Compare files - jump to previous/next difference should jump to next difference section

If I’ve added a whole section of code, most compare utilities I’ve used will jump to the next group of differences, rather than stepping through each line in the section of added code…

At least it should be an option, if someone really finds the current behavior useful.

Totally agree with that. If I’m not mistaken, that WAS the default behaviour for older versions.

Please, at least give this as an option

Haven’t seen any response to this. Is it something that might happen in this beta?

Sorry for the delayed response! I’m currently looking into how this might be able to be done, yes. The problem is not specifically in the “jumping to next section” – that part is pretty easy; the problem is more in the related functions: copy to left, copy to right, use left in merge, and use right in merge. If we allow the “jump to next block” and “jump to previous block”, the expectation would be that we should allow “copy block to left”, “copy block to right”, “use left block in merge”, and “use right block in merge”. The merge functionality is much more complex.

While the old compare window did allow jumping forward and backward by blocks, it was severely limited in other functionality, and provided no method for merging. Neither the old compare window, nor this one, is designed to be a full compare and merge utility (there are a number of full free and commercial products out there to do this), but I’ll see what I can do to add whatever I can for this release.

-John

FWIW, I have used Toad’s Compare functionality for years, and it has sufficed for my needs in most cases. The fairly newly introduced merge functionality I have never really used (maybe someday I will have time to explore it more), so, for me, expectations for the merge part are very low :slight_smile: Thanks for looking into this.

John, you mentioned that the “jump to next section” change was fairly easy. Is that something we could get fairly soon? The current behavior is really cumbersome for compares with large (or even medium) differences.

Hey Dale,

Absolutely! Feel free to check Monday’s beta. That functionality should be in then. Let me know how that works for you! :slight_smile:

-John

Tryied the Beta yesterday and it works like a charm!

Many thanks!