Suggestion for new commands

[CarlB]

Hello all. I'm checking out BC3, and I like what I've seen so far. I'm looking for a new diff/merge program because my current tool of choice has some issues when doing certain comparisons (there are some cases it just doesn't handle very well). BC's compare engine seems better, and I like the UI.

I do have a suggestion: commands I'd really like to see are "Copy to <side> and go to next difference" (where <side> is "right" or "left"). These commands would copy the currently selected difference to the right (or left) and automatically jump to the next difference. The functionality would be essentially the same as using the current "Copy to <side>" command followed by the "Next Difference Selection" command. Having them both in one command would be really handy.

That's pretty much it; tell me you'll add these commands and I'm sold.

Thanks,

Carl

[Aaron]

Hello Carl,

We have a Clear Conflict Section, Go to Next Conflict section command; for the Text Merge session. You can open a Text Merge Session, then go to Tools -> Customize Commands, and assign it to the Toolbar or a Shortcut key.

You can also use the Display Filter to only Show Conflicts, and then select and copy them all at once instead of one at a time.

Or would you be looking for a more global situation where after every take command, it would automatically jump to the next difference?

[CarlB]

Thanks for the fast reply, Aaron. I am not sure we are talking about the same thing; I tried the command you mention but it doesn't appear to do what I would like. I don't think I am explaining myself very well; I'll give an example and hope that clears things up.

Say we had two text files:

file1.txt:
--------
AAAA
CCCC
DDDD
EEEE
FFFF

file2.txt:
--------
BBBB
CCCC
EEEE

When you compare them, they look something like this in BC:


File 1 | File 2
-----------------------------------------------
AAAA | BBBB
CCCC | CCCC
DDDD |
EEEE | EEEE
FFFF |

OK, here's what I want to be able to do:

The first conflict is selected (AAAA vs. BBBB); I decide I want file2.txt to use AAAA instead of BBBB, so I press the "Copy left and go to next difference" button. File1.txt is unchanged, and File2.txt now looks like this:

AAAA
CCCC
EEEE

I can do this with the "Copy Left" button right now, but here's the new behavior: with "Copy Left", the cursor/selection continues to be the AAAA line. With "Copy left and go to next difference", the selection would automatically move to the next difference, the DDDD line. I could then press the "Copy right and go to next difference" button, which would Change file1.txt to look like this:

AAAA
CCCC
EEEE
FFFF

... and automatically move the current selection to the "FFFF" line, where I could decide to copy left or right or just leave it be.

The new behavior is the automatic move to the next difference. It is the same as if I were to hit Shift-Ctrl-R (or Shift-Ctrl-L) followed by Ctrl-N, but it would be a single command.

Thanks,

Carl

[Michael Bulgrien]

CarlB wants BC3 to automatically advance to the next diff section after a "Copy to <side>" operation. Sounds like a possible tweak to me rather than a new set of commands.

[CarlB]

CarlB wants BC3 to automatically advance to the next diff section after a "Copy to <side>" operation. Sounds like a possible tweak to me rather than a new set of commands.

Yes, exactly. You said in one sentence what took me paragraphs to write; thank you.

I'd be happy with a checkbox in a preferences dialog, something like "Copy to <side> automatically advances to next difference section", that would enable this behavior for the current "Copy to <side>" commands.

[CarlB]

Hi again; is this feature being considered for a future release? I'm not sure what standard policy is for replying to suggestions/requests (i.e. if no positive response then that means it's not being considered?).

I think a simple checkbox (in preferences) to modify the behavior of the "Copy to <side>" commands to automatically jump to the next difference would work, and hopefully not be too difficult to implement. Am I the only person who would find this useful?

[Aaron]

We had not replied about the option because we were still discussing the details of implementation. We are working on finalizing that and it should be showing up in a future release.

If anyone else would like to comment on how they expect this option to work, please do.

[CarlB]

Thanks!