Can you spot the difference?
· 2008-03-28 21:29 by Thijs Kroesbergen for Brokenwire.NET
It’s Thijs’ tool time again!
This time I want to introduce you to Beyond Compare, a tool I recently discovered because it was in the toolbox for the project I’m currently working on. Before I used the tool that is shipping with Visual Studio and the platform SDK, Windiff, which is pretty terrible.
So Beyond Compare is just like your average compare tool, but MUCH better.
Why is it better?
- Because it has both file-to-file comparison and folder comparison.
- It is integrated into the shell, so just right click file one, then file two and the tool compares the two. And is has a very short startup time, I just hate it if you have to wait for a tool to start up.
- You can adjust the alignment of two files, so if the auto-detection
f*cks upgets confused, you can fix it easily. - Transferring changes selectively from one file to another is a breeze! This way you can merge changes made in two files at the same time.
- Best of all is the intelligent support for some common file formats such as XML. This way you can really spot the differences (and optionally ignore unimportant things such as whitespace).
- And if you miss a feature, get a plugin or write it yourself!
The creators of this tool describe it as:
Beyond Compare®, the advanced file and folder comparison utility for Windows, helps you visualize changes in your code, keeps your directories in sync, and validates copies of your data.
If you don’t believe me, or them, (and perhaps you shouldn’t) then you can get a free trial from their site. Additionally you can read a review of Beyond Compare on DonationCoder.com (which has some really nice other tools too, such as the ScreenShotCaptor) or read another praising on CodingHorror.com.
Leave me a comment if you know a better compare tool (Better may be free, or better may be with better functionality). Also, let me know if have other nice tools in your toolbox that I should be aware of.
Singularity: open source C# Operating System Get the OS version in C#