New User Seeks Cmd Line / Scripting Help

[Bobzilla]

I'd like to programmatically invoke BC and have the user taken directly to the File Viewer view with two files already open and compared. I cannot see a way to do this using command line switches. (I cannot find command line switches to specify a left and right file.) Maybe scripts is the way to go but early in the documentation of scripts I find this statement ... "Use a script to run Beyond Compare from a command line, without the usual user interface." But, of course, I want the usual user interface. I want the user to be able to see whatever differences there might be.

So ... please ... can I do what I want to do? Using command line switches or a script?

Thanks, Bob

[Ernie]

Re: New User Seeks Cmd Line / Scripting Help

I believe I kind of understand what you are asking, if not please elaborate, but I believe the following command line will do what you want:

bc2.exe FileSpec1 FileSpec2

[Bobzilla]

Re: New User Seeks Cmd Line / Scripting Help

Thanks Ernie. That comes pretty close. Unfortunately it doesn't take me to the File Viewer mode. Instead I get a small pop-up which names the two files, under which it says ...

Quick Compare:
Files don't match

and then there is a button labeled "View Comparison". Clicking on that button takes me to what I am after.

I tried putting /fv before the file names and after but that didn't make any difference.

No doubt the end user can tolerate having to click on the button but I'd still like to get rid of that unnecessary step. (Unnecessary in my case anyway.)

One of the files has to come from an FTP site. I can't play with that aspect today because the FTP site is down. But I assume I can prefix one of the filenames with ftp://[email protected]/path and all will work as expected.

Thanks again. If you or anyone else has further info on how to bypass the pop-up and go directly to the File Viewer I would still like to be able to do that.

Bob

[Zoë]

Re: New User Seeks Cmd Line / Scripting Help

Hi Bob,

Go into the Options dialog and on the "Startop" panel is a set of settings under the "When Starting with File Viewer Only" label. Just uncheck the "Show dialog with quick comparison results" to disable that initial dialog.

[Bobzilla]

Re: New User Seeks Cmd Line / Scripting Help

YESSSSS! Thanks you Craig. That gives the desired result.

I now realize that to invoke BC I will need to know where it lives. Do you recommend

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Scooter Software\Beyond Compare

or some other registry key, or perhaps some non-registry techique?

Thanks, Bob

[Zoë]

Re: New User Seeks Cmd Line / Scripting Help

What do you mean by knowing "where it lives"? If you're referring to where it stores its settings, it's a combintation of that registry key and a subdirectory in the "Application Data" directory. The details are covered in the help file under "Managing Stored Settings". There's also a way to run everything from the exe directory without touching the registry, and that's covered in the same place under the "Single-Directory Mode" heading.

If you want to know where the exe is located, that's stored in the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Scooter Software\Beyond Compare\ExePath. It's set by the BC2 exe though, not the installer, so you'll need to run it at least once to populate that setting.

[Bobzilla]

Re: New User Seeks Cmd Line / Scripting Help

Sorry Craig. "Where it lives" was a sloppy way of asking where the .exe is stored.

Thanks for your help.

Bob