Misalignment version 4 compared to version 3

[canopus8800]

Hi.

I keep both BC3 and BC4 on my system to compare ( ) some improvement and/or behavior between versions.

I noticed that version 4 misaligns a line that version 3 doesn't.

Version 3


Version 4


For better resolution:
Version 3
Version 4

Look at the second line on both images. Version 4 puts a hatched area where would be the corresponding line. Version 3 (first picture) does the right thing.

Another subject I want to expose here.
At the Alignment Detail, version 4 puts a hatched area to represent the absent text (arrow at the bottom of the page on both pictures).
It would be great if this feature was adjustable, ON or OFF, because in many situations it does not help to visualize what we want.

Thanks.

[Aaron]

Hello,

If you look at the Alignment options in the Session Settings between your V3 and V4 installs, is there a difference between your configurations? If you tweak any of your settings does this help with your v4 comparison?

If you are still having trouble, please email in:
1) a pair of sample files
2) your BCSupport.zip from the Help menu -> Support; Export from each BC3 and BC4
3) a link back to this forum thread for our reference.

For the cross hatching, the details view shows the current selections line on the left and right. BC3 and BC4 would have matching behavior showing the cross hatching if lines were not aligned.

[canopus8800]

Hello,
If you look at the Alignment options in the Session Settings between your V3 and V4 installs, is there a difference between your configurations? If you tweak any of your settings does this help with your v4 comparison?

Thank you, Aaron.

V4 was set to "Standard alignment".
I changed to "Unaligned", "Myers O(ND) alignment" and "Patience Diff alignment". All of them shows the correct alignment on my comparing files. Good so far.

But...
...when I changed back to "Standard alignment", V4 still kept the...
...correct alignment.
I expected it had showed the wrong one, as the initial view of the files. Is it a bug?

V3 was set to a different configuration because the options are very different. There is a slide bar of "Standard method" from "Fast and coarse" to "Slow and through".

For the cross hatching, the details view shows the current selections line on the left and right. BC3 and BC4 would have matching behavior showing the cross hatching if lines were not aligned.

Yes, I got it. But what I mean is the fact that V4 fills with undesired cross hatching the space where text is absent at the other side, as I showed on pictures from my previous post. I mean, cross hatching among the text, not for empty lines. Please, compare pictures V3 and V4 at the Alignment Detail area and see how V3 handles that. There is no cross hatching with V3. This is desirable in some situations. Then, it was excellent if we could control this, where to apply and don't apply cross hatching at Alignment Detail view.

For that 2 files, I prefer there is no cross hatching, as V3 does.

[Aaron]

Hello,

The Alignment option bar for Fast and coarse and Slow and through in BC3 controls the text value in the Skew Tolerance. We removed the bar, but you can still update the value in the Skew Tolerance in BC3 or BC4 to help alter this behavior. Update the value to be a larger number to help match BC3 behavior.

And thanks for clarifying which part of the cross hatch is troublesome. For in-line cross hatching, that means you enabled Alignment Details, which is a mode to view which character is aligned to which character and requires the cross hatching for characters that do not exist. To use the BC3-like mode, switch to Text Details (View menu) for a details section similar to BC3's.

[canopus8800]

Hello,
The Alignment option bar for Fast and coarse and Slow and through in BC3 controls the text value in the Skew Tolerance. We removed the bar, but you can still update the value in the Skew Tolerance in BC3 or BC4 to help alter this behavior. Update the value to be a larger number to help match BC3 behavior.

Alignment in BC3 Session Settings (Skew tolerance) goes from 800 to 4000.
Using BC4, I put all those values and beyond (up to 8000), but nothing changes.
BC4 continues to misaligns some lines of the HTML files.

But never mind. Using other method than Standard, I get the correct job.
I Just save that other method updating session default and all is fine.

And thanks for clarifying which part of the cross hatch is troublesome. For in-line cross hatching, that means you enabled Alignment Details, which is a mode to view which character is aligned to which character and requires the cross hatching for characters that do not exist. To use the BC3-like mode, switch to Text Details (View menu) for a details section similar to BC3's.

Great! It's what I was looking for!
Text Details, not Alignment Details. And avaiable to turn the feature On or OFF.

Excellent!

Thank you, Aaron, very much, for your prompt and kindly support.
I can consider this thread completely solved.

[Aaron]

No problem. Just to clarify, BC3's Skew value goes from 1 up to 30,000. The slider bar is a commonly used subset, but not the full range. This is part of why we updated to a single control in BC4.

[canopus8800]

If you are still having trouble, please email in:
1) a pair of sample files
2) your BCSupport.zip from the Help menu -> Support; Export from each BC3 and BC4
3) a link back to this forum thread for our reference.

I'll send the header of a pair of HTML files with the quoted misalignment in order to help you understand what is going wrong with Standard Method in version 4.
Also, a link to this thread and BCSupport.zip attached.
With this, perhaps some improvement may occur.

Once again, thank you very much!

[Aaron]

Received. I've added them to our test cases.

I mention this in the email, but you can configure which alignment scan to use for text files for either all text files, all files within a parent saved Folder Compare, or for specific files in a parent Folder Compare.

To choose, launch the Folder Compare, then double click on your files to launch a child Text Comparison. You can then go to the child's Session menu -> Session Settings, and update the Alignment tab. Then before clicking Ok update the bottom dropdown from "Use for this view only" to one of the other options, such as Use for all files in parent session, then click Ok. Then close the child comparison and re-save the parent Folder Compare.