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Beyond Compare
By: Allen Ayres



Next to your fave trusty text editor, Beyond Compare ( ScooterSoftware ) is probably the most useful tool a UBBDev member can have in their toolbag. Upgrading your modified forum version is made much easier due to the rapid way it allows you to compare one set of files with another and copy changes into your your current files.

Editor's Rating:

• Performance - 9
• Features - 9
• Usability - 10
• Design - 8
• Price - 8
• Support - 8

At A Glance:Pros:

• very fast
• allows you to upgrade your files in minutes
• works with all text files
• good support
• relatively inexpensive

Cons:

• Doesn't support CTRL+Z edit undo's
• Could really use a history list to undo changes as well
• Compare engine sometimes isn't very accurate

Review:
If you are like most ubbdev members, you always run the latest and greatest version of your forum. You are also looking for the easiest way to upgrade your forum without losing your modifications that are still compatible with the newer version. Well, Beyond Compare is the tool for you.

BC makes updating small version changes in your forum files a breeze as well, giving you a little insight into what it takes to bugfix and add the newest features. Highlighting a section of changed code and clicking on the right or left arrow is 98% of what makes BC run. I can upgrade a heavily modified forum with Beyond Compare in <15-20 minutes every time. This saves me the hassle of uploading the new files and re-adding my modifications back in - especially useful when you've done some tricky template or code changes requiring lots of editing and time originally. For the $30 charge for the software, you can save many hours at upgrade time for years to come

My only nitpicks with the software are that there really isn't a history for edit undo's. If you accidently copy over the wrong section of code and aren't exactly sure where to re-write the code back in, you'll need to exit without saving and start over on the file. Another one is it doesn't always recognize text that is the same if there are significant differences around the text that should match. BC shines with small changes tho.

go on to page 2 for the how to >>

How To:



Fire up your trusty Beyond Compare and this is the first screen you come to:




Use the 2 "browse" buttons on the right to select the 2 directories with the files you want to compare. If you plan to be comparing this set of files multiple times, you can give the session a name so you can come back to it at a later date.








The next screen you'll come to looks like this:




Here is where the file names should match up. Using the color legend at the bottom, you can see that newer files are in red and files with no differences are in black. Files that do not have a match are in blue.








Choose a folder you want to compare/upgrade and this is the screen you come to next:




It goes a little deeper in and lists the files in the sub-directories to be compared.








Choose a file you want to compare/upgrade. This is where it gets interesting. BC will go through and compare the 2 files line by line and try to match what is the same - producing this screen:




Major differences (code changes) are highlighted in red, minor differences (spacing, capitalization differences) are in blue, and blank lines are in gray. Down the left-hand side there is a quick "jump-to" column and the particular section of code you are on is highlighted.

Finding a difference on one side, you use your mouse to highlight that section of lines and click on one of the arrows up top to copy it to the right or left, depending on which side has the newer files (if left is newer, you would want to copy those changes to the right). Pay careful attention to all differences, as missing a space, semi-colon, or other code changes can have disastrous effects on your files (you did make backups first, didn't you? good... ).

You can also double-click on lines to manually edit for extra-tedious changes that might be intertwined with a previously installed modification.

Once you've copied the differences from the newer file to the older, click on "File>>Save" and the changes are set. Uplload in ascii, check permissions, and see if anything's broke

There's quite a bit more to this than the quick rundown I've given you, but most of your time will be spent using the basic steps. Once you get the hang of it, you can file compare new versions in in minutes.