What did you think of the review?

[mouser]

Well what did you guys think of the review?

I know it was long - i was thinking about whether we should split it into different pages..

please post your comments and let me know what direction you would like to see the reviews go in.

[nudone]

great review - the flash animation is an inspired idea (did you use macromedia captivate?).

i've used 'compare and merge' which i always thought had a nice look to it but as i only do the occasional comparison tasks i'm probably not best to pass judgement on it.

'beyond compare' looks like it has some great power user type features though. like you pointed out in the review, it's the sort of program that you will find a use for and then wonder how you ever got by without it.

anyway, the review was just the right length i would say. just enough to tempt me to give it a try - which is the main thing isn't it. 

[mouser]

Yep, i used macromedia captivate.
i'm kind of a fan of the demo-creating softwares.  maybe a review is in the works.
i wouldn't say that captivate is flawless, it had an issue with clipping audio a bit at the ends, but it was a very easy program to use and made it quite simple to make those movies. i would have liked to be able to reduce the quality of the audio too, the audio is the main factor for the size (2mb with audio, 200k without) - i almost didn't post them because of their size..

a nice free flash demo maker (don't think it supports audio):
http://www.debugmode.com/wink/

[nudone]

ah that is interesting...

i was thinking of getting captivate to do some 'tutorials' centered around photoshop but was also toying with the idea of just capturing the movies as xvid.

i'm surprised that there is no option to reduce the audio size - is there the option to import mp3 or similar compressed format?

i suppose that captivate version 2 will contain audio compression facilities - always seems there are a few obvious functions left out of major released software and then they are mysteriously included with the next update. 

[mouser]

there are 2 audio options when publishing, high qual and low qual.  it uses mp3.
the review demos i posted are low qual; i would have much preferred an option to let me make it lower quality,
as i think their review of low is still better than it needs be and i would have preferred the space savings.

[Jibz]

I think the flash movies were a great idea (albeit somewhat large, as you noticed). Some things are hard to explain in writing or show with a screenshot, and it also gives a chance to see the program 'in action' .

[mouser]

Yes, i think we will endevour to have at least one movie for each new review.

[nudone]

maybe macromedia are just hoping that you'll use flash to do the final stages of the captivate project. i think i'm right in saying that you can import captivate files into flash so i would assume that the audio could be compressed again in there.

i've not done it so i could be talking complete rubbish.

[mouser]

yes you can export for flash modification, and you may be able to individually export and import mp3 files for individual slides;
the strange thing is that captivate gives you two choices for compression quality of the audio, i just want it to give me a few more.

part of the problem may lie with the flash format itself. when i made my 2xl simulator (hehe even got in a plug for another of the things available at this site), i discovered that some lowfi mp3 audio formats do not play correctly in flash.

[tranglos]

Well what did you guys think of the review?

-mouser (March 19, 2005, 07:47 PM)

Great review and very useful, as all the others. I am only missing one important data point: Unicode support. I worked recently at a project where manual file comparison and merging was a frequent task. The files were all unicode, and used various encodings: UTF8, UTF16, with or without BOM, etc. It was critical that the compare tool processed all these encodings transparently and did not alter them in any way. The company used Araxis, and I grew to love it, although it is too expensive for my personal use. It performed flawlessly; I loved the ability to click the arrows on the margins to merge one version into the other. Fast, too, even with big files. But correct Unicode handling was of primary importance (those were multilingual files used for software localization).

Does anyone know if Beyond Compare is as good with Unicode? The feature list does mention "Unicode and MBCS support", but this is listed under the "File Viewer Display" heading, which could mean that it does not apply to the editor.

Did I mention all the reviews are fantastic? I only wish I hadn't already bought most of the great software you've managed to get member discounts for

[Craig (Scooter)]

Does anyone know if Beyond Compare is as good with Unicode?

-tranglos (October 20, 2006, 05:43 PM)

Yes, BC fully supports comparing, editing, and saving UTF-8 and UTF-16 with or without the byte order mark, and will automatically detect such files. 

[Mr.B]

There are two utilities that I can't live without...  Ultra-Edit and Beyond Compare.

Here's a rundown of the significant features we've planned for 3.0:

Regular Edition

• Virtually all BC2 functions
• Full-screen editor
• Syntax highlighting
• Dynamic re-comparison
• Undo after save
• Dedicated folder sync sessions
• Flattened folder compare
• Full Unicode user interface and filename support

Pro Edition

• 3-way merge
• Other miscellaneous advanced features

BC3 News forum: http://www.scooterso...d=BC3News&page=0

[mouser]

a LOT of us are looking forward to bc3! 

for me, the full screen editing is the one thing i dislike about bc2, which i otherwise love.

[safecracker]

Good review of a good product. We are using BC2 and are testing the BC3 Beta as well.

To us, the real BC3 improvement is 3-way merge, which makes BC3 an excellent choice for any
serious CM tool (e.g. tools that, unlike e.g. VSS, CVS or SVN, provide full merge tracking).

regards,
/Tomas

[rgjordan]

I agree. Beyond compare is one of my favorite programs of all time. Another great feature is that it can compare the content of archives (zip, jar, war, etc). I am hoping they will add two features to a future release. Built in support for ssh and the detection of folder permissions and ownership, especially for Unix/Linux systems. I would like to be able to compare file permissions, etc. for differences.

Rob