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Monday, February 21, 2011

ExamDiff Pro 5.5 Beta!

We are pleased to announce that we've just released a beta of ExamDiff Pro 5.5!


The biggest new feature that we added to 5.5 is Automated Directory Synchronization, which allows you to automatically synchronize two directories that are being compared. Automated synchronization is a faster alternative to manually selecting the files to copy, and remains safe due to its Preview feature and detailed logging.

ExamDiff Pro 5.5 Beta adds plenty of other features and improvements as well, including the ability to enter/browse file/directory name directly in the main window via the Browse button. New options for ignoring lines (Ignore Line Ranges and Ignore Blank Lines At The End Of A File) will allow the user to fine-tune the way ExamDiff Pro compares text files. New navigation commands (First Difference, Last Difference, and End of Current Difference) provide more ways to quickly navigate through differences. You can now override the default algorithm that determines whether files are text or binary by forcing ExamDiff Pro to treat certain files as binary or text based on their names and/or types. You can find more details about the 5.5 beta, including the complete list of new features, and download links, here.

Over the course of the next few weeks I will be posting more articles on how to use the new features in this beta.

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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

ExamDiff Pro 5.5: Determine Text/Binary By Name Filter

ExamDiff Pro has a powerful algorithm to determine whether files are text or binary, but it's not perfect: sometimes binary files are treated as text and vice versa. The next version of ExamDiff Pro will introduce a new feature to fine-tune the detection of text and binary files.

As an example, suppose that I'm comparing a set of PDF files without using a PDF-to-Text plug-in. PDF is a binary format, but occasionally the composition of a PDF file can fool ExamDiff Pro into thinking that it's a text file. This results in gibberish that's not particularly useful to me:


I could use the Files | Toggle Text/Binary Comparison command, but this is only a short-term solution, because I'd have to use it every time this problem occurs. Or I could go to View | Options | Compare | Advanced and select the option to treat all files as binary, but this is also a poor solution, because I'd have to remove this option whenever I compare text files.

The next version of ExamDiff Pro will introduce a better option: the Always treat these files as text and Always treat these files as binary pair of options under View | Options | Compare | Advanced. These options accept any set of name filter patterns, and will treat files matching these patterns accordingly. In my example, I can simply enter ".pdf" (no quotes) into the Always treat these files as binary box, and all PDF files will automatically be treated as binary files:


If I now re-compare, the PDF files are correctly treated as binary:


This has several advantages: in addition to making text/binary determination more accurate, it also speeds the process up, because matching a file to one of these patterns is much faster for ExamDiff Pro than determining whether it is a text or binary file based on its contents.

One final note: Because binary comparison is the more specialized application, the Always treat these files as binary takes precedence over the Always treat these files as text option: If a file matches both patterns, it will be treated as binary, and a file treated as text is compared to a file treated as binary, they will both be treated as binary.

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Wednesday, February 02, 2011

ExamDiff Pro 5.5: New Navigation Commands

The next version of ExamDiff Pro will introduce three new navigation commands: First Difference, Last Difference, and End of Current Difference.

The Navigation | First Difference   command scrolls the panes toward the first difference between the files or directories:


Similarly, the Navigation | Last Difference   command scolls the panes toward the last difference between the files or directories, as shown below. It can often be useful to go to the first or last difference in one click.


The Navigation | End of Current Difference command is similar to the already-existing Navigation | Current Difference command, but scrolls the panes toward the end, rather than the beginning, of the current difference. This is useful if you find a very long diff block and want to immediately reach the end of it.

For instance, if I enter this diff block:


I can use the Navigation | End of Current Difference command to move to the end of the diff block in one click:


These three new commands will make it easier to navigate through differences in file and directory comparison.

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