I am new to this software. I am used to a different sort of comparison software.

[Captain Xarzu]

I am new to this software. I am used to a different sort of comparison software. For starters, what do the colors mean? The folders have different colors some are half one color and half another one. Beyond Compare is a very highly recommended software, but I was expecting something where all the subdirectories and contents would be shown directly to me.

[chrroe]

Hello Captain Xarzu!

Well, when you have a Folder Compare opened, you can go the View menu and there choose Legend.
There all the different facettes are explained.


Bye
Christoph

[Zoë]

To see the contents of all of the folders you can use the Edit menu's "Expand All" command (also on the toolbar), or use the "Session Settings..." command in the Session menu and on the "Handling" tab check the "Expand subfolders when loading session" checkbox.

[Aaron]

After expanding everything, you can use the Display Filters (upper left Toolbar) to hide/show different aspects of the comparison. Such as only Show Differences.

By Default, the Folder Compare uses size/timestamp to determine differences. This is configurable in the Session menu -> Session Settings.

[Michael Bulgrien]

what do the colors mean? The folders have different colors some are half one color and half another one.

The colors represent the "difference" status of the folders:

Red means that the folder contains differences (files and/or folders that exist on the other side, but are different/newer).

Blue means that the folder contains orphans (files and/or folders that do not exist on the other side).

Half red/half blue means that the folder contains orphans and differences.

The colors allow a user to assess the "difference" state of a folder without having to look at the contents. You can always expand the tree if you want to see the contents, or as Craig described, you can configure the software to expand the folders automatically.

In some cases, when working with large folder structures, you may not want the software to scan for differences until you expand the folder. You can configure BC3 that way too. If the contents of the folder have not yet been scanned for differences, it will be yellow instead of red, blue, or gray.

[Chris224]

There is one more icon in my comparison which I can't recoqnize based on the help file.
This is the yellow folder icon with the small red envelope in the bottom right corner. What does this icon mean?

[Zoë]

It means that BC wasn't able to open the folder, usually because of a permissions issue.

[Chris224]

Ah ok, thx