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Need to compare files and folders? Need to generate a PDF using the existing folder? Need L10N tool? Need to compare FTP? DMN Newswire--2009-11-4--DiffVue Software has recently announced DiffVue 4.3.1, a diff tool, also known as a diff utility for Windows.
DiffVue family contains 4 main applications;
- "DiffVue" a main application to compare your local folders and files,
- "DiffFTP" another main application for FTP,
- "DiffEditor" a text editor and
- "FullVue" a viewer for non-text files - they are all Unicode applications.
Screenshots for each application are available in DiffVue Software's website diffvue.com/gallery.
DiffVue lets users compare the folder trees side-by-side with mismatches highlighted. If the files are text files, their contents are displayed side-by-side with the differences being highlighted by DiffEditor. Users can also use DiffEditor as a text editor since it has syntax highlighting capability for the known file-extensions. When two text files are open with DiffEditor, users can merge/edit/copy/paste between them so that maintaining them becomes extremely easy.
If the files are non-text files, such as word-processor/spread sheet/presentation documents or even graphics/CAD files, their contents are displayed side-by-side by FullVue.
DiffVue provides a PDF file rendition not only from any single file but also from the existing folder. In the latter case, if the folder contains sub-folders and files, they are all rendered to a single PDF file so that its bookmark pane looks like a folder tree. During PDF rendition, users don't need to do anything for the printer drive. DiffVue does all the chores behind the scene.
DiffVue has a powerful search tool, yet simple to use. It even accepts search criteria in regular expression. Note that searching only works for the text files. Therefore, for software developers or system administrators, this search tool is a MUST-tool.
A handy synchronization tool comes with DiffVue. DiffVue allows users to synchronize the files and folders between laptop and PC at home and office.
DiffVue also has a useful localization (L10N) tool and it is called "Advance Resource file options". One of them is detecting any malformatted or missing resource strings during L10N process, e.g. translation for foreign languages. This used to be L10N engineers' nightmare, but with this tool, it will free them from nightmare. The file extensions of the resource file-format recognized by default are:
.RC
.RC2
.RESX
.MC
.MTX
.INI
.IPS (InstallShield String Table)
The user's manual provides what else can be done with this L10N tool.
Regarding "DiffFTP":
When someone has his own website, he often updates it mostly using FTP software. Due to nature of FTP, the file sizes for the text files are normally different and the file timestamps are also different from his original files. Therefore, he won't know whether the files in his FT server are up-to-date unless he downloads them first and compare them to the original ones. Like "DiffVue", the same comparison operations in "DiffFTP" can be done. "DiffFTP" is a variation of "DiffVue"; it compares users' local files/folders against ones in their FTP server, and most other operations DiffVue offers are still available. It is multi-threaded Unicode FTP software like most commercial FTP programs, but it does one more significant job than others, i.e. comparing the file contents. Users don't have to guess whether the files transferring are the right ones, because DiffFTP lets them know the difference not by the file name/size/timestamp, but by the file contents. This means navigating the FTP server using DiffFTP is definitely slower than those commercial applications, but the transfer rate will be still same. For those who don't care differences but just want file-transfer, they should use the commercial ones.
Regarding shortcut-key, DiffVue family supports lots of shortcut keys to minimize the use of the mouse. Especially the most shortcut keys in DiffEditor are same as those in Microsoft Visual Studio. Those software engineers familiar with Visual Studio will love this feature.
Although it isn't mentioned in the above description or the user online manual of DiffVue, there is one more application working behind the scene; DiffVueUpdate.exe. It periodically checks DiffVue website to find out if the new updates are available. It knows whether there is a major upgrade or a minor update (so called "patches"), and reminds users of the availability. Like Microsoft Automatic Updates, DiffVue update schedule can be configured via "DiffVue Updates Configuration" menu. All hot-fixes are continuously maintained in patches. DiffVue Software always listens to the valuable customers, so that any feature enhancement requests are never ignored but put into the patches as soon as possible. Sometimes, the new patches are posted next day after the previous patches. The patches never require the system reboot.
DiffVue offers free-evaluation copy. Its evaluation period is 30 days. Once the evaluation period expires, it still works as before, except it displays the expiration reminder.
DiffVue Software donates the full free copy to the colleges. People in charge of department of Computer Science at college and interested in distributing DiffVue to the students majoring it can contact DiffVue Software via email.
