Configuration of Beyond Compare

[Peter Lin]

Hi Scott,

Sorry, this is not an issue report. It is an enhancement to better use IC with Beyond Compare. Could you share with us how to configure the Beyond Compare? I tried to configure the Beyond Compare with IDEA and IC, but I cannot set it work as what you showed in the Dreamforce 2016 as the link below.

Starting at 34:10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7T4y3_VJbA

Thanks, Peter

[Scott Wells]

No problem, Peter. First you need to establish Beyond Compare as the external diff tool for IntelliJ IDEA:

Then in Beyond Compare there are a few settings to tweak for the best experience:

• Under Sessions>Session Settings, I recommend that you check Compare contents for Rules-based comparison and Override quick test results. Make sure to select Also update session defaults in the combo-box at the bottom that reads Use for this view only by default.
• Under Tools>File Formats, I recommend that you associate *.cls and *.trigger with Java Source and *.page, *.component with either HTML or XML. If you're doing Lightning development you might associate the extensions of the main markup files with HTML or XML as well.
• For file diff views, I recommend that you typically use Diffs (vs. All or Same) with Context and Minor both selected. Context when used with Diffs shows only a few lines of context before and after each difference. Minor hides "unimportant differences" such as white space changes, end of line changes, changes only in comments, etc.
• For folder diff views, I recommend that you typically use Show Differences (vs. All or Same) with Structure and Minor both selected. You'll likely want to change the first option to others in the drop-down depending on what you're trying to do. Another useful option when looking at the results of a retrieve operation is Show Left Newer and Left Orphans. Minor hides "unimportant differences" such as white space changes, end of line changes, changes only in comments, etc.

I think that's it. Try that and let me know whether that gives you what you're wanting or not. I'll look into adding this to the FAQ as well.

[Peter Lin]

Thank you very much, Scott! It works great!

[Peter Lin]

Hi Scott, sorry for using your issue tracker as question and answer again! With your help, I have been enjoyed using Beyond Compare with IC and without IC for more than 2 years.

Do you use any "XML-aware" diff tool such as DiffDog at https://www.altova.com/diffdog ? When I compare Salesforce metadata XML files e.g. CustomObject files, Profile files using Beyond Compare, it seemed that it was "XML-not-aware". It seemed the GitHub pull request was also "XML-not-aware".

[Scott Wells]

No problem, Peter. I only use Beyond Compare for diffing all text-based files including XML metadata. I find it to provide a very nice view of XML diffs as long as the element structure is consistent, e.g., lexicographical ordering of elements by name. For example, here's the diff for a .object file after retrieval:

Are you not getting a similar experience in Beyond Compare? Or is there some other type of comparison that you're trying to do that's considerably more complex than this?