User-Submitted Questions

From ChangesWiki

[edit] User-Submitted Questions

• How does Changes compare to Araxis Merge or other diffing tools (why switch)?
  • Araxis Merge is a great tool. Changes differs in price (much more affordable), ease of integration with the other tools in your workflow, and is generally considered to be more "Mac-like" than the port of Araxis Merge.
• Xcode comes with FileMerge, which I've always found perfectly adequate - and very Mac-like indeed. Again, why switch?
  • FileMerge is a good basic diffing utility. The command-line access to it is not as flexible (no --wait state by default, you have to poke at the binary in the FileMerger.app bundle) and it doesn't do directory diffing nearly as well. I've also noticed that if you use scrolling in FileMerge it can cause the view to flip out and not display correctly until you restart the process. As with any tool you'll need to judge the value for yourself and determine if the cost is worth the benefit. I've used many diffing utilities over the years including FileMerge. I decided Changes.app was better for just doing what it needs to do and getting out of my way which is why I don't mind paying for it. -- Dan
  • Unlike FileMerge, Changes supports UTF-8. --Tuk
• Is there a education licence for students?
  • Educational licenses are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Please fill out a support request using your institutional email address (usually @institution.edu) in the contact information.
• Will there be a version for OS releases earlier thatn 10.5?
  • Unfortunately, due to dependencies on Core Animation and other Leopard technology (not just UI stuff, we're using some under-the-hood new tech, too), there are no plans for a 10.4 version of Changes. Sorry about that.
• Does Changes support 3-way merge (a.k.a. conflict resolution)?
• Does Changes look at and diff similar documents within the same folder? (ie: older/newer versions and/or dupes regardless of exact filename?)???