Roadmap? News?

[devin]

Could you possible publish some sort of a roadmap for the upcoming BC versions?

There were no additions to the public changelog since October and some might wonder how Scooter Software is doing in general business sense.


Thank you.

[Zoë]

Scooter Software as a company, and Beyond Compare as a product are both doing well.

We're currently in the middle of v5 development. We've already announced that word wrap will be a launch feature. I can also confirm that we're working on dark themes for all three platforms. There will be other enhancements that we're not ready to discuss yet. That said, we want potential customers to buy based on what's in the product now. We have a generous upgrade policy, but we're not ready to commit to a release date for either the beta or final release, and can not guarantee that purchasing now will be a free upgrade to v5.

There are multiple reasons why we haven't been doing frequent releases. 64-bit macOS support was originally planned for v5 and releasing v4.3 early took a lot of resources, so we've had to prioritize more v5 work since then. Working from home has also affected the schedule, and some features have just taken longer than we expected to come together. We are planning a v4.4 release later this year though.

[devin]

Hi Zoe,

Glad to hear that. Upgrade cost is not a major concern at this point (I hope your sales will smile reading this), but the core written in Delphi and reliance on EOL QT4 are.

I wish you well and looking forward towards BC4/5. Maybe even with flexible hotkey assignments if I am being especially lucky this year.

[luckman212]

Thank you Zoe, it is really nice to read this, and hear that there is still stuff being worked on. BC (even with its infrequent updates) is still in the top 3 most useful software tools on my system. I can wait patiently for this to be baked, and I agree with Devin—no problem paying for the upgrade when it's ready to help support the team. Good luck to everyone, stay safe!

[ericfxd0]

Hi Zoë,

Thank you for this update, it's all great news. I was wondering if the macOS version will be a native app (and so use the built-in dark mode support).

Thanks!
Eric

[Zoë]

I was wondering if the macOS version will be a native app (and so use the built-in dark mode support).

Yes and no. We use a cross-platform development environment, rather than Xcode, but it uses the native Cocoa libraries and user interface controls where possible (buttons/edits/etc), and does benefit a lot from the built-in dark mode support. By comparison, the Windows version's dark theme support is all custom drawn and has required significantly more effort.

We have a lot of custom controls for things like the main comparison editors/treeviews/grids though, there's a lot of behind the scenes code that needs to be updated (e.g, to have a dark interface but light reports), and plenty of graphics to redo.

[chrisjj]

We've already announced that word wrap will be a launch feature

Great! Where was that announcement please?

[cstern]

Any chance of particpating in v5 beta for mac? I was in the beta for the first version for mac (3, I believe) and v4

[Chris]

Beyond Compare 5 isn't in beta yet; when it is we'll announce it in the forum. Thank you for beta testing past versions of BC.

[chrisjj]

Great! Where was that announcement please?

Please.

[chrisjj]

Seven year ago I wrote https://www.scootersoftware.com/vbul...tion#post10767 :

Approx. 5 years upon BC3's release with incomplete user documentation, Scooter Software said it hoped to complete the documentation later.

Are there plans to complete the documentation for the release of BC4?

BC4 documentation is still incomplete. What's the ETS for this to be addressed?

[Chris]

The first mention of word-wrap as a planned feature for BC5 was by Zoe in the word wrap thread here:
https://www.scootersoftware.com/vbul...age3#post80833

[Aaron]

With new features always being included and rolled out with BC4, it's an ever moving target to keep documentation up to date. Like mentioned before, it's something we audit and improve when we can, as well as maintain the collection of KB articles on the website that we also update.

[Sander Bouwhuis]

I was about to buy BC, but I guess I'll wait for v5 to land. Is there any ballpark idea when that will be? Is it going to be in 2022?

[Chris]

We haven't announced a release date for Beyond Compare 5. If you purchase Beyond Compare 4 now, it includes 12 months of upgrade protection.

Upgrade Protection
When you buy a new license, you automatically get 12 months of upgrade protection. That means if we release a major upgrade within 12 months of your purchase, you can get the upgrade for free. You only get automatic upgrade protection when you pay full price for a license. It is not reestablished when you pay half price to upgrade to a new major version. If you skip a major version and pay full price to upgrade, it is effectively a new license and you get 12 more months of upgrade protection.

Upgrade Policy: https://www.scootersoftware.com/shop...=upgradepolicy