Feature request: improved fiormat selection

[buddman]

This request is similar to a few others that I've seen here, but it might be significantly easier to implement. In short, I'd like an easy way to select between multiple applicable formats for a particular file type, and I'd like to be able to apply a Data filter but view the results as a Text comparison (for cases where the Text comparison is more useful).

So here are my suggestions:

1) In the Format dropdown (both per-session and per-file), display all formats that match the current file extension at the top of the list. For example, if I have 3 CSV formats, CSV #1, CSV #2, CSV #3 and I'm comparing two CSV files, the Formats dropdown would look like this:
CSV #1
CSV #2
CSV #3
-------
<the regular format list, in priority order>

This would make it very easy to switch between the most likely candidate formats, without having to search down through the whole list.


2) Also in the Format dropdown, include Data formats at the bottom of the list when doing a Text comparison so that I can apply my predefined conversions (e.g. Excel --> CSV) but view the results as Text rather than Data. Yes, I can work around this by creating parallel Text format definitions for my Data formats, but it would be simpler if I could just reuse my existing Data format definitions, since the filters are already producing text output anyways.


3) These features could either be implemented as submenus on the Format dropdown, or as separate sections as illustrated in #1 above.


These improvements would make the Format capabilities even more useful and powerful.

Thanks,
Paul

[Aaron]

Hello,

You can currently switch between the two views using the Session menu -> Compare Files Using submenu. This will launch a new tab rather than replace the current, but will use the defined file format for the new session type (or the default if one does not exist). Which "filters" settings did you want to carry over between formats? Is it a File Format setting or a Session Setting?

The order the formats appear in the File Format dropdown is manually configurable in the Tools menu -> File Format list. The order is important since the topmost match for the file mask is the Format used automatically for those files. If in a parent compare, such as a Folder Compare, the topmost match also determines the default session type. You can move your multiple CSV formats to be next to each other; just make sure the topmost format is the one you want to use by default and the 2nd topmost of the next session type is the default for that session type.

Improving our interface and making it easier to switch session types and formats is on our Customer Wishlist. If you could let us know which settings you were hoping to preserve when jumping between formats, or maybe a specific example, I can add those notes to our Wishlist entry.