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I've been using Beyond Compare for about a year for source code and data file comparisons and I can't imagine doing without it. For example, I do daily ZIP backups of my source folder and BC has been a huge productivity improvement by letting me compare any of these ZIP files with my current live folder. It's now extremely easy to answer "What did this code look like a week ago?" and merge ongoing changes between various versions.
I have several feature requests, some of which I'm sure are already in the product but I just don't know about yet, so please let me know if any of these are already supported. I'm sure that other people have already asked for some of these features but I didn't see a way to examine your existing wish list.
1. In the Line Details section at the bottom of the File Viewer, it would be nice to have the option of seeing a total of 2 lines (as is currently supported), 4 lines (the edit line from each file and the one line above them), or 6 lines (the edit line from each file and the lines above and below them). This would help when aligning changes made to the edit line.
2. Add the ability to join lines in the editor by pressing the 'Delete' key at the end of one line and having the next line come up to that line. I suppose you don't support it now because it has negative side effects regarding the file alignment, but I'd like to have the option and perhaps need to do a refresh to get the files aligned again if necessary.
3. Prompt to save or discard any changes that have been made in the BC editor before launching the associated application on that file. Right now, those changes are silently ignored.
4. It's weird that I have to say "White space includes Tabs and spaces" in order to get text to indent and unindent, and then remember to set "Indent uses spaces" in the File Viewer settings. I would like to always use spaces in the file (never tabs) but have indent and unindent always move the selected text by one column left or right, not to the next/previous "tab" position. Also, please add the ability to add toolbar buttons to the File Viewer for Increase Indent and Decrease Indent, instead of just menu and keyboard shortcut ability as it is now.
5. I wouldn't use it very often, but it has come up that it would be nice to show just the unimportant differences between two files.
6. Add the option of displaying just the edited lines in the File Viewer, perhaps with placeholders for lines which have been deleted.
7. For source code files, what I'd really like is an interface that displays three files at a time. For example, the left-most or top window would be version 8 of the file, the middle window would be version 9 which was created by someone else, and the right-most or bottom window would be my version of the file that I've been changing since version 8 and which I'll eventually check in as version 10. It would be great if the next/previous difference logic would work on windows 1 and 2, and the manual alignment logic would work on either windows 1 and 3 or windows 2 and 3 as I specified. I would expect to do a lot of manual copies, pastes, and deletes to update window 3 from 1 and/or 2, but at least the differences would all be on one screen. Right now, I do this functionality many times a week by running two or more concurrent instances of BC.
8. Add a keyboard shortcut to select the entire line block of differences between two files (what's currently done by double-clicking on the difference in the File Viewer). I really hope this one is already in the program and I just don't know about it, because I would use this a LOT.
9. Add a keyboard shortcut to go to the last line in a difference block. I usually do "Next Difference: Advance by line", but when there's a big difference block I sometimes want to quickly go to the end of it. Note that I'm not asking to go to the first line in the next difference - I want to easily go to the last line in the current difference. From there I'll sometimes press the shortcut key to go on to the next difference, but sometimes I'll stay in that area to investigate why the files resumed being the same at that point.
10. Besides the current "Copy To Other Side", add a "Copy From Other Side" command and make it possible to assign a keyboard shortcut to it.
11. Add a keyboard shortcut for toggling the focus back and forth between the windows in the File Viewer (what's currently done by left arrow and right arrow).
12. When copying lines between the left and right sides in the File Viewer, give the option of automatically advancing the cursor down one line in the source file. So if I'm copying one line at a time but there are 6 lines to copy, I can press the keyboard shortcut 6 times, rather than shortcut-down arrow, shortcut-down arrow, etc. (12 or more total keystrokes if the shortcut uses a shift key that needs to be released before the down arrow). So perhaps F9 will be my general "Copy to Other Side" shortcut but Shift-F9 will be "Copy to Other Side and advance down one line" and Ctrl-F9 might be "Copy From Other Side" from my earlier request.
13. It would be nice to have the file comparison rules not so strictly tied to file extensions. I would like to be able to name the comparison rules that I'm using, which might work on the same file extension as other rules with different names. This is necessary, for example, when a company might use ".TXT" extensions for four very different but repeatable purposes and renaming the files isn't always possible. If you cannot implement this request anytime soon, it would be nice to be able to "Edit Current Rules..." for the current extension but then explicitly CANCEL those changes before closing BC. I suppose if I knew more about how the rules are stored I could implement a workaround for this request, but of course I'd really like to have it built in.
14. Add an explicit "Next Difference" command, so that in general I can, for example, be using "Next Difference: Advance by line" but sometimes press a keystroke to say, "In this case, go to the beginning of the next difference". It's a decision that changes too frequently to try to handle with a global setting. It's OK to have an "Advance by line/Advance by section" default, but then provide the ability to override it as needed.
I actually have quite a bit more to request, but I don't know how full your development schedule already is. Thanks for a great product which I use daily and recommend often.
(It would be helpful if this post window wasn't so tiny. What is this, a license agreement?)
I have several feature requests, some of which I'm sure are already in the product but I just don't know about yet, so please let me know if any of these are already supported. I'm sure that other people have already asked for some of these features but I didn't see a way to examine your existing wish list.
1. In the Line Details section at the bottom of the File Viewer, it would be nice to have the option of seeing a total of 2 lines (as is currently supported), 4 lines (the edit line from each file and the one line above them), or 6 lines (the edit line from each file and the lines above and below them). This would help when aligning changes made to the edit line.
2. Add the ability to join lines in the editor by pressing the 'Delete' key at the end of one line and having the next line come up to that line. I suppose you don't support it now because it has negative side effects regarding the file alignment, but I'd like to have the option and perhaps need to do a refresh to get the files aligned again if necessary.
3. Prompt to save or discard any changes that have been made in the BC editor before launching the associated application on that file. Right now, those changes are silently ignored.
4. It's weird that I have to say "White space includes Tabs and spaces" in order to get text to indent and unindent, and then remember to set "Indent uses spaces" in the File Viewer settings. I would like to always use spaces in the file (never tabs) but have indent and unindent always move the selected text by one column left or right, not to the next/previous "tab" position. Also, please add the ability to add toolbar buttons to the File Viewer for Increase Indent and Decrease Indent, instead of just menu and keyboard shortcut ability as it is now.
5. I wouldn't use it very often, but it has come up that it would be nice to show just the unimportant differences between two files.
6. Add the option of displaying just the edited lines in the File Viewer, perhaps with placeholders for lines which have been deleted.
7. For source code files, what I'd really like is an interface that displays three files at a time. For example, the left-most or top window would be version 8 of the file, the middle window would be version 9 which was created by someone else, and the right-most or bottom window would be my version of the file that I've been changing since version 8 and which I'll eventually check in as version 10. It would be great if the next/previous difference logic would work on windows 1 and 2, and the manual alignment logic would work on either windows 1 and 3 or windows 2 and 3 as I specified. I would expect to do a lot of manual copies, pastes, and deletes to update window 3 from 1 and/or 2, but at least the differences would all be on one screen. Right now, I do this functionality many times a week by running two or more concurrent instances of BC.
8. Add a keyboard shortcut to select the entire line block of differences between two files (what's currently done by double-clicking on the difference in the File Viewer). I really hope this one is already in the program and I just don't know about it, because I would use this a LOT.
9. Add a keyboard shortcut to go to the last line in a difference block. I usually do "Next Difference: Advance by line", but when there's a big difference block I sometimes want to quickly go to the end of it. Note that I'm not asking to go to the first line in the next difference - I want to easily go to the last line in the current difference. From there I'll sometimes press the shortcut key to go on to the next difference, but sometimes I'll stay in that area to investigate why the files resumed being the same at that point.
10. Besides the current "Copy To Other Side", add a "Copy From Other Side" command and make it possible to assign a keyboard shortcut to it.
11. Add a keyboard shortcut for toggling the focus back and forth between the windows in the File Viewer (what's currently done by left arrow and right arrow).
12. When copying lines between the left and right sides in the File Viewer, give the option of automatically advancing the cursor down one line in the source file. So if I'm copying one line at a time but there are 6 lines to copy, I can press the keyboard shortcut 6 times, rather than shortcut-down arrow, shortcut-down arrow, etc. (12 or more total keystrokes if the shortcut uses a shift key that needs to be released before the down arrow). So perhaps F9 will be my general "Copy to Other Side" shortcut but Shift-F9 will be "Copy to Other Side and advance down one line" and Ctrl-F9 might be "Copy From Other Side" from my earlier request.
13. It would be nice to have the file comparison rules not so strictly tied to file extensions. I would like to be able to name the comparison rules that I'm using, which might work on the same file extension as other rules with different names. This is necessary, for example, when a company might use ".TXT" extensions for four very different but repeatable purposes and renaming the files isn't always possible. If you cannot implement this request anytime soon, it would be nice to be able to "Edit Current Rules..." for the current extension but then explicitly CANCEL those changes before closing BC. I suppose if I knew more about how the rules are stored I could implement a workaround for this request, but of course I'd really like to have it built in.
14. Add an explicit "Next Difference" command, so that in general I can, for example, be using "Next Difference: Advance by line" but sometimes press a keystroke to say, "In this case, go to the beginning of the next difference". It's a decision that changes too frequently to try to handle with a global setting. It's OK to have an "Advance by line/Advance by section" default, but then provide the ability to override it as needed.
I actually have quite a bit more to request, but I don't know how full your development schedule already is. Thanks for a great product which I use daily and recommend often.
(It would be helpful if this post window wasn't so tiny. What is this, a license agreement?)
In the interests of brevity, for the suggestions I excluded below you can consider it a "Thank you for the suggestion, I've added it to the wishlist and we'll consider it for a future release."
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