More things to love about BC3

[dickdunbar]

1. Responsive Scooter Team.
Just solved a nasty crash issue with Cisco VPN connectivity.
That one was tough, guys ... Thanks.

2. I keep finding new goodies, like:
Tools / Options / Open With
I added some keystroke shortcuts for Winzip, PDF, 3 editors.
BC3 is a much faster directory explorer than explorer, and these
shortcuts save a lot of time.

And, there are a few things I'd like to see added, now that I spend most of my working day in BC3.

1. Left-Right-Left ... which is which?
From Explorer:
"Select left folder for compare"
"Compare to <folder_name>"
Now wouldn't you expect the second folder to show up on the Left frame?
It doesn't ... it's on the right frame, and confuses the heck out of me.

2. If I have one BC3 session running, minimized in the system tray
Then click on BC3 in my Quick Launch window, the second BC3 session
is also minimized in the system tray.
That's unexpected behaviour on Windows. I expect to see the new BC3.

3. A new sort option/tab is needed. Sort by .ext
I deal with large directories, and need to focus my view.

4. BC3 tabs are wonderful. I can get several folder transfers running at once.
So many, in fact, that it can consume my entire desktop and network
bandwidth. I need to be able to control that, and there are several
other programs (leechftp) that allow you to control the bandwidth
of a particular tab that is dominating, or to select "Pause ALL", so
that urgent network activity isn't disturbed by BC3.
When the crisis passes, "Resume" continues the transfers.

5. I don't always get to control the directory structures of ftp sites.
Some of them have extremely deep directory structures, or a huge
number of files in a particular directory.
It takes a long time for BC3 to refresh the ftp folder, and I'd like to
control the behaviour.

- Pause the file/directory refresh
- F5 to refresh only the Left Frame
- Ctrl-F5 to refresh both frames, when I need that
- Swap the windows, and F5 to refresh one directory (the right frame)

6. Back-to-compare-basics (not beyond)
I'm often comparing code that has been refactored ... rearranged.
The two copies are nearly identical, except that one copy has
reordered the functions (for example).

The code is identical, but BC3 doesn't detect that; it should handle
this situation naturally.

7. BC3 on Linux using curses?
I often telnet/putty to Linux boxes, and am in TERM shell.
Without the existence of a $DISPLAY env variable, it would be
nice to do work with BC3 without using an X-Windows manager.


Great program. Lots of flexibility to control my complicated tech life.
BC3 is my technical edge. Unthinkable how I could do without it.

[chrroe]

Hello dickdunbar!

1. Left-Right-Left ... which is which?
From Explorer:
"Select left folder for compare"
"Compare to <folder_name>"
Now wouldn't you expect the second folder to show up on the Left frame?
It doesn't ... it's on the right frame, and confuses the heck out of me.

Well, on my PC everything works as expected:

FolderA -> Select Left Folder for Compare
FolderB -> Compare to "FolderA"

Result: FolderA in the left pane, FolderB in the right one.

2. If I have one BC3 session running, minimized in the system tray
Then click on BC3 in my Quick Launch window, the second BC3 session
is also minimized in the system tray.
That's unexpected behaviour on Windows. I expect to see the new BC3.

This works here as expected ...

3. A new sort option/tab is needed. Sort by .ext
I deal with large directories, and need to focus my view.

That's simple:
In a folder compare right-click on the heading of the pane.
There you can Choose which coloumns should appear (Ext).
Now you can sort the coloumn like in any other windows application.

5. I don't always get to control the directory structures of ftp sites.
Some of them have extremely deep directory structures, or a huge
number of files in a particular directory.

Have you already tried to set the "Recursive -R" option in the FTP-Profiles?
this may sped up things, but only if the FTP server supports this.

7. BC3 on Linux using curses?

Whhooo, rather an elephant walks through a needle's ear
I cannot imagine that the Development team of BC can offer this.

But there might be some alternatives:
- Accessing that Linux boxes from Windows BC3 via SFTP
- Using an X-Server on Windows like Xming ( http://www.straightrunning.com/XmingNotes ) to display the Linux UI on a remote Windows machine.

Bye
Christoph

[Zoë]

2. If I have one BC3 session running, minimized in the system tray Then click on BC3 in my Quick Launch window, the second BC3 session is also minimized in the system tray.

I can't reproduce this either.

4. I need to be able to control that, and there are several other programs (leechftp) that allow you to control the bandwidth of a particular tab that is dominating, or to select "Pause ALL", so that urgent network activity isn't disturbed by BC3. When the crisis passes, "Resume" continues the transfers.

Supporting pause/resume is on the wishlist.

5. It takes a long time for BC3 to refresh the ftp folder, and I'd like to control the behaviour.

We'll look into improving this. One way to work around this is to open a folder comparison of the local directory in another tab. All the views are tied together, so if you refresh one tab the changes will also show up in the other tab.

I'm often comparing code that has been refactored ... rearranged. The two copies are nearly identical, except that one copy has reordered the functions (for example).

We're always working on improving the comparison type, but there probably won't be any significant improvements until at least v4.

7. BC3 on Linux using curses?

Sorry, this isn't possible. Right now BC can't even run without a X11 connection, even when running silent scripts. Supporting curses would require completely re-implementing the user interface.

[Lutz]

2. If I have one BC3 session running, minimized in the system tray
Then click on BC3 in my Quick Launch window, the second BC3 session
is also minimized in the system tray.
That's unexpected behaviour on Windows. I expect to see the new BC3.

I can reproduce this, but:

This happens if the shortcut is without the /solo switch. BC3 only opens a new minimized window then.
With the /solo switch BC3 starts a new instance (not minimized).

[dickdunbar]

@Lutz: Changed my QuickLaunch BC3 properties to add "/solo". Works great. Thanks.

[dickdunbar]

@cchroe I have to change my thought model for the Right-Click Menu.
I had always interpreted that option to mean:
- You've selected FolderA
- Now go select the left folder (FolderB).

So perhaps the wording could be changed slightly to make the SubMenu clearer:
"Select As Left Folder for Compare"

I just had to change my expectations, and it works on my PC too

Well, on my PC everything works as expected:

FolderA -> Select Left Folder for Compare
FolderB -> Compare to "FolderA"

3. A new sort option/tab is needed. Sort by .ext
right-click on the heading of the pane in folder compare.
Choose (Ext) column

I never thought to do that. Thanks. Works great.

5. Large directories on ftp
Set the "Recursive -R" option in the FTP-Profiles?

I did try that, and I found something even simpler to halt the directory refresh now.
Just click on the blinking red (X) icon in the toolbar to halt the refresh.

7. BC3 on Linux using curses?
- Access Linux boxes from Windows BC3 via SFTP
- Using an X-Server on Windows like Xming

The Linux box in question is running as a virtual machine on WinXP.
I tried sftp (before this post). I could ping the VM, but couldn't get ftp login to work correctly.

The problem with Win NTFS directories is the protocol is proprietary, and R/O is the best Linux can do. So for two-way BC work, I need to run this from the Windows side anyway.

I configured Samba on Linux, exported my home directories, and now run the compare from Windows using UNC style:

\\suse\home

BC3 is extremely fast at transferring ... much faster, in fact, than writing directly to the disk that holds the virtual machine.

Thanks Christoph, for the very helpful post.

[dickdunbar]

@Craig. Thanks.

2. If I have one BC3 session running, minimized in the system tray
Cannot reproduce.

Resolved by adding /solo to my QuickLaunch icon.

5. It takes a long time for BC3 to refresh the ftp folder.
open a folder comparison of the local directory in another tab.

I agree, the Tab folder displays are very nice, and this is one way I control the effect.
Clicking on the Red (X) icon also halts the ftp directory refresh fine.

I'm often comparing code that has been refactored ... rearranged.
We're always working on improving the comparison type, but there probably won't be any significant improvements until at least v4.

Thanks. I have other tools I can use when this is an issue.

7. BC3 on Linux using curses?

vmware server can control the session with X11 running, and I'm exploring using TightVNC as a remote terminal. I use Hummingbird Exceed ... which works fine, but I prefer a smaller desktop footprint.