For example: Exclude all lines with the # sign at the beginning. This way I could ignore all comments in a compared file. Likewise, this could be used to focus in on certain records within a file like all lines with a particular variable name.

You can get halfway there already by using or creating a File Format for the type of file where you define lines starting with # as comment (Grammar tab) and then on the Importance tab define "Comments" as "unimportant" (any differences will then be marked as unimportant differences); in options->Text->Display you then choose a color for comments that makes them fade into your background color - and hey presto everything else will stand out! The lines are still there, and differences are still marked, but much de-emphasized.

I use this technique for instance in my CSS embedded File Format, where I mark the code surrounding the actual CSS code as '(other)', and show it as grey; even in a mostly HTML the bits of CSS will then stand out nicely.

[Aaron]

Wishlist Items

Thanks for the input.

The concept of Include has come up before, and is already on our wishlist.

Marj has a good idea for how to 'filter' out Text. We already have a method of defining things as important or unimportant in our Grammar system. It is quite customizable. Is there some way in which this system does not work for your workflow? Remember, you can toggle Unimportant Differences with a button.

N-way compare and Linux (and windows) File Permission Comparisons are nice features, but probably will not make it into a 3.0 release. After 3.0, we will revisit some of these ideas and investigate what it will take to implement them.