3-way Folder Compare?

[djessee]

Hello,

I have two different environments that are very similar and if I could get a 3 way folder compare it would help greatly with my daily work.

We have a Dev, Test and Production servers and I need to migrate changes from one to the other and have no way to view in one display the differences between them.

If I had a 3 way folder compare, I could see the differences of dev, test and prod.

Currently I have to switch from a folder compare of dev to test and test to prod. I tried setting up a dev to prod, but it just does not let me know what is on test.

I hope I have made my use case understandable.

[davenovak]

I have a similar situation and would really like to see 3-way folder compare support in BC3. This is one of very few features that is still lacking in an otherwise outstanding product.

[Aaron]

Hello,

A 3-way Folder Comparison is on our wishlist for a future version of Beyond Compare.

Let us know if you have any questions or other suggestions about a 3-way compare.

[djessee]

Thanks!

Thanks for the information that you have already identified this.

[davenovak]

I hope it's high on the wish list

[Belgrath]

I hope it's high on the wish list

3-way folder comparson would be awesome, I spend 3 hrs out of each day doing 3way merges and this would cut my comparison times in half.

[casterle]

Hello,

A 3-way Folder Comparison is on our wishlist for a future version of Beyond Compare.

Let us know if you have any questions or other suggestions about a 3-way compare.

Any chance of this making it into BC3? I hope this feature will allow 3-way text compare views as well - that's what I need the most.

[Zoë]

Hi Casterle,

We've been a bit sloppy with our terminology, so to clarify:

BC3 already has a 3-way text merge view in the Pro edition. It takes three files as input and produces a new file as output. You can see a screenshot if it here.

We are planning on adding a similar folder merge interface before v4.

Some of our competitors have a 3-way text/folder compare instead, where there are three files side-by-side, and you can copy text between them. We don't have any immediate plans to add that.

[casterle]

Hi Casterle,
Some of our competitors have a 3-way text/folder compare instead, where there are three files side-by-side, and you can copy text between them. We don't have any immediate plans to add that.

Unfortunately that's what I need. Isn't that what the top part of the screenshot you linked to is doing? I see the status bar says "Editing disabled". Is that because editing isn't supported?

If I can't do this in BC3, would you email me the names of products which do this? I found one on the net today, but it was horrid.

[Zoë]

The top of the window is doing a 3-way comparison, but we currently only allow editing in the bottom panel (the merged result). I don't think it would especially difficult to add a 3-way editable comparison to BC, but supporting multiple ways to do a merge would make the interface more complicated and confusing. The competitors that do have the 3-way comparison don't support the merged output window, so it's usually just a matter of which you prefer.

Anyway, I did email you list of other utilities that do what you need. I hope that helps.

[casterle]

The top of the window is doing a 3-way comparison, but we currently only allow editing in the bottom panel (the merged result). I don't think it would especially difficult to add a 3-way editable comparison to BC, but supporting multiple ways to do a merge would make the interface more complicated and confusing.

Thanks, Craig. In my case, a 3-way editable comparison would be great. I don't need to merge the files, just visually compare them with all the neat things I can already to in a 2-way comparison.

I've been using BC for a long time, since V1 if I rember correctly. I'd hate to have to use something else for this type of task. IMO BC's as good as it gets!

[Michael Bulgrien]

There are a lot of us out here that would appreciate a 3-way folder compare as well as a 3-way text compare. I know I've been asking for it since early Cirrus beta days. The current 3-way merge functionality is crucial for version control systems... but for every-day stand-alone work when a user has applied a change to file A to make file B, and wants to apply a similar change to file C (a different file, not a revision of A or B) it would be so much easier to have a three-way compare. One could see the before and after between A and B to help them figure out what needs to be done to file C. It's something I've wanted to do more times than I can count.

[Zoë]

There are a lot of us out here that would appreciate a 3-way folder compare as well as a 3-way text compare.

I strongly encourage anyone else who feels the same to chime in. We need to know whether there is sufficient demand for 3-way compare in addition to 3-way merge before we consider adding it.

[zlev]

Can you please send me this list too?
3 way folder compare is the most needed feature for us, currently we use BC2.51 and it is more then enough for other tasks.
From my point of view, 3way merge is 50% unusable without 3way folder compare.
However, it may be enough just add some configuration for "ancesstor base folder path", in most cases I do not need to really compare folders with it, I just need then 3rd file will automatically appear when I'm enterring to 3way file merge.

[tlscales]

Ideally, I'd like to see an N-way compare - seems like if you are going to do 3-way, this wouldn't be that much of a stretch. Especially lately, I often run into situations where I am trying to reconcile several different customer-specific versions of code and trying to figure out which features or fixes are in each branch and need to be ported to any of the others. I've been making do with up to six simultaneous 2-way compares between pairs of branches, but it would be really helpful to be able to do them all as one operation instead.

If you want to get really ambitious, an N-way folder compare would be helpful, too.