Considering "the switch"
As part of my new job, I got myself a MacBook pro and have been running Bootcamp on it over the last few days. All in all the experience is good, but there are issues with Windows running on the MacBook that bother me (bad sound drivers, and the fact that the clock resets on each startup). However, before I installed BootCamp I spent quite a bit of time on the Mac and got over some of my "floating windows" phobias. To that end, I'm considering going all the way and switching to OSX. So to get to my point, is there anyone out there that's recently been through this that can give me some pointers on what I might miss?
My biggest concern is not finding a worthy replacement for Beyond Compare. I absolutely love the program, and haven't been able to find anything comparable on the Mac. I've seen other diff tools, but nothing with the feature set that Beyond Compare has (saved sessions, full folder tree synchronizations, folder tree comparison reports, exlucsions, rule sets, etc. etc.). Any suggestions in this area would be fantastic, because honestly, the lack of a good Mac file diff tool would keep me on the PC for good...
17 Comments
Daniel Short wrote on 06/06/06 5:08 PM
As a diff tool? Not really... the nice thing about Beyond Compare is that it can give you (in an extremely visual manner) every line by line difference. While subversion (which I use for Source code control) and do some diff pieces, it tain't purty (working on Texas accent again...).
Scott Fegette wrote on 06/06/06 6:31 PM
Have you checked out BBEdit? It has both graphical and CLI diff tools built in, and BBEdit rocks the house HARD on it's own merit. Now BC looks pretty deep for diffing, I'll admit- but I've been pretty happy with BBEdit's diff features- may want to give it a spin? http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/
ericd wrote on 06/06/06 8:40 PM
http://www.guiffy.com/shots.html looks interesting...
tunaranch wrote on 06/06/06 10:50 PM
Eclipse has some diffing ability, if you use it. There's also a mac version of Kdiff3 (which I'm downloading now) :D
Abe Pazos wrote on 06/07/06 2:58 AM
What about using Parallels? I'm also thinking of switching... next week :)
Scott Fegette wrote on 06/07/06 8:28 AM
Hey- just heard of one more recommendation for x-platform diff, Dan - Guiffy: http://www.guiffy.com/ Apparently it's getting raves, but I haven't had a chance to check it out yet.
John Wilker wrote on 06/07/06 8:58 AM
I'have had no luck finding a good compare tool. I've been looking for something since Pages doesn't offer that and I swap docs with another writer. Good luck on the search!
Danilo wrote on 06/07/06 9:22 AM
I saw a post on FullAsAGoog today that mentioned a Mac comparison tool: http://www.ericd.net/2006/06/os-x-diff-tool-guiffy.inc HTH
demimonde wrote on 06/07/06 9:59 AM
Saw this OS X diff tool on fullasagoog today: http://www.ericd.net/2006/06/os-x-diff-tool-guiffy.inc
Jon wrote on 06/07/06 12:00 PM
Actually, I'm in the same boat as you with - Macbook Pro, bootcamp, etc. Apple's XCode tool File Merge (http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/compare_utilities_05.html) works well with dreamweaver, but I wish it was incorporated into the system shell like Beyond Compare. It also doesn't have the ability to copy lines and blocks of code between files as easily as BC. There really is nothing like it for the mac. I did see this today, though so I'll have to check it out.
max wrote on 09/17/06 6:10 PM
dan do ou know about codeweavers and CrossOver Mac? i am trying to get beyond compare to work for dreamweaver at the moment. maybe this software would solve your problem, if you haven't a solution already.
Daniel Short wrote on 09/17/06 6:11 PM
Thanks, I do believe that just might work :). So far so good.
Jeff Borisch wrote on 09/21/06 9:00 PM
beyond compare can also diff images. It will highlight mismatched pixels. Obviously if you have an image that the byte counts don't match thy are different, but with the image compare you can see exactly where. It's handy for finding images that have been slightly retouched for example. I'm mainly a mac person but own BC on my windows computer. It's indispensable. guiffy looks like it comes close.
Daniel Short wrote on 09/21/06 9:00 PM
I had no idear :). Time for me to start playing with BC some more :). Thanks!
Linda wrote on 12/07/07 8:40 AM
Instead of Bootcamp, I went with Paralles Desktop. it runs windows alongside Mac OS X very well now, I have 10 iMac,iBooks,using it over a year now.
Daniel Short wrote on 12/07/07 8:40 AM
I'm using VMWare Fusion now. Faster than Parallels.
Chris Charlton wrote on 06/06/06 5:07 PM
Ever think about SVN (SubVersion)?