Show number of differences between files when in folder view

[timns]

The middle column in the folder view only seems to show whether there are differences or not.

What I'd really like to see is the number of differences. I use feature in other difference programs in order to focus my attention on files that will need a lot of work to merge.

Is this available?

Thanks!

[Chris]

Showing the number of differences in the Folder Compare is on our wish list, but not possible in the current version.

If you generate a report of differences, the report can list the number of different lines in each file. To generate a report in the Folder Compare, select files. Then select "Actions > File Compare Report". In the Report dialog, select "Summary" as the report layout.

[timns]

Ok thanks - it was really so I could click that column and sort the folder list accordingly. A report does not really help in my specific case, although I appreciate its usefulness.

Any idea of when this feature could creep in? I would say it's literally the last feature in Araxis that I prefer over BC. Apart from that I can switch to BC without a backward glance

[Aaron]

We do not have a set schedule for features on our Customer Wishlist. Our wish list is a place our developers go for ideas for future enhancements and features. I have added your notes about Araxis vs. BC to the wishlist item.

[timns]

We do not have a set schedule for features on our Customer Wishlist. Our wish list is a place our developers go for ideas for future enhancements and features. I have added your notes about Araxis vs. BC to the wishlist item.

That's great. You guys seem very responsive, and I'm sure we all appreciate the fact you read and respond within this forum!

[empe]

Hi there,
I am using BC several years now and I was never missing any feature. Till today. I do have to compare some thousand text files in two identically folder structures. One side containing calculation results and the other side containing calculation references. All files in one directory belong to a sequence of calculation steps showing the results file by file whereas i. e. file 4 ist the input to get file 5 and file 5 is the input to get file 6 and so on. The file names are "nearly random" which can't be (easily) changed. So there are two very important things for me:
a) I have to see the NUMBER of differences between two file on folder view.
b) I have to order the files depending on there modification time (Windows). But usually there are about 50 files being generated in a second. Right now (I think) BC only can fetch the modification time with an accuracy of 1 second and then files will be sorted by name. Sorry for being compared with Ara..., but they do the job so I think BC can do this easily too
Is there any solution/plugin/something else I can do to get my job done with BC which I love so much more than Ara...?
Thanks a lot
Micha

[Aaron]

Alignment in the Folder Compare is currently based on File name (and Folder Structure unless ignored). It is on our wishlist to enhance this and allow for different criteria to control the alignment.

Displaying the detected differences would require this alignment, and is still on our Customer Wishlist.

[empe]

Ok, thanks for the answers. We would like to purchase about one hundred licences, but without these features I think we have to look for an other product like A.....

[Jemmeh]

Is this still not a feature? I'm trying to see if there's a way to do this at current. It's an absolute necessity for my work to have the number of differences between files, the way Araxis Merge allows.

[Chris]

Sorry, it still isn't possible to display the number of differences in the Folder Compare in our current version 4.0.1.

You can output the number of different lines as a report from the Folder Compare. Select the files to include in the report, then use the "Actions > File Compare Report" command and select "Summary" as the report layout.

[gameridian]

I found this thread after searching for a way to view the number of differences between files in BC while in folder view. I use Winmerge a lot and I find the number of differences column a very useful feature when trying to get quick estimates of differences between large groups of files. It's disappointing to find that this ability has was put on the BC customer wishlist over 4 years ago and is still not available.

[Aaron]

Hello,

We do not expose this information as a column in the current release, but it is on our wishlist. You can get this information by using the Edit menu -> Expand All, Select All Files, then Actions menu -> File Compare Report and generate a report (View in Browser or Print Preview). The Layout Summary is probably the type of information you are looking for.

[jesseelliott]

Our company has been using Beyond Compare for over 10 years, and we love it! But not having a difference count per file is a real drag. We asked for this feature in April of 2004 and got the following reply:

I'll add the request for a listing of the number of file differences in the folder viewer to our feature request database.

Chris Kennedy
Scooter Software

Is this really such a hard feature to add? Clearly there is interest, and I think all customers would quickly realize how useful it is even if they don't know they want it now.

This is the one thing that we miss from Araxis Merge. That little column just gives so much information. It's all about managing expectations. It's sometimes discouraging to see hundreds or thousands of different files, but if most of them have only single digit differences, that's really nice to know!

[Aaron]

Hello,

Sorry we haven't been able to tackle this feature request yet. We're a smaller company with limited resources, and have many enhancements in queue. We've added a lot to the program in this amount of time, as well as a lot of 'under the hood' improvements that allow us to handle very large files and folders. Most recently, we're adding 64bit support for Windows and Linux (BC4.1, currently in beta). Our developers visit our wishlist to get ideas for new enhancements and work them in between other projects, or related projects. It's useful to know this specific feature is holding you back; I'll add these notes to our tracker on the subject.

[jesseelliott]

Aaron,

I completely agree with you -- you guys have added a tremendous amount of features in that time period! Please understand that I think you have an outstanding piece of software. It just seems like this is a pretty trivial feature given that you already have configurable columns, and the number of differences given in the report (which comes up almost instantaneously) is already calculated somewhere. Thanks again, and I do understand what it's like to have limited resources!