Understanding Text Comparison

Several forms of visual communication work together to clearly and effectively get across the results of a text comparison.

Colors

No matter where used—in the text editors, the folder trees, the birds-eye view, or the QuickDiffs—four colors consistently communicate one thing—the type of a difference. The default values of these colors are:

You can customize the default colors from Command link image General > Appearance > Colors and Fonts.

In two-way comparison, differences are defined always in relation to the first content area; in three-way—in relation to the common ancestor. For instance, an addition means that a block of text has been added to the second file, relative to the first.

Text editors

The files participating in text comparison are displayed using text editors. Inside these editors blocks of text identified as differences are colored accordingly and connecting lines are run between blocks that are related.

For convenience, and to save screen real estate, an out-of-the-box DeltaWalker uses a common scroll bar to keep the text editors synchronized and related blocks of text aligned, as the editors are scrolled up and down. The alignment is relative to the vertical center of the connecting lines panel.

DeltaWalker uses powerful text editors offering a wealth of features, including:

Birds-eye view

The birds-eye view, located on the right side of the comparison window, offers you a scaled down visual map of the type, frequency, and distribution of differences. To do that it uses small rectangles, a.k.a. as markers. Clicking on a birds-view marker scrolls the editors to the location of the actual difference and selects it. With large files, containing tens of hundreds of differences, a single marker often represents more than one differences. Clicking on such marker scrolls the editors to the first difference and selects it.

Status bar comparison summary panels

Status bar folder comparison summary panels

Three panels in the bottom right corner of the status bar represent the numbers of deleted, added, and different text blocks in the second file relative to the first. In three-way comparison, an additional fourth panel shows the number of conflicting differences.

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